I still Love Rubio and would be able to live through a rebuilding around the young exciting Point guard.
$$$ is a sure thing. Ring is not, no matter what strategy you have. Life is short. I'd go after $$$ way before trying the luck on the ring.
I am tired of arguing...not fun anymore...more interested in discussing interesting topics with people who can discuss them intelligently and with maturity. And Les was a bond trader, so his nature is to chase the buck, not that there is anything wrong with that, just pointing it out. DD
Milking money seems to be priority #1 imo. Winning then comes 2nd, DD got a point. They need to do something crazy like trade for Brand and their 1st round pick or something. Then they'd have two very good 1st round picks to work with. Keep in mind that this is a weak draft too.
Therein lies another crux of the conversation, is the public strategy a real one, or is it just one to give folks hope, knowing that the chance of success is really really low? Thanks, but I was actually talking about the last draft where Morey said they backed out of the Philly trade because the cost was too high. Was the cost players, or was it $$$$.... I agree about stockpiling picks, and that would be another strategy to employ, it is what Portland and OKC did, right? DD
You have to appropriately determine Risk and Reward. However, what is the risk and reward of either path working out? Sorry this is a very long post... Draft: You have to play pretty badly for an entire year, acquiring numerous losses as you continue to go along. During this time, you lose tickets and merchandise sales because your team is "rebuilding", "tanking", or whatever. You get to the Draft, and have to hope that your name is called so that you get either move into the Top 5 picks (if you did not lose enough which would likely happen with Adelman) or you have to hope that you are not pushed back if you do have one of the worst records. As you have no control on how other teams perform or how the balls will roll, this is a very risky venture. Then if you do have a top pick, you have to hope that there is a true superstar player available for you to draft and that said player will be available at your pick. This is very risky. I mean just look at the 2000 and 2001 Drafts. There have been many players drafted since then who we project to become "true superstars" but history tells us that most will not. Many will be sidekicks, but not the ringleaders. On top of the issue if that player is in the draft, is whether or not your staff correctly scouts the player. That in itself is fairly difficult. Morey has been above average about drafts, but half the league would have taken Oden over Durant, and what about all those teams that passed on Paul, Williams or Roy? Then lastly, you have to be able to develop that player into a championship level player. They need to have the work ethic to do so, and the health to show what they can do. All of that is again risky. Then of course if you fail, you have continue to repeat this process all the while having a subpar team more often than not. Now Trade: More often the team has to appeal to the superstar player, though in some cases they simply just need the trade assets wanted by the trading team. The first part is risky. There often times has to be some connection between the player and where they want to go. Other times, they want to join another big name player. If you do not have another big name player, you have to appeal to the superstar based on some other connection. This generation of superstars have seemed to be more interested in limiting the teams they are interested in going to. I may be wrong (mainly because I was too young to be aware of it), but I felt that superstars previously simply wanted to go to teams with championship aspirations. They didn't make strict of demands as opposed to I will only go to these 2/3 teams. This is a risky proposition for sure. There are very few superstars that have obvious connections to Texas, and convincing them to come here without them is even riskier. The other aspect of this though has already been done. Morey has built a team around players we all initially believed to be true superstars, and in doing so has collected some good assets. If you do not get that superstar, you still have good players that make your team exciting at times, and potentially make some runs into the playoffs. You will never be great, but you always have the potential to be good. Now also taken into consideration that, once you elect to try the draft option there is no refunds. Once you full out go into rebuild mode, it would take time to again collect good assets to trade. If it continues to fail for a 2-3 years. This is one reason bad teams often times stay consistently bad. If you try collecting assets for a trade, especially when you already have the assets, you can hold out for a hero for some time, but always have to option to trade those assets for younger players and picks to pursue the draft option.
why would paul follow? i haven't really understood this logic either. bosh followed wade and lebron. it wasn't the other way around. i have no clue where nola will finish but right now they are 6-0, defeated pretty strong competition, and are playing great defense. i can't see paul leaving for a lesser team if they are able to make decent run in the playoffs. just my opinion on him.
Great post RPR, But you can also acquire draft picks and you don't necessarily have to tank to get them. Some teams seem to be willing to trade higher picks because of what you so eloquently pointed out in the risks of the draft, but you have to take a large hit on your financials to do so. I would think that with Tmac and Yao's contracts covered by insurance these last few years, that the team would have built up a significant war chest and could absorb a big contract or two, to move up to the top of the draft and take that shot. Wouldn't you? Unless the real strategy is to make money..... DD
Great point, we have certainly shelled out money for 2nd round picks......which are more flexible than first round ones and more cap friendly. Maybe someone else can point out exactly how much we paid for picks, I seem to recall something like $2.4 for Taylor's pick alone.....yikes ! But even that is a small number when large chunks of your expenses are being covered by insurance payments. Maybe the 2nd round picks were paid for by that money....seems likely, right? But that still doesn't solve the "Getting great players" issue, and fits into whether the strategy is really about being great, or being great at making money. DD
i've really wanted to track all of morey's transactions since he officially took over as GM. is there any site that shows this information? there has to be something somewhere. edit....found it on nba.com http://espn.go.com/nba/team/transactions/_/name/hou/year/2007/houston-rockets
i dont think this is a realistic strategy....a lot of things happened thats making this less and less possible. I think Morey time things well when he piled up assets and fleixibility. He knew there would be some very good players trying to change zip code around this time...but it all broke down when other teams cleared cap space and Miami reeled in 2 more. Teams like NO were able to get more help and better coaching to keep their player content, and so on....unhappy superstars are now happy...sure this can all change, but i think the problem is they all are starting a new chapters this year or last season, which means they'll endure failure for about 3 yrs at least before tryingt to get out of town. We dont have 3 yrs to wait. We cant afford to get a really young guy either because we'll end up waiting those 3 yrs to watch him develop...we need a guy who's ready now and/or has been. Nash. Iggy. Roy. I think those are pretty much our only choices. Roy may end up sticking it out for another year or two, but he's got some older players on his roster playign significant roles, and that can cause that team to go south overnight. Iggy isnt getting anywhere with Philly...can't say they're really building anything there and he's someone worth pursuing. Nash is older, but may actually be the most realistic, less costly, and best option for a team full of semi-stars. A lot of people say we need a superstar to score during crunch time and carry us in the end, but that's highly overrated. What these superstars offer most of the time is a sure shot, that's going to be a good look most of the time. It's not like they make them 100% of the time. If you have a great offense ran by someone who's great at getting you good looks, and have good scorers/shooters, then you can get the same success rate on those crunch time shots. Problem with this is still defense...if Yao keeps progressing it'll help solve most of that issue
What superstar is out there that we can trade for that is also willing to come here? I can't think of any off the top of my head. I really don't like going the draft way because its such a huge risk. We could get lucky and land a superstar in the making but if we don't that could easily turn into 2-4 more years of possibly being in the lottery.
I don’t believe there is a strategy to acquire a superstar or any star for that matter. We have a good group of guys that really need time to play together. I’m sure the organization knows this. For example, the 04 Pistons played together with the same guys for a few years. That proved to be huge. They made steady progress by losing in the ECF in 03, to spanking a stacked Lakers team in the Finals the following year. I believe this current group is all-around better than the 04 Pistons, so we should see faster results, once they start clicking on all cylinders. It’s a matter of time and patience. IMO, the best strategy is to ride this crew until the wheels fall off. Just don’t see a major trade happening this season. I believe this is the crew we are going to war with.
Lets not forget that those very same Pistons were struggling untill they pulled off that Rasheed Wallace trade. This is all the team lacks imo is Iggy being that Rasheed comparison.
