1. Not to get sidetracked but Texas losing to OU is unacceptable. And the fact Mack Brown says we lost because of the wind is unacceptable. It's interesting you say Texas fans hate Mack Brown because we're looking for someone to blame. When in fact, Texas fans hate Mack Brown because he never accepts responsibility for losing. It's the wind. We ran out of time. Don't make excuses. Bob Stoops is just a better coach and Oklahoma is just a better team. If you can't hack it, get out and we'll find someone who can. 2. I never said I loved the game more than you because I don't. I don't have that inherent passion. I never did and I never will. I love anything UT first and anything Houston second. I love building teams. Outside of championships, there is nothing more exciting than watching potential develop or watching management trying to make the team better. That's what I enjoy. No one always wins. However, it's imperative you always try to win. And yes, l always try to win. If you're a Houston sports fan, youre accustomed to ownership giving it to you in the pooper and you become jaded real fast. You don't remember Dr. John McMullen or Bud Adams. We do. Trying to keep this within the context of the thread, the entire James Posey thing was a screw up. We should have signed him but because of all our ill advised salary mishaps, some people are trying to send Posey to the leper colony. Give me a break. 3. I never said you were a Cubs fan. I said you grew up around Cubs fans so you were accustomed to watching losers and accepting them. As far as Rice. You know my fiancee went to Rice so of course Im somewhat happy they won.
but still, you must admit that someone somwhere on UTs team was to blame for losing to Rice, twice, in route to you being "somewhat happy they won." btw: what does your fiancee have to do with being happy that Rice won. I thought you "love anything UT first and anything Houston second." What? Rice isn't Houston? gotcha!!! that was too easy...next!
I loved everything about your post except that you mentioned Eduardo Najera... Damn, I'd almost forgotten about the Rockets drafting him and trading his rights for DAN FREAKING LANGHI!!!! Yet another questionable draft move by Carroll Dawson. Anyone else getting sick of those? Can you say "Bryce Drew, Jason Collier, Mirsad Turckan, Dan Langhi, and Bostjan Nachbar..." Ouch. (By the way, Boki is not going to make it in the NBA, either).
Rudy T is out. expect everything will change, JVG is the man now, They need a muscle man like AG, a banger and sweet shooter on the perimeter and can see the floor well, very smart player. His experience and accomplishments through his career says it all. He wasn't used much in Dallas were he can used his real talent. Watch out for him here, I like this guy.
If it wasn't for every single event up to this point, we would have never picked up Yao. With Najera, we would have probably been able to win an extra win or two during that season where Steve went down. If that would have happened, we would not have Yao. The next time I see Langhi or Collier, I think I'm going to thank them for sucking enough for the Rockets to pick up Yao.
It is that exact logic that has alot of NBA teams, the Rockets included, locked into a few bad contracts that restrict the team's personnel manuverability during key free agent periods. I don't care if this was more of a business move than a basketball move. Whille Posey was a good role player(average starter), he was not going to get this team to the playoffs. I'm glad we let him go and aquired 2 players that could help us sustain a playoff run. And if they don't work out, it's not like we are locked into a bad contract with either player. RIET & HeyPee, either get back to debating how Piet/Griffin is greater than or not greater than Posey or take your UT/Rice smack to the Hangout. forgot my
I love this deal with Griffin, the reason I wanted the Rockets to keep Posey is for his defense, an athletic player who can get out and defend and attack the basket, Griffin does that. All this garbage about Posey being a "legitimate starter, Mario Elie wasn't a "legitimate starter" his first few years with the Rockets, but he did a good job when he finally started. I mean people act like Posey was an All-Star, suddenly Posey signing with Memphis tilts the balance of power away from us and towards Memphis or something. <b>Yet another questionable draft move by Carroll Dawson. Anyone else getting sick of those? Can you say "Bryce Drew, Jason Collier, Mirsad Turckan, Dan Langhi, and Bostjan Nachbar..." Ouch. </b> Yeah, Collier got us Griffin. Everybody, even Barkley, thought that Drew was a good signing, but drafting is a crapshoot, you can't be right all of the time. Same with Langhi, who actually produced decently in Phoenix last year. Langhi was also a 2nd round pick, which rarely work out. Nachbar only played one year, the jury is still out on him.
