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

tbh,it has 0 to do with replacing yao and everything to do with knowing your center is injury prone. A prime example os orlando while we're on the subject. Howard has been very durable and yet they've had battie and gortat to back him up. One old guy and 1 young guy. Not to mention they have fran vazquez overseas. What do you think they could get for gortat and his 5m salary? When howard has missed, gortat put up great numbers. He's a huge asset and a ideal backup,but he can start for alot of teams

 

What are we doing talking about five years ago?

The Rockets have become deeper (i.e. stronger) but the situation is the elite teams have gotten stronger too. That's why it seems we have not made progress though we have. We need to focus on today, not the past.

 

Of course Morey isn't an actual Wizard plotting NBA domination through a crystal ball.

It's called HYPERBOLE and sports fans love to do it...Yao Ming isn't actually a "Great Wall" etc.

Just about everyone works hard in sports, this is a not-so-insightful observation. Let us celebrate them however we want, even if it means raising them to God like status.

 

Name one rotation player on our team (outside of Jeffires) that isn't a quality player and wouldn't be a starter or rotation player on any other team in the league. There is no wasted space. They are all hard-working, efficient players.

The only position of weakness is the center position because of Yao. IF Yao is able to come back strong, we're contenders. He solves our only big problem.

If however he gets severely injured and his career looks to be done, then we let him expire or use his expring contract, along with Battier's, Jeffries, and then any combination of the Knick Picks, Hill, Budinger or any other one of our mountain of assets that other teams would love to have to bring in an elite player.

We have loads of players ready to be used to bring in a star, or to complement the one that is brought in. Before, we had two overpaid, often injured stars surrounded by a bunch of JL III's. Yeah, I woldn't trade what we ahve now for what we had 5 years ago in a million years.

 

What? The Rockets had ONE season with Yao and TMac healthy together at and they lost in seven games to the Mavs in what appears to have been a rigged series. Can you name any team with two young stars that had ONE healthy season to prove themselves? Kobe and Shaq? Jordan and Pippen?

The point is you can't name a team that wins titles without MVP and all-star caliber players. If your goal is to win a title then history shows you're far more likely to do that by drafting a top notch player or by trading for a top notch player. So yes, unless you have a top five player you have virtually no shot at a title. Competing doesn't win rings. Elite talent wins you rings.

I like Budinger but I think anyone who believes any rookie second rounder constitutes ridiculous depth is fooling himself.

 

If they had stayed healthy that could have been a championship team if we were able to put players around them. However them staying healthy was never going to happen. And you call our current situation an illusion...

You do realize that the reason a lot of us are excited about guys like Budinger and Hill is that they can be used to bring in elite talent right?

Let me ask you, if we package Jeffries, Andersen, Hayes, Hill, the Knick Picks, and maybe Bud to get Bosh and we become an elite team next year, would you still say that we were far away as of right now? That's the ENTIRE POINT of asset accumulation.

You find and groom young talent like Landry, and use him to bring in a high caliber player like Martin. If you don't see that then you're entirely missing the point.

Besides--Martin, Brooks, and even Scola if that last month and a half weren't a fluke are all borderline all stars. If Yao can come back to even clsoe to what he was then we're really, realy close right now without a trade. If not, well then we make a trade. Either way we're close.

Where he was drafted is irrelevant. If that draft was redone today he would be a mid first round pick. He has a ton of upside and is going to be a very good player in the league. How does he not contribute to our depth?

 

Jerdicho, u sure deal in alot of ifs. Whil you and others are iffing, the lakers are in ring collection mode. While youre banking on a guy who has missed 2 full season in the last 5, ok city has the mvp runner up and 15m in cap space. Its been said that if "if was a fifth, we'd all be drunk." You and some of the other would be the drunkest people on the planet.

Back to what i said earlier, the rox are no closer to a title now than they were 5 yrs ago. Mcgrady and Yao were far superior to anything on our roster now and its not even close. The west is probably stronger now than 5 yrs ago. So even if the rockets have better talent,so do everyone else.

 

We're also no farther away, even after losing two superstars. Not ideal, but it could be worse.

 

Which is the point. We're in the middle. We're below lakers,boston,orlando,phoenix,cleveland,dallas,and maybe even san antonio. Portland,ok city,utah,new orleans,and maybe even denver with the caveat that ok city and portland have youth on their side.

