Why did we do that trade in '00?

the uniforms, attendance, bobblehead quantities, Les' charity event cost, worrell, murphy, the mc, the scoreboard, jay rocket, the mascots, the cheerleader unis, the cheerleader's average height, langhi, collier, rice, taylor, boylen, stucchis, parking at the game, concession prices, that pep squad that yells when we are on offense, security guards, foxsw, nbc, stern, hakeem, trades, draft picks, isos, music at the game, giveaways, ticket prices, the arena, future picks, barkley, drexler....we could go on and on on this board!!!

 

I don't really care if a draft pick flops sometimes. I do care that it seemed that Rudy overvalued need in comparison to overall talent. While it's possible that Rudy believed Collier was one of the best 5 players available, I really, really doubt it. My problem is with the draft philosophy, not the talent assessment, really... the more I think about it.

Rudy wanted a tall guy who could shoot jump shots and ostensibly play C. Well, he got one. It didn't seem to bother him that he wasn't remotely the best player available. He just was the best player available that fit the description Rudy wanted. Now, I agree that drafting for need is ok up to a point... but the Collier selection, imo, violated the boundaries.

 

haven -- do you even know what the rationale behind the pick was? All you're doing is assuming. You don't know that he wanted a tall guy who could shoot jump shots. If he did, he wouldn't have worked out Dermarr Johnson or Stromile Swift, among others. The rationale was, there is no one on the board worth taking, so draft for chemistry. Do you think the Rocket philosophy going into the draft that year was somehow different from any other year? You're just upset that the pick didn't pan out. If the draft results on average for the Rockets are better than most any other team, why nitpick about one pick that didn't pan out? Especially when it was such a meaningless draft. I mean, we're quibbling over not taking some mystery player who *might* be contributing as a reserve on a 15-31 team. Meanwhile we're log-jammed at most every spot with guys who are only going to get better. What's the point?

 

Deshawn Stevenson (Jazz' Franchise Player)



The Jazz almost cut Stevenson this summer after the rape charge. He was the 23rd pick in a weak draft, and is nowhere even in the neighborhood of a good player, much less a franchise player.

Moochie is better than Claxton. And, at the time, we had Shandon playing very hard and coming off a great finish to the season. We now have Oscar. We never needed, and don't need, an SG. Peterson and Mason are SGs.

 

I'm not just angry that he didn't pan out. I disliked the pick at a time. If you're one of those super-skilled people with the search engine... you're welcome to find out (*note: I have no such amazing search engine skill).

I liked the pick of Mo Pete at the time, and still do. And I seriously do think he'd get significant minutes on this team... at the 3. No, he's not the world's most preferable SF. But he's a hell of a lot more suitable at the 3 than some of the guys we're putting there.

The Rockets do an excellent job of finding "diamonds in the rough ." Maybe they've become too focused on this. Once Rudy nabbed Mobley... after Cassell, Horry, etc... maybe he figured he could do no wrong. That could explain the very odd Collier pick and the subsequent selection of terrance Morris with what was essentially a 1st round pick for a 2nd round player.

I'm not sure. And yeah, you're right. I don't know what was going on in their minds. I just have trouble believing that anybody could [/b] possibly believe Jason Collier was in the Top 20 players in that draft. I don't like pundits very much... but when not a single one of them is rating a guy highly... and my own impressions of a guy are "decent shooter for a big man, can't remember much else..." and absolutely none of the resident basketball gurus on ccnet are impressed either... I'm pretty skeptical.

Do I want to fire the front office? hell no! They've brought us Cassell, Horry, Mobley, Francis, Griffin, etc. But I really do want to know where Morris and Collier came from. I mean, picking a dud is one thing... picking a dud who shouldn't be taken at that point is quite another.

 

The 2000 draft was considered a weak draft before and after.

An 2nd round pick from years before nearly won rookie of the year.

The Rockets made the right move in moving down, knowing that the prospects were all hit or miss, mostly miss.

All the 6'6'' swingmen listed wouldn't have thrived here. None are particularly good shooters (Q used to be a terrible shooter, he's really improved) and all are more SG than SF. Pretty useless for the Rockets. Claxton is more of an Poor man's Iverson type than a traditional PG.

Turkoglu would've been nice, but after Mirsad Turkcan, that probably shied the Rockets away.

BTW, Magloire types aren't that rare. See this year's version, aka Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje. We can pick one up along the way.

The Rockets hope(d) Collier could be a serviceable change of pace with Cato. He's been hurt, or maybe he hasn't been. There are far worse gambles than good shooting 7 footers.

 

there are idiots in this board

Rudy REALLY wanted Q. Richardson (6-6), but was afraid he would piss off Mobley(who was a free agent and was being heavily purseued by Toronto)by drafting him. Major mistake by Rudy, especially now that Q. has become the player he thought he'd be. He is shooting 40% from the 3 89% from the FT and is avg. 14 points in only 26 min.!!!!!!! Thats pretty good for a second year player.

