lol give it up, dont ya know...leebigez is NEVER wrong....the facts are. Fact: CD made the move for Battier leebigez: he was falling on the sword for a bad move.(lets ignore the fact that CD clearly stated in the article that he jumped at the offer from Memphis AND the Rockets Org dont agree with him that it was a bad move in the first place) Fact: Cd became GM in 1996(substantiated by numerous sources that are NOT wiki) leebigez: Im right, they are wrong. lulz....
Your attitude is very Von like....in your ignorance. CD was a coach......a long time big man's coach..... DD
Don't be fooled by the official taking over in 1996. He started making moves in 1992, before his official title as GM in 1996. In 1992, CD pushed for RudyT as coach. CD and RudyT were making the decisions, the GM was just a figurehead to make the moves. Les Alexander made him the GM officially, instead of hiring another figurehead. http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/Dawson_set_to_end_a_27year_ru-221038-34.html
Unless you have ties to the organization, I am siding with the multiple websites that outline his moves since 1996, when he was officially named GM. As official GM of the Rockets, CD splurged too much on his own players. Cato, Norris, Shandon Anderson, Mo Taylor. Swift to an extent. Giving up three picks for Eddie Griffin, loved the trade at the time but it backfired on the organization. Unofficial or official, his era with the title of GM had ups and downs but his downs set the organization back 12 years (between playoff victories).
Hakeem has stated in the past that CD was the one who worked with him in the off-season to develop the jump hook.
In this article it talks about it "Olajuwon has always credited Dawson with helping him develop his jump hook. "From the beginning of my career to the end of my career, CD has always been my coach," Olajuwon said. "He always helped me on the technical aspects of my game. He contributed a lot to my career and I'm very happy to have worked with a coach like CD." And IIRC, CD was not the official GM but he was the guy that did the horsetrading and contract matching... DD
In his book, Clyde credits Bob Weinhauer for the trade to Houston. Here's the link. http://books.google.ca/books?id=bV4..._aj9BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5
Please list those moves you would give credit to CD between 1992 and 1996 (when he officially became the GM), other then CD pushing for Rudy to become head coach because of CD's eye injury. After Steve Patterson got fired, Rudy was pretty much given full control on personnel decisions. That's why Bob Weinhauer left, he knew Rudy had bigger control. CD chirped in Rudy's ear from time to time before 96, but Rudy got final say so. I'll give CD and Rudy joint credit on the Drexler deal, Bob Weinhauer just did the paperwork for them. The first highlighted Bob mentioned in that link, Drexler was referring to then Blazers GM Bob Whitsitt.
Following Steve Patterson's firing in August of 93, the Rockets did not have a GM until Carrol Dawson took that position in 96. Tod Leiweke was hired as "Team President" as a former marketing executive with the PGA tour, and then resigned after 5 months to become president of Warriors Arena Development Co. He was never a player personnel guy. They then brought in Bob Weinhauer as "Vice President of Basketball Operations" in early 94, where he held that job until he left to be an assistant coach for the Bucks in 96. During that period of time (which included the 2 championships) the player personnel decisions all ran ultimately through Rudy T, with Dawson's input. Here's an article from 96 saying that Weinhauer had to defer to Rudy T on player personnel decisions. Which is good, because Weinhauer's the guy who was GM of the Bucks when they traded Nowitzki and another 1st round pick (that Dallas immediately traded with a future 1st rounder for Steve Nash) for Tractor Traylor. The bottom line is that the 93-96 Rockets moves have to be looked at as Rudy's moves, with Dawson as a strong influence and Weinhauer as the negotiations guy to pick up the phone and call people. After that, Weinhauer was out of the loop and Dawson was the guy manning the phones and still providing an influence ... but Rudy always had the final call. In other words, 1996 didn't mark any change in who was calling the shots for the Rockets in terms of player personnel, something you'd realize if you were a fan of the team in those seasons. And when Rudy stepped down and JVG came in, you can see that the guys we brought in were JVG guys.
