Are you kidding with this thread we traded Richard Jefferson for Eddie Griffin the others cannot even compare. Though Cassel and Horry for Barkley was bad too.
Agreed, but why do people assume Horry and Cassell would have ended their careers with Houston? How many players these days end their careers with the same team they started with? Hell, even Hakeem/Jordan/Iverson/Shaq didn't do it. There's no loyalty in professional sports unless your name is Craig Biggio. I don't remember, but weren't Horry and Cassell's contracts about to be up at the time of the trade? I could be totally wrong.
I think Horry was in his 3rd or 4th year and Cassell in his 2nd. The Rice + pick for Amechi was the worst from day 1!! I was thinking #2 was getting Rice from NY in the 1st place, but didn't we send them Mo Taylor in that one? The 3 for Eddie and Barkley trades at the time were good, but they turned out bad. The James/Alston was because management felt we had enough 2ndary shooters(Sura, Barry, Wesley and James) to trade 1 for a true point guard. They just kept the 3 that ended their shooting careers that year.
Barkley Barkley Barkley Top 3 worst trades of all time. Cost us at least 2 championships. This needs a poll. I think it will be overwhelmingly BARKLEY.
I predict that this going to be a long and depressing thread. I wish the last ten years didn't happen. Oh well, Yao and TMac are here, that is the upside.
By far the worst trade is the griffin one. The Barkley trade wasnt THAT bad especially when you consider that a) we couldnt beat Seattle and b) Hakeem and Clyde were beginning to drop off abit. Chuck was our best rebounder and offensive player during his first 2 years here. Lets not forget we began that 96/97 season on a tear winning like 25 out of the first 30 or something like that. Injuries during mid-season kept us from having a truly special 60+ win season. The problems with that trade is that we didnt do anything about our PG position and Chuck's defense sucked. We had Matt Maloney, Brent Price, and Sedale Threat that season. I think we couldve had either KJ or Tim Hardaway and we passed on both. The Glen Rice + Pick for Amechi trade was a head scratcher at the time, but I believe we got a trade exception that we used to pick up Jim Jackson, which was a pretty good move. THe Pippen trade makes me cringe tho. I dont see why he couldnt try at least start the season w/ us to see how things would go. He was only here for 1 year and we added Francis that offseason (in a move that I believe was catered to Pippen's "I want a more uptempto offense" suggestion). The F'd up part about it was that we really didnt get anything from portland. Brian Shaw, Ed Gray, Stacey Augmon, Carlos Rogers, Walt Williams, Kelvin Cato... wtf? How did we not get J.Oneal when they traded him a year later for Dale frickin Davis?!?!? *Side-Note* I loved when we acquired T-Mac, but I kinda felt like we gave up too much considering he only wanted to come play for us, Phoenix, or Dallas, and we were the only real option. If you think about what the lakers got for Shaq (Two very good, sub-allstar players and a washed up vet to match salaries), I think we should've sent away either Mobley or Cato with Francis, NOT both.
how do you figure? They just got swept by the sonics in the 2nd round after having another subpar season. That team had no more championship motivation left. They needed another superstar to bring that fire back in... just like clyde in 95. This team would have lost in 97 and 98 even if it kept its core players. They wouldnt have gotten by seattle in 97 to play the jazz in the conf finals. Did we forget that we won 57 games in 97? I hardly think the same core wouldve done that. I wouldve done this trade then and now also.
BS! Chuckster took us to the WCF. This teams DREAMS of a CHUCKSTER!! Barkley was the Rockets' second-leading scorer that first season behind Olajuwon, with a 19.2 ppg and a resurgent 13.5 rpg, the second best of his career. Injuries limited him to just 53 games, but the team had a 57-25 record and made it to the Western Conference Finals, where it fell to the Utah Jazz in six games.
amen. to set yourself up in such a great position with 3 1st round picks and get NOTHING from it...ouch.
Just MHO but...if the Rockets would have drafted anyone more productive than Eddie Griffin, they would not have Yao Ming. They set a Lottery record leaping from 5th to 1st. A win or two along the way and they may not have been able to jump from 6th or 7th to 1st.
Lets just put it this way. If we hadnt have traded cassel, he wouldve probably been the point guard and we wouldve never gotten francis which means we would've never gotten Tmac. If we wouldve kept richardson etc. we might have not gotten the first pick after francis' migraine season to land Yao. Everything happens for a reason and we got Tmac and Yao to show for it...
The Barkley trade brought in Willis and Price (pre-knee blow-out) as a direct result, so it was 'really' a 4 - 3. And was sensical. Then, for some reason Clyde left a year early and Pip left none too soon and the common denominator in both appears to be Chuckles. Somehow his appearance caused the disappearance of Rox success, certainly from the bearhug forward.
While the Spurs who just won their 4th championship in 9 years still play in their division. That is the downside...
Interesting outlook you have there but I find your argument on their not being able to get Yao to be somewhat pointless anyway because even with Yao in the fold, they are no closer to winning a championship today than they were in 2001 when CD pissed away their entire draft for Eddie Griffin who, BTW, is now out of the league.
