If you go back to the championship years, the years after are marred with some awful drafts, bloated contracts, and goofy trades. I know you know what I am talking about. Under Morey the purse strings have been watched more judiciously and some progress has been make. However, the handwriting was on the wall with the TMac/Yao experiment three years ago and Les was still making public statements about building around them. MoneyBall has saved the organization resources, but frankly the current collection of players lacks design. Where exactly are we headed? They still seem to be building around Yao, which of course is idiotic.
One other specific thing the team could have done. Draft a true big with upside, not continually draft average to below average sized players at the PF and bigger position. This year for instance, Larry Sanders and Hassan Whiteside....got to take some risks when you are drafting lower in the lottery on guys in a position of need. DD
Regular season accomplishments in the NBA do not impress me. I'm not trying to make a point...again...I have to go back 13 years to see the Rockets win one playoff series. If I go back to 1997 (the year I got married and started law school by the way...now, I'm still married to the same woman, have 2 kids and have been practicing law for 10 years), we went to the WCF. Since then, we've had very little playoff success. I'm not cutting anything short...THOSE ARE THE FACTS. We've had zilch for playoff success for a very long time now. I'm not remotely satisfied with regular season success in a league where more teams make the playoffs than not. That does nothing for me. If I truly were a Rockets fan??? Man....seriously???? insert expletive here. I've been a season ticket holder off and on for the past 16 years!!!!! Don't even try to pull that crap.
True Beaner, I respect your opinion and sympathize with your frustration. The Rockets had a goal (win a championship with a Yao/McGrady core) and they failed. Every Rockets fan is upset by that. I also acknowledge that there are many people on the BBS (and I can certainly be accused of being one of them) who are effusive in their praise of Daryl Morey, Les Alexander and the entire Rockets organization, sometimes to an irrational extent. That said, and trying to be as objective as possible, I can honestly say that I do not think this failure has much to do with the incompetence or imprudence of Les, Morey or anyone else currently employed by the Rockets. Yes, the Francis-Mobley Era was a dark time for the Houston Rockets, where too many bad decisions were made. But ever since the drafting of Yao Ming in 2002 and the subsequent decision to trade for Tracy McGrady in 2004, I think the Rockets have made calculated roster moves better than almost any team in the NBA. Sure, Yao's and Tracy's injuries caused the team to fail in its ultimate goal. But lamenting the moves made during that era (especially the Shane Battier trade) is more about hindsight being 20/20 than about the Rockets being incompetent or imprudent. Objectively speaking, Daryl Morey is one of the best GMs in the NBA. I think most NBA executives would agree with this statement. As DD mentioned, he has managed to make a series of improvements to the roster, all while being hamstrung by injured stars clogging up team salary. He has also managed (through last season, at least) to avoid having his boss have to pay any luxury tax, all while never hurting the team competitively. (Yes, most Rockets fans could give a crap about whether Les pays luxury tax; but since it never hurt the team, that's at least a somewhat commendable accomplishment.) As for your specific criticism (notably, not helping out Yao enough), I have to respectfully disagree with you. Yao never played more than 34 mpg in a season in his career, except for the 2007-08 season (37 mpg). He has had some decent help backing him up, too. Say what you will about his terrible contract, but Kelvin Cato was at least a decent backup center. During his tenure with the Rockets, there was not a better AVAILABLE backup center than Deke, who played well for this team. Yes, maybe they would have been better off taking DeAndre Jordan over Joey Dorsey in 2008; but we are talking about one "miss" on a second round pick (that, and Jordan really isn't that good and has never produced even an average PER). Morey went HARD after Marcin Gortat in 2009 to try to get a quality young backup for Yao when he returned, but that was not to be. He obtained Jordan Hill (a 6-10 lottery pick, though more of a PF) in the McGrady trade. Morey got Brad Miller this summer; and say what you will, but he was one of the only "not horrible" centers on the market. So there WAS work done, and attempts made, to help Yao. I think the assertion that this organization didn't do enough to help out Yao is a little unfair. Bottom line: You have every right to want to criticize the Rockets organization because it failed in its goal. But I personally think your criticism is unwarranted. You have an opinion. I have a different opinion. And everyone else here has their own different opinion, as well. That's what makes this BBS so interesting.
We are getting deeper at some positions, but the back ups are not quality enough to get the players we need in a trade. We have quality backups but they aren't good enough to get a starter from another team or not talented enough that we can trade our starter for another piece.