D. Mason and Mo P. are also very nice players. I never put much thought in Maglorie. IMO, the 2nd round trade really hurt us. We have absolutley nothing in Langhi and it costed us double.

 

These "who we coulda/shoulda" drafted are the best threads!

 

First, we probably couldn't have obtained Collier in the second round. He was listed on most draft mocks to go in the last half of the first round. But that was before we were going to pick again, and Rudy wanted a Center who could spread the lanes as an outside shooter. Now if we could have figured out how to trade down for him into later in the first round, and get another second round pick out of the deal, that would have been better.

But it was clearly a situation, where Rudy and most scouts felt that after the first 7 or 8 players, there weren't starters, just role players, and this draft WAS deep in role players. We picked 2 role players, who haven't turned out, at least SO FAR.

Also, as someone mentioned before, we were going through negotiations with Mobely, and we didn't want to get a SG, which would have threatened Mobely. So, we clearly passed on guys like Turkoglu, Mason, Richardson, MoPete, Carawell, all guys I was hoping we'd grab.

Also, if we hadn't traded away our 2nd pick for Langhi, we could have had a second round pick this last year, where we COULD have picked up Loren Woods or Ken Johnson, who I thought the Rockets coveted.

Of course, Collier may still turn out to be a good role player backup. He's been injured. How can you ever know if a player is going to be injured. We run just as much risk picking anyone who could get injured...

This can be fun doing the woulda, coulda, shoulda game, but Rudy has done an amazing job of making smart moves. The smartest move he made WAS, to trade the pick for a first rounder this year, enabling us to get Eddie Griffin. That alone was VERY smart. Now what we did after that is another opinion. But once Miles, Swift, Johnson, and Miller were off the board, Houston wasn't interested in staying in this draft.

So, I LOVED the trade with Milwaukee. But I would have liked us to trade down into later in the first round, gained an extra 2nd round pick, then take Magliore, Collier, Harvey, N'Diaye or Stevenson with that first round pick. Then I would have liked for us to have picked Najera, Ernest Brown, or Chris Porter with those 2 2nd round picks, and then in last years draft, we'd have had the extra second round pick to take Loren Woods.

With 20/20 hindsight, I would have just taken Magliore, without trading down, taken Najera instead of Langhi, and then Loren Woods in the 2001 draft. But if we'd have had 20/20 hindsight, we'd have taken the trade of Sampson for Michael Jordan and Clyde Drexler, and with Jordan, Dream and Clyde, won all the championships in the nineties.

So, having said all that, I'm not sure we're in BAD shape, even if we could have had Magliore, Najera, and Woods, instead of Collier and Langhi. The real coup was getting Griffin, and that's what we'll always remember as the smart move, not whether we could have gotten a couple better role players.

 

Good post, Sherlock.

Although I still insist that Collier was a "last 5" of the 1st round or "first 5" of the 2nd round type pick. And as such, he has no business, whatsoever, being taken at #15.

But otherwise, I completely agree.

 

Well, <i>Haven</i>, I understand your point. But I think the Rockets viewed this draft as 7 guys who could start, and 50 who COULD turn into role players, so it sortof didn't matter who they picked, and since everyone else knew the same thing, noone wanted to let Houston trade down. The draft was very deep on role players, but not starters. So, after they didn't sneak one of the starter types they could use in rebuilding the franchise, they looked at who they felt would best fit the Rocket's need for role players, which was a backup center who shoots, and replacing "the Bull" with a taller, better shooting, younger version, but the same role.

Also, the Rockets haven't been great at finding role players through the draft ... they tend to do that in trade, or from the CBA, such as Moochie and Mario, or now overseas, with Torres. They have been excellent at finding diamonds in the rough, such as Mobely and Cassell, which were great players that others didn't realize had star potential. I don't think the Rockets thought there were any Mobelys and Cassels later in the first or second round. So, these were almost throw aways for the Rockets, and somehow they parlayed their first round pick into part of the package which brought us, possibly, the best player in this year's draft, in Griffin.

In the 99 draft, when we had three picks, even though we did draft Dickerson, Drew, and Turckan in the the first round, after Dickerson, there really weren't any more starters. If I recall correctly, we tried to parlay those picks into a lottery pick, but couldn't find any takers, since everyone knew the same thing. Well, perhaps Harrington and Mohammed will turn out eventually ... that would have been hard to figure out ... but Houston wisely traded Dickerson and role players to get Francis, arguably the best pick in that draft, and then traded the Turckan pick for Morris, who I believe will be a future starter at SF for Houston, and we still have future pick(s) to use in some other trade in the future from the Drew pick. These are pretty smooth moves.

And pulling off Oscar Torres for nothing, pretty much makes up for not getting role players from the 2000 draft. And don't be surprised, if somehow Houston doesn't trade Collier and Langhi at some point for something we consider valuable... tall is always good in the NBA...