Looking at the book, it's clear RudyT and CD initiated the deal and were in negotiations to get him. He gives credit to Bob Whitsitt, the Portland GM, not Weinhauer, for doing the trade that CD and RudyT inquired about. Drexler never even mentions Weinhauer during negotations . All the guy did was make the announcement "Rockets trade for Drexler", because he was the figure head. From Clyde's book in the same link, quotes about the trade: Paul Allen: Clyde had asked for the trade and Bob Whitsitt asked me if it was oka to explor options. I just said try to find him a place where has a chance to compete for a championship. Do right by Clyde. When Bob told me we had a chance to trade Clyde to Houston, well, that was a godsend for Clyde What better outcome than to try to win a title with Olajuwon? A player of Clyde's caliber deserves to end his career with a chance to win a title. Chris Dudley: Clyde had wanted to extend his contract. He probably got himself in trouble somtimes because he did negotiations without an agent. Bob wanted to wait a little bit. It came to a head pretty quickly. Before we knew it, at midseason he was gone. Jim Paxson: When Bob came in, the feeling was that group had done everything it could togther, and he needed to start breaking it up and retooling. Clyde had done so much, carried that '92 team, and if the opponent in the Finals had been against anybody else but Chicago, Portland would have won that year. But very few players finish where they start. Bob was trying to get younger and more athletic and versatile players and felt that group had run it's course. Buck Williams: I never understood why we traded Clyde to Houston. That was a huge mistake. The demand for a contract extension or a trade before the 1994-95 season was a good excuse for Whitsitt to get rid of Clyde. I think the Trailblazers took his loyalty for granted. The franchise has never been the same since he left. Drexler: I have always appreciated the trade to Houston. Paul did that one for me. And I appreciated Bob, taking care of it like he did. When he told me he(Bob) was in negotiations with Houston, I strongly suggested that he(Bob) make it happen. The coach, Rudy Tomjanovich and his assistant coach, Carroll Dawson, both called me. And finally, Bob and Houston's vice president of basketball operations, Bob Weinhauer, announced the trade......(more stuff but cut for brevity) (It's clear that the Bob and Paul, refers to are Paul Allen and Bob Whitsitt from the Portland, not Bob Weinhauer and Paul unknown in Houston. He mentions the negotations with RudyT and CD. Weinhauer came later and announced the deal, after RudyT and CD finished) Rudy Tomjanovich: There was a very important we jad to consider when we were completating the trade -- whether we wanted to break up a team that won a championship the year before to bring in another player. When we looked at everything and thought about all the different factors, we thought there was only one guy in the whole league we could do that with -- Clyde Drexler. First of all, there was his relationship with Hakeem. Then there was Clyde's relationship with the city of Houston. And thirdly, there was his hunger to win a championship. He had come so close, been to the Finals twice with the Trail Blazers. We knew he would make sure nothing could stand in the way of the ring if he came to us. What was really interesting about that situation was there were people around the league who came out publicly and criticized that trade. I am talking about basketball people saying ho foolish we were trading a power forward for a shooting guard. Carroll Dawson: We had won the title the year before, but we had suffered a bunch of injuries, and it was evident to us midway through the season that we weren't going to be able to get back to where he wanted to. We were looking at things we could do. It was unusual to break up a championship team, but we did it. We felt if we had a chance to land a player like Clyde, we had to do it.
My guess is Bob Weinhauer was just a figurehead in Houston. I'm not sure who to give credit to for the Drexler trade, but Rudy initially wanted to finish the season with the same nucleus. It was another person or others on the staff that brought up Drexler's name near the trading deadline (CD? Who knows...). Portland wanted to dump Drexler for salary cap reasons and had to do it by the trading deadline in a couple of weeks. Rudy came onboard for a few reasons : 1) Clyde would fit in with Houston better than most stars available because he had ties with the city, had ties with the Hakeem and would get along with him, and was a classy guy. 2) Vernon Maxwell went batcrazy and flew into the stands after a fan. At this point, he had no idea how stable Maxwell was or if he could be relied upon. 3) He wanted to experiment with a Drexler/Maxwell backcourt that few teams in the league could match up with in terms of strength and athleticism. This is in Rudy's book.