And for the billionth time, the Rockets DID NOT draft Najera and then suddenly decided to trade him. They traded their draft pick and Dallas TOLD them to draft Najera. And from the sound of people complaining about Najera, you would think that the guy was putting up 20-10 or something.
thank you. as for xiki, i couldn't disagree more with his line of thinking. "keeping ahead of" whomever is never the way to construct a winning team. the only thing the rockets should be concerned about is what is best for their team. i don't care what anyone here says...i still think that pike + agruff + MLE $ > james posey. i'm not bashing posey, because i think he is a quality player. however, i've seen enough basketball to know that what gets you to the promised land are you star players. for us, that's yao ming and steve francis. everyone else are complementary parts to the core of ming/steve. i'd take a very good defender & a great shooter over a good defender when you already have a dominant backcourt & frontcourt player.
this is overstated. building a winning team is always a combination of looking at other teams and trends in the league to evaluate your own needs, especially if you want to start winning Best of 7 playoff series. Don't make this a semantic argument. Your weaknesses are as much defined by the state of opponents as they are defined in some vaccuum of prototypical needs. Coaches respond to trends and specific opponents. Coaches are responding to the trend of awesome PF/Cs in the West. Further, look what happened to all the contenders after the Lakers landed Payton/Malone...everyone went scrabbling to respond specifically to the Lakers. Dallas tried to ignore the need for low post defense and stick with the Big 3, and win by high octane offense. It's not working, and they may very well have to break up the Big 3 (or big 4 counting Van Exel).
If we could trade Mooch for Eddie Griffin (the comedian), we would have the strongest starting lineup of Griffins in the league.
Some of this stuff is laughable. James Posey isn't worth the MLE but Eric Piatkowski is a steal at $2.67 million? There is no more specialized position than the sweet stroking SG/SF who can do absolutely nothing else. Why pay Piatkowski $2.67 million. What's the difference between Piatkowski, Wesly Person, Voshon Leonard, an 80 year old Dell Curry, or even freakin Walt Williams. Are they good defenders? No Are they good passers? No. Are they good transition players? No. Are they good rebounders? No. Are they good at penetrating? No. That's why these players average about 18-20 minutes per game. But all of a sudden they're starters. Oh Ok. Hell, put Glen Rice out there, what's the difference. Oh, I forgot, the other all-time fans' favorite player - Jon Barry. Why not. Yao Cat Francis J. Barry E. Piatkowski.
without completely derailing this thread.... ok, so there was a little hyperbole. of course we don't exist in a vacuum and we do have to be aware of what our competition is doing. of course. however, i would not be one who makes moves "because xxx made some moves". my moves would not be dictated by some other team signing a fringe starting sf. if we're talking about major acquisitions, fine. but not satellites to the core of a team. when you mention how other teams went frantic after the payton/malone acquisition by the lakers, you're right. they did. but i wouldn't have. i believe in playing and building to my own strengths. your strengths will be addressed, of course, but far down the line from my own. take the utah jazz (of old) for example. they never could get over the hump versus the bulls (or rockets for that matter) for many years. many might say it's because they had no answer for hakeem or jordan. i tend to disagree. no one had an answer for hakeem or jordan. from my perspective, if the jazz looked at their team, there was an obvious flaw: no one on that team was truly capable of creating (and hitting) their own shot. that, to me, was not exposed by the other teams. it was kind of obvious the whole time. if the jazz would have had a, say, "controllable cuttino mobley", they would have won some rings....
I don't get it...someone want to clarify? Besides, Wally fits that description perfectly and he's making, what, $10 million a year? Better to pay Piatkowski who has a career 40% 3pt FG on a crappy team than Wally, even if he is younger. I don't know if that helps RIET or not because I couldn't understand that post...
I can't accept the argument that that we signed EP and AG solely because of the financial ramifications. Yea, the fact that we're close to the luxury tax has definitely dictated our lack of activity in the marquee free agent market. But, James Posey would not be worth 6 mil a year for 4 years even if we were $20 mil under the cap. These moves were made because we were trying to address the weaknesses (shooting, defense) of this team within a limited budget. Piatkowski and Griffin are clearly average talent, role players. But for the first timeaverage in years, we're actually giving these type of players talent, role player type contracts. We're all familiar with the previous mistakes with these type players (see Maloney, Moochie, MoT, Cato, old Rice, Shandon). If we can't get other teams to take our bad salaries, we need to make smarter moves like this for the long term success and flexibility of the team. If we keep making financially sound deals and let the bad contracts run themselves out, then maybe we can be a free agent player again in a few years. If we keep signing guys like Posey for big, long contracts, we'll just keeping digging further and further towards salary cap hell.
