The Westbrook apology thread for Clutch,Yolo, et al

I'm sorry, and my body is ready for the playoffs.

 

Shouldn't have let him go in the first place.

 

Sorry, Russ. I bashed your playing style for years. I was wrong.

 

Was not getting the development needed under McHale. Even worse when Sampson left.

 

My guys @YOLO and @Clutch made valid points. The rockets gambled their future when they already had an elite team. Wb is good, it’s about the pieces fitting in the post season.

the small ball thing was the right move, but we’ll have to hope and see if it works

 

Even if he was at his best at the age he was he was far from being James equal. A superstar like Harden has to have somebody at his level to check him. Like I said Cp3 would have had trouble with getting thru to James even if he never got hurt

 

How many young players we actually developed and had them play some good years for us?

The only players that come to mind are Lowry, Beverley, and Capela.

We traded away Marcus Morris for a 2nd round pick after one and a half seasons. Now people are saying that he would fit well with us. We cut Covington after he played only 7 games for us, Now we had to give up a good player and a 1st round pick to get him back.

 

Bad teams develop, Rockets were contending so needed vets.

And Rockets also developed Dragic, Parsons, Budinger and Kostas.

Forgot all the white guys?

 

It took 2 seasons after we let him to get his act together. Sometimes, players need some adversity to develop.

 

You can say that all you want but we have had a top 3 team for the 4 seasons. You can't lose the forest for the trees.

 

Westbrook trade value is higher than when we trade for him. We can get now more than what we paid.
It was a good trade.

 

Parsons yes. Budinger maybe to a lesser extent. He was never more than a fringe player.

Dragic and Kostas? No. We let Dragic go after only one full season, remember? Kostas was never developed.

 

Two season? He spent his rookie year in the G-league. And then we cut him before the second season. His 3pt% was decent from the beginning. He became a rotation player immediately after he left us. and you know what players we kept over him in that season? 33-year-old Francisco Garcia and 31-year-old Joey Dorsey.

 

We could have been much better last season if we had Covington instead of Shumpert, Clark, and MCW.

 

Where's the best inside media report on how this deal went down? I can't remember who had the best info on it. Mostly, I'm still curious about how big a factor Harden's personal feelings were. If Fertitta coughed up more assets than Morey wanted to, on the theory that a happier star and better team chemistry would outweigh the negative asset balance of the trade, that would make me feel better.

 

We played the hell out of both.

And no one valued Dragic like Morey did. He was developed with the Rockets, not paid by the Rockets.

There is a difference.

 

That was my point. There were only a handful of players in the past 10+ years we developed AND played some good seasons for us. What's the use of developing a guy and letting him walk after only one season?

My point was not that we did not TRY to develop young players. We just did not keep them. These guys were either
1. Let go before they were developed (e.g. Covington, Morris), or
2. Let go shortly after they were beginning to be developed (e.g. Dragic, Harrell), or
3. Never good enough to be developed into good players (e.g. Budinger, TJones, and a long list).

 

So we should just give up altogether on younger players???

That is silly. If we followed your logic, McLemore would never have been signed.

Fortunately Morey does not think like you and has shown the ability to identify talent that fits how Rockets play. He is famous for unearthing these gems.

So that gives me hope he still has his eye on other great fits, young or experienced.

 

Huh? No. That's not my point at all.

Go back and read my initial post. I said we should never have let Covington go after only seeing him play a season in the G-league. We kept old players like Garcia and Dorsey over him. And now we had to give up a bunch to get him back.

 

My bad!