Uh, listen to Durvasa. The huge list of stars who have signed with another team by free agency in their primes since 1995: Shaq. Nash. That's it. Normally, you trade or draft for them like, say, McGrady and Yao. < Good>
Top teir players never sign as free agents because they want to sign a contract that takes advantage of using their bird rights to get a better deal. If i'm not mistaken didn't Barkley sign for the minimum one year to stay with the Rockets.
JVG was a terrible coach and Im pretty sure any intelligent Rockets fan is happy with his firing. JVG limited Yao, trying to force him to play like a Shaq rather than adapt to his strengths. Yao could do so much more for us. As far as this thread goes, its terrible as well. The Rockets by far have one of the brightest organizations. Many of the players you mentioned are trash... Bonzi, James, old Hakeem? Dont mix your feminine side with business. Francis was definitely not worth the trouble. Have you been paying attention, many players have listed Houston as a destination they think of. Lebron listed Houston last year on his list of 4 [New Jersey, New York, Houston, and somewhere else]. Stephen Jackson listed us this year. Players want to play here. Shaq loves Houston. Hell even Barkley said Houston was his favorite place to play, even though that was then. Ariza is not getting overpaid this year and Houston did a damn good job to be able to land solid players for cheap. Wow! Cant believe you even posted this thread. Even if we hang on to T-Mac, $7 million will be a lot to play with come next year. Hasn't anyone been paying attention, players are about to start getting paid less. $7 million will be about the worth of a Kevin Martin, or maybe even a Brandon Roy [if it gets that bad]. Iguodala will be getting way overpaid in the future. And only then can you say that Ariza is getting overpaid. But for now Ariza brings an element to this team that it clearly doesnt have right now, true athleticism. He demands his presence to be noticed on the court and that helps a lot.
Good examples of how the Rockets signed them, telling them they would be a part of the team. But they never really played, even though I thought they played well during their limited playing time. Bonzi had issues with Jeff, Steve had issues with Adelman.
If they cuold have played well enough to help the team they would have. Neither performed well, and neither did anything after they left the Rockets, so why are people saying they were treated badly? You earn playing time and neither were capable of doing that.
I completely agree with the OP. He is a brilliant man indeed. Rockets are probably one of the most unprofessional run ball clubs in the nba. I still love them because they are my team afterall but I am a honest fan at the same time.
great thread. Definitely agree on hakeem, tmac and JVG. Do not agree on bonzi, he was out shape as hell.
They did play well enough to help the team the few times they actually played? They had issues with the coaches. Bonzi was very important coming off the bench during Adelman's first year, and later with the Hornets. You don't remember Bonzi's 20 points in the fourth quarter aginst the Rockets after he got traded? He took more money to play in China, and he's dominating there now, after 12 seasons in the NBA, a very respectable NBA career if you ask me. Steve had issues with Adelman, but Adelman had to play him because he earned minutes. He did very well, sparking numerous wins coming off the bench, but then got injured. Personal issues between him and Adelman kept him from coming back.
Check again: Bonzi's no longer playing in China. His team cut him when he went on vacation and forgot to come back.
You make some good points, although you tend to go to extremes and many of your points are highly debatable. The Rockets have made some mistakes and not shown class at times. But ultimately, we have a good GM and a coach who gets a lot out of his players. Some of the players you mention have largely written their own tickets out of town. And I strongly disagree that free agents wouldn't want to come here. It's a lot more desirable than many NBA towns, and if the team can pony up the right amount of money, many players would love to play alongside Yao on a well-coached team with a pretty good NBA tradition and a chance to contend, in a big city with warm weather and no state income tax.
smart player will not gamble his career on Yao's knee. And what OP missed is Ron Artest, who clearly disappointed Yao's weak knee. In houston, there is no chance to get to the top.
Very good thread, DM, well, maybe he can steal once a while. But , NBA is big union where lots of things talk between players. That's why GMs are always right for someone who was player.
Ok, let's make sure I understand the premise here: Free Agents are going to refuse to come here because of the way that we treated McGrady? Really? NBA players are going to turn down money and a chance to contend because of that? It's that big of a deal to NBA players yet McGrady's top destination choice is the Knicks? The very same team that exiled a healthy Marbury and refused to trade him for almost an entire year? If that didn't stop McGrady from wanting to go to NY, do you really think it would stop anyone from comming here?
Superstar free agents cost money, duh. Especially when you already have 2 max stars on the team. Are you new to Houston? News flash for like 2 decades Les hasn't liked to spend money on the team if he thinks he can avoid it. Overall Houston has not spent proportionally to the value of the team. Houston is first tier in terms of franchise net worth (top 6) yet it's been 3rd or 2nd tier in terms of roster payroll. There is correlation between wins/rings and payroll. It's true that guys like Artest and Wafer would still be here if Les was willing to shell out even a couple million more dollars a year, but Les is simply not that kind of owner. Guys like Mark Cuban, Jim Dolan etc have other businesses and run their clubs like some kind of public trust for the city or a charity and will do ANYTHING to help their team win even a few more games. Houston does not have that kind of owner, deal with it. At least he's trying sabremetrics, wait and see if spending more on executives and less on players works in the NBA to win some games maybe it will. Also Houston is a big city but doesn't have a large national footprint, it's hard to attract free agents because NO ONE is out there wishing they could move to Houston (unless maybe they grew up here). Can't really blame les or Morey for that one Although I will agree that the way they handled Tmac was ****ing insane, dunno if they were trying to save a few million via insurance or it was personal for what Tmac did last season but that **** was crazy, and it certainly wasn't handled professionally and it didn't help the team's record this year nor its rep.
OK, he's not playing anymore. That has nothing to do with how good he was when he was in the league. I find it hard to believe that he averaged 23 points/game against the Spurs in the playoffs the year before he came here, and Gundy couldn't find time for him.
Forget what he did prior to being here. What did he do after he left here? What did Steve Francis do after his 2nd stint with the Rockets? Both were out of the league pretty quickly. Those guys could still play yet nobody would sign them? The fact that they were out of the league should tell you where they were at that point in time.
Sometimes guys get pushed out of the league even though they can still play. Look at Allen Iverson. He was essentially done and couldn't get a contract anywhere until someone on his hometown team got injured, then he went on to become an All Star. Same with Bonzi and Steve. They were still capable NBA players but the Rockets destroyed their value so much that they couldn't get contracts anymore. Oh, and I wish I could edit the OP to add V-Span to the list. This season isn't the first time the Rockets have destroyed a T-mac's career. They've destroyed America's T-mac and Europe's T-mac.
He got voted to the All-star team because of his name, not his play. Steve Francis got traded from the Knicks and the Blazers didn't even want him. The Rockets gave him a chance, but he couldn't stick in the rotation because (1) he wasn't very good, and (2) he couldn't stay healthy. Bonzi had ample opportunity under Adelman, less so under JVG. And it wasn't like the Rockets shipped him off to Siberia. He got 20 mpg for a good Hornets team.