I second. Well put. While I would like to see the Rockets win, and I'm disappointed when they don't, I love this team and I thank DM and LA for it. It's not the championship days I pine for, it's the Stevie, Cat, Moochie days that still make me cringe. I'm glad we have new management and he does things differently. There are few coaches or GM's I'd rather have and though I don't believe DM is a god I do think he is a demigod with supernatural powers probably inherited from Zeus. I knew he was special the day he turned V Span into Scola. Powerful magic and more impressive it was done dealing with the Spurs who it rarely seem to make a mistake. The days of Matt Maloney style contracts are over. I pray never to return. Sure it would be nice to have another superstar in his prime, but until that day comes I have faith that he who is wise and capable and strong of will beyond mortal reason will continue to lead us along the path of light. All hail DM the Great.
Perhaps they should have not played an entire NBA season without a center on their roster. But that's the only thing they've done wrong, wasted the entire 09-10 season. I like the other moves they've made.
I think Morey is a great GM and Les is a great owner. I'm just extremely cynical about the concept of rebuilding on the fly. At a certain point, you just need to tear it down and tank for the lottery, and be prepared to repeat that process as long as it takes to get an elite level player. I think we are at that point, but I don't think Les and Morey agree, and that frustrates me.
I agree but let's examine the reasoning behind WHY this management has failed us... 1: We blew up a championship caliber team in the '90s to bring in Charles Barkley. I'm sorry but getting rid of Cassell, Horry, Maxwell? What the hell were they smoking when they did that? 2: The 95-2005 - NOTHING HAPPENED WORTH TALKING ABOUT. I'm sorry to all you Stevie fans and Moochie fans, those were crap players and crap teams. Nothing went well. FOR A DECADE. 3: Yao Ming - for all the wonderful moments with Yao Ming... let's face it... the organization got LUCKY to get the pick that landed him, and then they milked him for all he was worth until the weight couldn't hold him up anymore. How long have did we have one of the best centers in the league? And we STILL didn't get out of the first round until Artest came along. We even had T-mac too. But the organization didn't sign enough roll players who could ball, so there was no depth to back up the stars. Brilliant. Way to really go "all in" on that one Les. He'd rather make China profits than become a champion. 4: Cheap owner who would rather gamble - Les is schrewd... he pretends to want to win but the past 15 years have said differently. In the end, he's money ball. Morey follows orders to a T, keeping things cheap. Morey is smart and makes good moves, so I'll give him a pass on this because he is newer and follows orders and gambles on second round garbage that may or may not pan out because they get flustered and can't man up on court. Hi Chase, thinking of you right now. 5: Ron Artest and the lot - why we got rid of the corp of guys who couldn't ball for Trevor Ariza, I'll never know. It's like history repeated itself. We had a tough unit that took the Lakers to game 7 guys. GAME 7! I am pissed we broke that team up. I don't care if Artest is crazy... that was the best team we've had in 15 years and we have since gone down from there into mediocrity. No Landy, no Wafer, no Artest = no tough attitude. Now we have Martin, Lowry and Scola flopping the whole game. Great, real fun to watch. Where is it getting us? 6: Coffee is for closers - we don't finish games because the organization won't find us a closer. What did they think going into this season? Oh Yao Ming will close for us? Since when did someone who had surgery ever come back right away and be the closer we needed? And Aaron Brooks? The dude can be as cold as ice sometimes, but sometimes his shooting is sub zero, cold, nada, just not happening. He's flaky. So really, Martin? He disappears as well. We need a closer. Too bad Landry is gone, who actually shows up in the intense moments.
oh, did I mention that despite being a mediocre team for 15 years, we have one of the most profitable teams on the face of God's gray earth? You do the math on that one.
Let's put it another way. The Astros have been to the playoffs many times over the past decade, including 1 WS appearance. And every Astros fan believe they were successful. Now, if you put the Astros in the AL East over this time, and they keep getting 3rd/4th place over this span with the same teams, coaches, etc. Would you believe the Astros management were a huge failure? If you've been a 16 year season ticket holder, then you should know the imbalance between the East and the West during this time. Yet you don't care about that because you just want to complain about how the Rockets keep failing. Does this mean if the Rockets were a Eastern conference team and continously go into the conference finals, with the EXACT SAME TEAMS, that they would suddenly be a lot better?