 

You were the one that knew five years ago that TMac and Yao would continue to miss extended time season after season? Wow... man, where were you? We could have used the heads up.

This is a total red herring from the standpoint that the assets accumulation is facilitating the sign and trade. Bosh is going to play for the team he wants to play for regardless of what "assets" they have to trade. He's an unrestricted free agent. He makes the decision. The Raptors have little option other than to take whatever they can get that doesn't hurt their roster. The only reason asset accumulation HELPS the Rockets is because they will still have talent left on the team after acquiring Bosh.

Where he was drafted is relevant to the props Morey gets for getting value on that second round pick.

Richard Dumas had a ton of upside and he would make Chase Budinger look like Boki Nachbar. So what?

 

I'm assuming that "without any all stars" means you aren't counting at least one "super star/all star" level talent, so OK, I can give you a team where a rookie constituted some rediculous depth, in my opinion, and won a championship. The Houston Rockets in 1994, with Sam Cassell. No thanks needed. I'm sure you forgot.

 

My thoughts exactly! I'm sorry I don't have more to say at the moment as I have to make this post a quick one(posting from my phone and battery dying) but that was well said bigez.

 

I wouldn't be suprised if Morey reads Clutchfans and actually makes most of his moves and gets his ideas from a hodgepodge of mix and match of what you guys suggest.This leads me to think that maybe Clutchfans oughta get part of Morey's salary.

 

Leeb I respect you a lot because you see things most poster here don't, however I find it strange how you keep on lamenting the state of our team. We're in a great position with or without Yao Ming.

To be perfectly clear, San Antonio, Dallas, New Orleans, Denver and I would argue even Portland are not better than us. San Antonio is old and broken while Denver and Dallas have reached their peaks barring major trades. New Orleans is cash strapped, and I'm pretty sure CP3 is just waiting for his contract to end so he can bolt. Portland? That team has way worse injuries then us, have been suffering in lottery land for the last 5 years, reached the playoffs then ended up in lottery again. How can you even say they're in a better position when the management is in disarray and Greg Oden can't get healthy?

You even forgot to list New Jersey, Miami and Chicago when they're the three teams with the brightest futures in the league. I'd say we're in the top 10 of most promising franchises, we have a solid core in place and a lottery pick to be drafted, as well as an excellent GM and an owner who isn't mortgaging the franchise's assets for $$$. Not all teams can say that.

 

Love the optimistic view but I can't agree that the Rox are better then all those teams RIGHT NOW without Yao. They have the potential to be with a couple of nice moves this offseason but until it happens SA, Dal, Denver and Portland are all slightly better clubs. If your talking about how their futures stack up we might be close to them but still, as of the moment I wright this, they are in better position then the Rox.

1) SA, while old they have a smart front office and great scouting. With a couple of moves they could also be right back in the mix.

2) Dallas will again be strong next season, Cuban will do whatever it takes and Dampier's expiring gold will be key.

3) Denver, they are at a cross roads and need to add another piece. You could say with Yao back we could be better right away but without we aren't.

4) Portland, they have a super strong core and young players surrounded by a good coach. While their front office is in turmoil, they still found a way to make the playoffs and be competitive. Out of all these teams, they will have the biggest jump next season when everyone is healthy. FYI, they aren't a lotto team this season.

With Yao, you could make a case for being in a better position to do something this offseason and be better next season but that hasn't happened yet. Without Yao, no way we can overtake those guy without adding some MAJOR pieces to the puzzle. Saying all that, I do think the Rox will add two major pieces this offseason to overtake SA and Denver while battling it out with Dallas, Portland, OKC and the Lakers for the 1-4 seeds in the West.

 

I would say we are even with the hornets,denver,and portland,but portland's best players are under 26 as is the hornets with paul who is a great player.If you think about portland missing having juwon howard starting because oden and pryz went down as did roy at the end of the season makes them maybe a stronger team than the rockets to me. I know sa is old and thats fair, but they're not a franchise type of player away from a title, merely just a good player away. Thats a huge difference.

 

And Jefferson was suppose to be that good player for the spurs, didn't work out as they had thought it would.