RudyT didn't want to break up the team, that was a suggestion from somebody else. It could be Weinhauer, and not CD. I'll give you that. I'll eat crow and say CD didn't have anything to do with the moves before 1996 besides chirping.
1. The idea of the hometown hero has been lost in this era of Rockets basketball 3. Maxwell went on record and said he screwed up and that he could see how great that would be with Drexler as a teammate. Rudy's book is awesome! A must read for all fans.
OK, that's about all of this I can stand. "Not everything works?" OK smart guy: tell me exactly what CD did from 2000 on down that "worked". Exactly how did that trade of 3 no. 1 picks for Eddie Griffin "work" out? How many playoff games did the Moochie Norrises, Glen Rices & Mo Taylors help them win? How many players did CD get from those 5 trips to the NBA lotto? Oh and let us not forget his parting "gift" of the assertion that Tmac+Yao being the backbone of a "championship team". At the time that trade was made, it was the near unanimous belief around here that all that was needed was for CD to put the right "pieces" around those two and NBA Finals here we come. Yeah, please tell us how that "worked" out DD. Look, if you want to kiss the ground the guy walks on then that's fine by me. That's your perrogative. And I have nothing but the utmost respect for guys like the Dr. of Dunk because his post on the history of Rox is truth. But don't make blanket asertions that CD wasn't all that bad because a blind man with bifocals can see that is just not true. He was a terrible terrible GM who should have been dismissed over 8 years ago but thanks to the owner, was allowed to continue in office because it was the head coach who always took the fall for CD. As a result, this entire franchise has been on a prolonged drift ever since those two championships. It's been like watching the lost legion marching aimlessly through the desert. If what he did "helped" this organization more that anything, then PLEASE explain why under his stellar "leadership", they never advanced in the playoffs (that is when they made the playoffs...). You've been very critical of Morey and his moneyball approach but yet, you conveniently turn a blind eye to the fact that Morey has spent the past 2 years cleaning up the septic mess left behind by CD & Les. And if CD was so "good" for this organization, then explain why Morey just spend his first two years completely overhauling that "good" roster left behind by CD? Think how far long this team would be right now had those 5 trips to the lotto produced some good players who were on this team making contributions (actually make that 4 trips because CD frittered away our 5th lotto pick to Memphis). Think how good they would be if they hadn't been forced to work through all of those bad contracts handed out to aging, mediocre players. Think how good they'd have been if the GM in charge of running things had actually had a REAL blueprint for building a contender instead one whose sole approach was to run a seemingly endless parade of NBA "bodies" through this organization throughout the years. Yeah, CD was certainly "great" for this organization. I can see the evidence of his "greatness" everywhere...
Hillboy, I am not saying everything worked, or that he didn't make some bad decisions, primarily believing and holding onto older players a bit too long and continuing to try to build around them. Hakeem as example 1. But he did trade for Tmac, which worked out ok at the time. Drafted Yao...etc....so not all of them were clunkers. The guy poured his heart into this franchise, still does, and helped bring 2 championships to Houston. Give him credit. And I am not anti-Morey, I like the guy, think he is doing a good job, but the situations are completely different. My point about Morey was simply that over time anyone can cherry pick deals that did not pan out and make a poorly thought out case that they sucked. Neither CD nor Morey sucked, I am happy Morey is here, I am not completely sold on his approach, but so far, he has hit for a good average. Not sure what your rant was really aimed at. DD
Really? Then please explain to us exactly what Steve Patterson was doing during this time when he was the official GM.
I was speaking about after Steve, I have met both Steve and his father Ray, and think Steve got shafted in the credit department for building the championship rosters. Steve to me, did a GREAT job, and the last time I saw him, I told him this very thing. DD