wow cant believe such a terrible thread start could generate smart, well thought out responses. i mean it had clutch take time out of his busy schedule to bash the guy. must be classy christmas
While I'm not going to align myself 100% with the OP (who appears to have a Yao-centric focus), we are on opposite sides of this one. First, the Rockets under Daryl Morey were too slow to recognize that the NBA had become a league with the rules slanted to the offensive player. They accumulated a disproportionate number of under-tall and under-athletic players. The short-comings of these players was well hidden within the context of Jeff Van Gundy's genius-level defensive schemes. Secondly, the Rockets of today owe a huge debt to the stupidity of Cavs former GM Danny Ferry. It wasn't Daryl Morey that "stole" Scola. It was an absolute blunder by Ferry who declined. Ferry and Mike Brown came out of the Spurs organization. And they were offered Scola first. Ferry totally blew it. While the OP is taking a lot of heat in this thread, can you imagine how much more heat there would in CFans without the good fortune of Scola? Next, I take issue with Rockets management thinking they were a Shane Battier away from competing with the NBA's elite teams at that time. They were IMHO clearly more than a Shane Battier away from the Spurs. Among others. The trade for Battier became the infamous "Win Now". In retrospect, "Win Now" was a farce. They weren't as close as they thought. Now, that's just my humble opinion. But it happens to be shared by a number of reputuable Rocket-loving members of CFans. As gentleman with a common interest, we can agree to disagree. But they just weren't as close as they thought. And beyond "Win Now", I have always felt it was very foolish to gamble on the health of either McGrady or Yao Ming. McGrady's back is what to them to the Lottery. Most Americans have lots of back problems that never go away. But they gambled that on McGrady in spite of this. For brevity on the subject of health, I won't even get into what is well-documented about lower extremity issues of very tall basketball players. Lastly, and I again I fully expect us to disagree. The primary method for NBA teams to win the Championships is the draft. Bird, Magic, Jordan, Hakeem, Duncan, Kobe. If you make your primary focus the collection of low-risk/high reward players...the "accumulation of assets"...and you always have a team that hovers around the 7 or 8 seed, you will never be quite bad enough to get that draft pick. And you will have great difficulty trying to get into the "stars trading game" because you will always have a roster with a large number of low value contracts. And contracts that you value differently than the majority of 29 other teams. These are my strong beliefs...I don't expect you to agree...but these are all valid critiques. And they'll remain valid until the Morey Rockets get to the WC Finals.
I know RA thought Hayes was the best center we had (in addition to putting Scola there at times), but I wonder what another coach would have done? And even more so, how many coaches would still be playing Hayes at center, rather than Miller, Hill, etc.?
Rockets moves since Morey took charge (including 1st year when Dawson was officially GM): http://www.prosportstransactions.co...0-12-18&PlayerMovementChkBx=yes&submit=Search Don't have any comment at this time; just posting as a reference to others. Here's a list of the notable deals, in my view: 6-13-2006: picked up option on Chuck Hayes 6-28-2006: acquired rights to Eliyahu for cash 6-28-2006: traded rights to Gay, Swift for Battier 7-14-2006: acquired Kirk Snyder for pick swap, cash 7-19-2006: signed Spanoulis 7-26-2006: signed Novak (2nd round pick) 9-26-2006: signed Wells to 2-year deal 2-13-2007: traded Padget for J. Tsakalidis 5-22-2007: fired JVG, then hired Adelman as coach 6-11-2007: traded Howard for Mike James 6-28-2007: drafted Brooks 6-28-2007: traded for rights to Carl Landry 7-12-2007: traded rights to Spanoulis for Scola, Butler 8-03-2007: resigned Chuck Hayes 10-1-2007: resigned Mutombo 10-31-2007: picked up option on Luther Head 2-21-2008: traded Wells, James for Bobby Jackson 2-21-2008: traded Synder for Gerald Green 6-26-2008: traded rights to Batum for Donte Green, Dorsey 7-10-2008: signed Brent Barry 8-14-2008: traded Jackson, Green, 2009 1st-round pick for Artest 9-25-2008: resign Landry to 3-year deal 9-29-2008: signed Von Wafer 12-30-2008: re-signed Mutombo 2-19-2008: traded Alston for Kyle Lowry, Brian Cook 3-23-2009: signed James White (remainder of season) 6-25-2009: acquired rights to Budinger for cash, future pick 6-25-2009: acquired rights to Taylor for cash 6-25-2009: acquired rights to Llull for cash 7-08-2009: relinquished rights to Artest, signed Ariza 7-14-2009: aquired rights to Andersen for cash, protected future pick 8-12-2009: signed Andersen to 3-year deal 2-18-2010: traded McGrady, Landry, Dorsey for Kevin Martin, Jordan Hill, Jeffries, Armstrong, 2011 pick-swap, 2012 1st round pick 6-24-2010: drafted Patterson with 14th pick 7-14-2010: resigned Lowry to 3-year deal 7-17-2010: signed Brad Miller to 3-year deal (2 years guaranteed) 7-26-2010: resigned Scola to 5-year deal 8-11-2010: traded Ariza for Courtney Lee 8-23-2010: signed Ish Smith to non-guaranteed contract 12-15-2010: acquired Terrence Williams for 2012 lottery-protected 1st rounder
DD if you think Patterson is undersized then you need to check the numbers again. He is like 1/2 inch shorter than Amare with a wingspan that is like 1/2 inch shorter. He isn't Chris Bosh, but the guy has legit size for a 4. Time will tell who is the better between him and Sanders, but I just wish we had a place for him to play to find out how good he is.
