The reason why Morey's moves seem to come out of nowhere

Do you think a team should have hayes as a backup when you are known to have a injury plagued giant?

 

Are you seriously think we are not much better than 5 years ago? Let's leave Yao aside because I know you don't think he is worth anything and there's no need to argue about it.

The main reason we are not winning more than we did 5 years ago is MCGRADY. This year's TMac is far and away from what he was 5 years ago. Now, honestly, if you were the GM 5 years ago, would you have predicted this and traded TMac away while his stock was so high? This is one of the things that is not in your control. Even if you are the best GM in the world, you cannot prevent this kind of things from happening to you.

Now look at all the championship teams in this decade. What do they have in common? (Detroit as the only exception)A top 5 superstar.

There are several ways to get a superstar like that:
1. Draft: you have to get a high pick and have the luck of having a guy like that available that year. Morey did get two potentially high picks from NY. We'll see how they turn out.

2. Trade for the guy when nobody suspects that he would become a great player, a la Kobe Bryant. I don't know if any of our young players would become superstar. If Jordan Hill or Aaron Brooks will. Again, we'll see.

3. Sign one through FA. This is extremely rare because of the money involved. No teams that are already good have the cap room to do that anyway.

4. Trade (or SnT) for a disgruntled one who wants to leave his team. We did some years ago for McGrady. We are talking about one right now. The reason why we could and can enter the talk is because (1) we have the assets to trade, and (2) we are reasonably attractive to the player. This requires building up assets. And you can't tell me we are not miles better than 2 years ago in this regard.

 

I said we are no closer to a ring or being elite than we were 5 yrs ago. For the record, i've said yao is a good player. Good player, not great. Good can be replaced, great can't, thats a huge difference. Tracy has as much to do with the state of the rockets as yao does. They tried to build a team on 2 beta's and it can't be done. Their salaries and talents says alph, but their health and mentality says beta.

Comparing jordan hill to kobe isn't even worth discussing because its so far off base. I like assets and potential as much as the net man, but at some point, they have to bear fruit. Mad Max used the comparison with the oakland a's. They have thses stats and they develop the talent and the talent leaves. They can never turn the talent into great talent in return. Maybe morey can, maybe he cant, but i watched some lest than highly regarded gm's turn less assets into to huge players also.

The celts got kg for jefferson basically. KG had the salary and the team was going nowhere. Jefferson just had his best season, telfair hadn't done squat,greene, still had the potential tag, and gomes was solid. Earlier, he turned the 5 and salary filler into allen who was in the same position. I can name example on top of examples of other gm's doing the same "hard work" and collecting assets as many would say, but at some point they have to make the big move. Martin is nice, so was landry. Tracy salary and landry's breakout netted us martin, hill(whom i like alot) and maybe mid to late picks which is cool. Again, is this team any closer to a title run now or 5 yrs ago? Line up the heavy hitters then and now and the rockets will probably be in exactly the same spot.

 

Best thread I've read this summer.

 

leebigez

(you said we don't have "a" great player) - Great players weren't born great, they were ok, then they were good, and then because they had talent, worked hard, and they "WON A RING", they became great, who cares if Hamilton or Bilups were great??? who cares if malone or stockton were great??? As long as you contribute for the sucsess of the team

And if you have any doubt go and ask Cleveland if having LBJ was a key peace to "the ring" as was, for example, Ariza to LA last year, Trevor was mentioned to be the next MJ..... by his dad

Right now CP3 is as great as AB, because NBA is not an invidual sport, 1 team winner 29 losers, but depending on expectations you can be happy with the team as the true Rox fans were this season

If you are a hater everything people do is bad, as someone said, I don' care about how was it, as long as we don't win, everyone is gay, stupid i am the man, let's trade our 10 ok guys for LBJ and wade

David Andersen
Hayes
LBJ
wade
Conroy

Dinasty, I am a badass

 

If you have lbj and wade, you probably can get away with that squad :grin:

 

Nope, there is only one ball.

DD

 

I have the same question. I guess Morey had a high expectation in David Andersen, but it didn't work out. Or, we can say that Morey's moneyball didn't work out. The rocket shouldn't go cheap anymore. They need a lottery pick to draft a backup C or spend MLE on a free agent C (if there is one) or make a trade.

