Worst things that could possibly happen to us this season...have happened

Actually, I think Minnesota is the absolutely the worst place you want to be in the NBA.

At least Rick Rubio thinks so.

Maybe the Sacramento... according to the Maloofs.

 

I don't think anyone, anywhere would call the Rockets "lucky." However, there are some positives. The team since the break has looked good, especially offensively. We have several young players who appear to be improving, some significantly. The thing that really gets me down is Yao did not keep his public promise to retire if he was reinjured, which means that he is coming back again and will predictably be injured for the ompteenth time giving fans another huge disappointment. This drama should have ended long ago.

 

I'm not worried about that. If Yao comes back it'll be on our terms and he won't be holding our cap hostage making max money. He still has a long way to go before we even consider that.

 

Yao back on the cheap still means he starts and throws off team chemistry. The worst part is Yao coming back from injury and playing slow ball, running down the clock, passing it out too late and screwing up the flow on defense by simply not getting back on time. We can get the Yao that came back along with Artest back in 2008 Fall, I'll be fine with that.

 

the team will be alright, GO ROCKETS!

 

You can all relax, it was just an acorn ...

 

This is probably close to worst case scenario in terms of trying to make the playoffs. With how many close games MEM/NOR have won. And seem like they keep on running into teams without their top players, while we run into teams with their top players just coming back from injury. There was no need for the basketball gods to mock us so before inserting **** in ***. But the gods are cruel.

As for the future of the franchise, much more important than a playoff run, there has been some good and some bad. The Brooks ankle injury and subsequent play killed his trade value and probably cost us a more significant upgrade at the deadline. Imagine if he was still putting up 20 and 5 and Phoneix got intrigued enough to include Gortat with Gragic. The value of our players as a whole probably took a hit at the deadline as well with the stigma of a losing team.(primarily because of Brooks, again, unfortunately) That was one of the main reasons why I wanted to make the playoffs even with 0 chance of winning the championship. So that they can retain their prior value. The good news is that even as our playoff hopes are nearly dashed, our strong play to close out the season should be enough to accomplish that goal anyways.

Taking a look at our players:

Lowry: Value at an all time high. From backup PG to "star" or centerpiece for a trade for "star"

Kevin Martin: Value at all time high. Most efficient and production season of his career. More importantly, it was on a winning team unlike his prior seasons(affects trade value). And most importantly, healthiest season of his career.

Budinger: Value at all time high. From spot minute backup to 15 PPG starter.

Scola: Value steady. Best season of career.

Hayes: Value at all time high. Probably bad news since he is an UFA.

Lee: Appreciating value. Highly sought after at deadline, before even getting more consistent minutes afterwards.

Patterson: Value appreciating fast, from mid first round pick, to solid backup, to prospective starter. Those 3 straight double doubles as a starter should have his trade value skyrocketing.

Hill: ....

Dragic, 2011 mid first round pick, 2011 low 20s pick are other assets we just acquired that will be at our disposal on draft night.

Overall it looks pretty good going forwards, with plenty of our assets either at or close to their all time highs, plenty of young prospects and picks with appreciating value either for the Rockets if we keep them or for potential trades.

 

You could add that we'll probably finish better than the 42-40 we did last season. But, I wasn't talking about the performance on the season, the P&L, I was talking about the balance sheet if you were to mark our assets to market. How would we compare if we traded all our players in for hypothetical NBA-Bucks today vs. a year ago?

Yeah, Lowry is more valuable but not because of his usage. He's more valuable because he's shooting better, hustling like crazy, and demonstrating great leadership. But, the drop from the AB of a year ago to Dragic now is bigger. And that story repeats with every bit of organic growth we've achieved except perhaps the addition of Patterson.

If you had a bunch of these hypothetical NBA-Bucks you could use to buy talent, how much would you have paid for the roster of a year ago and how much for this one? Remember a year ago, how many people thought we could still compete with that roster even if Yao was injured again? How many people think we've got a chance next season without some significant change this offseason? We may not have stepped back significantly in actual talent, but in our perception of that talent, we certainly have.

 

One other thing about that 2012 NY pick. If anything the value is probably actually up. They have played like crap since getting Carmelo, but they will probably eventually get it back together and play .500 ball or a little better. Which means they barely got better. However what they did do is put all their eggs in one basket- they sacrificed depth for their two stars. That is actually beneficial for us since if either(or even the other players) gets injured now, things could get ugly quick. I look at that pick as a lottery ticket(literally) anyways. With a team so top heavy, we could get a very nice pick with some luck.

 

OK, I understand. I don't think thing are bad right now. I think there was a huge decline between the start of the season and the trade deadline, but there's been a recovery since then on a few fronts.

To me, mostly the drops were focused on 3 players: AB, Budinger, and Hill.

AB of course, got a lot worse before we traded him. Hill and Budinger struggled early (Hill especially), but has improved especially after the All Star break. I don't feel worse about the future of either of them than I did a year ago.


The rest of the crew either stayed the same or got better-- Lowry probably improved the most, but Martin, Scola, and Chuck each got better even though they are vets. Battier stayed about the same. Lee is a more valuable piece than Ariza. Patterson has performed better than we'd expect from a typical 14th pick.

I think the issue is that, as far as the "market" goes, the kind of guys you trade a star for are typically younger talent-- because you are likely rebuilding after giving up your star (Denver Nuggets being an exception, it seems). It so happens that the guys who struggled before the deadline are the young guys Morey was trying to shop.

About Yao: We may feel bad that he got injured, but I am not sure he had much "market value" last offseason. Nobody was gonna take him for $18 million unless we are taking back more salaries. There wasn't really going to be a great Yao "market" anyway.

Anyhow, I am not going to sit around getting depressed about the team's future.

Not sure what you thought, but my feeling was that this was about a 40-45 win team without Yao, a 50+ win with a healthy Yao. I was hoping fro better but that's just the level the roster performed at last season (before and after the trade deadline).

This year, I actually feel better about the roster in the upcoming season due to their recent performance. After getting rid of AB and reducing Hill's minutes (and seeing Hill improve), the Rockets have performed qutie well-- as Morey cited #1 offense #11 D. They may not be quite that good, but they do look like a well-above-average team.

AS far as "perception of the talent": I am not worried about it. If the team wins more games, that perception will change for the better. If they don't, the perception will change for the worse.