I think mike james for alston might be it considering the rockets just got him back. The pippen trade was pretty bad, but they had no choice. The shanon anderson for glen rice deal was pretty terrible. The glen for ameechi deal was bad considering we gave up draft picks. The terrance morris for a future draft pick was bad. We have mode some poor trades over the last decade or so.
I think we signed Pippen was a free agent signing because I remember Charles had to be signed at the minimun which was about 1 million or so. Eddie Griffin for 3 first round picks was horrible.
I mean the pipen for the portland scrubs was pretty bad. The eddie griffin trade might be no.1. We could have had richard jefferson, tony parker, agent zero, zack randolph. We really screwed up that trade.
Being forced by Pippen to trade him to Portland for scrubs is the worst. The only asset we got out of that was CAto-and Walt Williams depending on your point of view. Carlos Rogers we only played marginally.... At the time I was proud to get Griffin because we needed a big man so bad.REcall Pig Miller, Bill Hurley, Stanley Roberts, or Thomas Hamilton (Rockets were desperate). Who knew Griffin would have more problems than that one incident in the locker room in Seton Hall...... The sign and trade of Shandon Anderson for Glen Rice and cash considerations was really bad- we should have let Shandon walk- which I argued for at the time. Glen Rice lacked any mobility.......
Eddie Griffin by a mile - 3 first round picks for this bum we could have had Jefferson, Randolph, Arenas or Tony Parker even Jamaal Tinsley would have been the better pick. I always thought we would use those picks in some kind of blockbuster trade for a solid player. That summer T-Mac was available and we could have used those picks in a sign and trade and bring him to Houston long ago when he was a beast in the NBA.
Without a doubt in my mind, dumping Glen Rice on the Jazz by gifting them with our pick and absorbing Amaechi was leagues worse than the Eddie Griffin trade. At least the Griffin trade was defensible from a basketball standpoint at the time; if, last year, the Hornets had traded 12, 15 and a future 1st for Brandon Roy, we'd be calling it canny GMing; if, say, Brandan Wright drops to number 6 this year and Philly moved to get him with the 12, 21 and 30, I'd say they probably made a decent move; not great, but defensible. But making a trade solely to avoid the luxury tax, and to give up a valuable 1st rounder to do so? (Along with two Chicago 2nds, I believe) That's a Donald Sterling move right there. I remember being ecstatic that the Rockets had managed to pull off essentially Steve Francis pt. 2 with Eddie; getting a "top tier prospect" as Chad Ford might put it. I remember being so pissed at dumping Rice; I've never questioned the direction of the organization and its motivation for putting out a winning product as much I did at that move. I'm willing to defend bad draft picks; they happen to every franchise; heck, Boston's selection of Len Bias killed that franchise (bad choice of words), but it's not like I think that's the worst move they've made, it was the right move at the time. Los Angeles taking Bynum and having faith in him looks like it might cost them Kobe (also, as an aside, how about the Lakers taking Lamar Odom rather than Dwyane Wade in the Shaq deal? That brings back shades of #2 and Drexler for Sampson in the woulda, coulda, shoulda category). Truly bad trades tend to fall into the category of trading away potential for old, washed up talent, wasting valuable financial flexibility on mediocre or overpaid players, ordering up the poopoo platter for a superstar, or financial trades that don't produce useable resources such as salary cap room. Phoenix trading away the #7 pick to Chicago which became Luol Deng is defensible in my mind, since they were able to clear enough cap room to sign the 2nd best point guard of all time (at least according to the media and whoever votes for the MVP). I don't even believe that Bowie over Jordan is the worst move in the history of the league; my vote goes to the Kareem and Wilt trades. No one knew Jordan was going to be that good, not even Rod Thorn. Kareem and Wilt? Everybody knew they were going to be Hall of Famers as soon as they entered college, and did nothing over their careers to disprove the notions.
The Barkley 2 1/2 -year rental trade in my book was the worst. He drove Drexler to retire, and was part of the reason why Pippen wanted out of Houston. We basically pulled a Miami Heat to get him... trading the future Butler, Odom (Cassel, Horry) for Shaq (Barkley) but instead we didn't even REACH the finals. Imagine if we had Cassel and Horry throughout these years? Both of them are still playing vital roles with their teams. Also, ever since Charles retired it seems as though he always hates on the Rockets on TNT.
i like to pretend, for the most part, that the last 10 years of Rocket basketball didn't really happen
don't be such a drama queen, rice was completely washed up by then. he was immediately cut by the jazz, signed by the clips and then cut again...but the clippers!!! that move also freed us up financially to sign jim jackson. forgot that part didn't ya? jim was a great pick-up.
The Barkley trade in hindsight was bad, BUT at the time, it really wasn't. We could NOT get by Seattle with our roster the way it was at that time. They completely owned us. Hell, we were lucky Denver beat them in the 1st round during our championship run. Who knows if we could have beaten them. Didn't they sweep the season series with us that year? We had to do something. We had to take a chance to maximize Hakeem and Clyde before they passed their primes. I don't know how you could argue against the EG trade being the worst by a large margin. I know hindsight is 20/20, but I never liked that trade because, even without his off the court problems, I never liked EG's game. I thought he was too skinny and too soft before he even put on a Rockets uni. You don't trade three 1st round picks for ANY unproven rookie. Especially a rookie with only 1 year of college. I guess James/Alston would be 2nd, but by a large margin.
Who would the equivalent be this year? Dealing 3 picks in the 'teens to move up and take... Yi? He's unproven and being thought of as anywhere from 4 to 10 in the draft.
In hindsight the worse trades by far were 1) Eddie Griffin 2) Charles Barkley unless you consider that all those bad trades put us in a position where we could draft Yao
i think the alston for james trade is overly critizeded...for that to be the first one you mention EG trade is at the top of the list in my book.
griffin was the worst. barkley ended poorly (horry and cassell could've been rockets for life) but talent-wise it was the right trade to make. rice and pick for amaechi sucked too.