 

We had Deke as a backup for the last few years, and he was damn good at that job, on top of being an incredibly important locker room presence for this team. Yes, he got injured too, but if your team loses it starting center and its backup, you're in trouble no matter what. How would Orlando look like if both Howard and Gortat got injured tomorrow?

If you're whining about Morey not getting one over the course of last season, he went after Gortat, but realized that there was no way he could get him, which was proven correct by Orlando matching the Maverick's offer. Honestly, who was that center Morey should have gone after? There wasn't one available at a reasonable price.

 

I guess you haven't read his Deandre Jordan speech yet...

 

Deke was signed by CD, and he was too old to play in his last year here. Morey failed to find a replacement. That's a FACT.

 

When the check engine light comes on, do you keep driving it till the engine fails or do you get it checked out. The yao ming backup was 2 yrs ago or possibly more. I like deke, but there shouldve been someone on the bench and deke should've been the 3rd emergency center.

 

Congratulations!!! Yes! The Truth at last!

 

Can we stop beating around the bush? This discussion in reality is not about backup centers. At all.

Deke was a good backup center. You acknowledge this. Heck, after Yao's injury in 2008, he did a decent job filling in as the starting center. Yet you argue that the Rockets needed a backup center even better then Deke, someone who could actually start. Given that Deke was someone who could start, albeit to a limited degree, your argument is for someone who could do a better job at starting. So when it comes down to it, what you're really arguing is "Morey should have gotten another center to fill in and replace Yao 2 years ago." This especially applies in your case, and frankly, leeb, it's hard to take you seriously when you argue against Yao to the point that you think he's a net negative to the Rockets, not to mention such an argument is silly.

 

It's really not. It's kind of an illusion. To win a title you need elite talent and health. You basically need a top five player in the league with a very strong supporting cast or two/three all-star players who complement each other really well. And you need all of them to be able to play big minutes and stay healthy.

We have one all-star in Yao who can't stay healthy. Our second best player is probably Kevin Martin who has yet to play a full season in the league. Then we have Aaron Brooks is a top 10 point guard but probably has no all-star appearances in his future. The rest of the team is full of role players and youngsters. There's no championship team here unless we acquire a Bosh level talent on the cheap or one of our future picks ends up being a big time player or we get extraordinarily lucky with health and both Jordan Hill and Chase Budinger develop into starter quality players and we're able to build a ten deep team full of talented players like the old Pistons. Personally I wouldn't bet on the Pistons route because history has shown how difficult that route is and it basically takes a fantastic mix and juggling of talent to make that happen.

Provided we don't acquire Bosh or a similar level talent this offseason, I could definitely see a scenario next year where the team plays well for two months, suffers an injury or two (deja vu), misses the playoffs again and the natives, and more importantly Les paying the luxury tax, start getting restless. Unfortunately I think that's a lot more likely than the team gelling and making it past the first round of the playoffs next year.

It's hard to win big in this league and not having a bonafide MVP caliber player you can count on every game makes it almost impossible no matter how smart your GM is and how many smart moves he makes.

 

Five years ago you had two healthy 25 year old legit all-stars that were just learning to play together. You can win titles with that as a foundation. In fact going into the next season we all had very high expectations of the team until all the injuries started. Anyway, who was the fourth best player on the Celtics when they won the title? James Posey?

What ridiculous depth? People are constantly b****ing about the back up center position when our starting center can't even get on the court. Ridiculous depth? Who's the backup four? Rookie Jordan Hill? Who's your backup two? Budinger? Another rookie? How many championship teams can you name without any all-stars that have rookies that constitute "ridiculous depth"? Budinger is a great value player for a second rounder and he'll continue to develop I'm sure but he isn't even a starting player on a lottery team. Budinger being a steal for a second round pick doesn't mean anything on the floor. On the floor he's just another player who has to produce like everyone else whether he's a millionaire free agent, a second round pick, or a D league player. Having mediocre players three deep at a position isn't quality depth much less ridiculous depth. When people start mistaking Chase Budinger and Jordan Hill for Mark Aguirre and Dennis Rodman then we'll be in great shape but until then... not so much.

 

You want six things to win an NBA championship. Perhaps all six are not always necessary, but they usually are.

1. top 10 player
2. all star sidekick
3. depth
4. health
5. luck
6. good coach

.