Arrgh look, if you are banking on Kevin Martin to lead this team into success, or think that Morey will be able to bring a superstar to the team with our current "assets", be prepared to be disappointed. Winning a championship is hard, almost impossible if you don't have a superstar or 2, sure people keep bringing up that Detroit team, difference is that team had 5 guys playing at all star level and ELITE defense. If "tanking" was replaced by playing the Lee, Hill, Pat of the team, would you be for it?
Except they don't achieve anything. The difference between me and you is I can stand to see my team lose and I will keep watching them even if they finish the season on 10 wins or something. So for me, if having a few bad seasons meant the team was in a better position for the future, hell yes.
Don't forget the sit Robinson to tank to Duncan Spurs that has lead to a handful of championships. If the league doesn't want teams to tank, then they shouldn't weight the lottery to benefit so much from tanking.
Is there a Dream or a Duncan or a LeBron to be drafted next year? Not just a very good player, but an easily identified great player? It would suck if we tanked and it ended up somebody like Joe Smith was the number one pick. We have champions on this team... Scola, Battier. They will not let us tank. Chuck will not let us tank. I want to make the playoffs and knock off a higher seed. I want Morey to make a signature move. I want to win and root for the Rockets, not against them. I remember when we tanked to get Sampson. It was miserable. Not again.
I wouldn't say that makes some one a bandwagon by wanting to build a legit contender through the draft, anyone with basketball knowledge knows it's for the betterment of the franchise's future knowing that there aren't any franchise players attracted to coming here in which your not going through Lakers or Heat without one or more which leaves the draft as your only option. There's nothing wrong with wanting to see your team achieve the ultimate goal even if it means sucking for a couple season's to have a chance at the next hall-fame type player and become contenders for the next decade. If anything a real fan should not settle for mediocrity in which we are destined with Morey and his Moneyball tactics. With yao being unreliable and his career up in the air and, it makes sense to try to rebuild now and search for that conerstone, the guys we have now are good but as is a is a non contending team for the next five years anyway might as well start developing guys with a higher ceiling so by then you won't have to try and reload again when martin and scola past their prime all while not sniffing a championship.
If anybody is counting on Scola or Brooks to turn into a franchise player and lead us to a ring, you can forget it. Scola is already 30 yrs old. The moneyball way of accumulating low draft pick bargains has failed every year to get us a franchise player. This team has already been in the lottery once and looks headed that way again this year. They might as well get a better pick.
Your point? Even if we are to make the playoffs, what good would that do us? Does anybody believe this squad can even make it to the second round in the playoffs? And if so, what about the Western Conference finals? The only way we'll manage to be a title contender as currently constructed is if somebody has found a way to reverse aging in humans so we can bring Hakeem Olajuwon back. But that somebody better be a Rockets fan, otherwise it's going to suck to face the Lakers with Kobe, Kareem Abdul Jabar, Magic Johnson and Jerry West.
a. We are too good to tank. Maybe if we had the Clippers record, or were the last team in the Western Conference, it would be too late to make the playoffs, then tank. b. I have a feeling that we will aquire a superstar player this season, before the trade deadline..maybe in the next several weeks. So it would be best to continue in our recent winning ways, then this superstar, Melo..whoever, can lead us deep into the playoffs, instead of waiting for another season or more [which would be a rebuilding/retooling season]. c. This franchise just isn't the tank kind. Morey has stated many times that he wants to win now..and win multiple championships..tanking could land us a potential superstar, but you never know if they could be a bust (Sam Bowie, Greg Oden) or never get a chance to contribute (Jay Williams - Bulls.) d. There is a reason we have stock-piled all of these cheap, hard working, good character guys, + young talent, heigh ceiling guys..they will only attract a trading partner/fill that trading partner's needs, and complete the blockbuster trade that is brewing.
a teams goal every year is to play to the best of their ability. so unless the rockets are just 100x worse then we all believe, there is no way we should ever speak of tanking.
Except Melo is the only player on the block even close to superstar status. And he doesn't want to come to Houston.
Melo is a star player, but he can't even lead the Nuggets to a ring. He's lead the nuggets to perennial first round excepts except for 1 season.
Exactly, we're not getting a franchise player through a trade. Not unless you count a pseudo franchise player that really isn't one. The Rockets are a plucky little team, awesome! They will probably win 49 games and sneak into the playoffs, awesome! They will almost upset their first round opponent, awesome! Isn't that just awesome! Uh, no, not really. I'd rather have a top five draft pick and see what Morey could do with it, a kid that has an unlimited ceiling, instead of another "NBA ready" player like Chase or Patterson. Now there's talk of the Rockets needing to take back a horrible contract in order to get an above average center, awesome! Oh, wait, no it's not. Giving up assets and taking back a bad contract just to get a minor upgrade, an upgrade that still won't make us legitimate contenders, but will hurt our draft position and drain out assets, awesome! And Morey, who brags he doesn't know what re-building is, doesn't appear to have any plan except wait, wait, wait, wait, and hope some franchise player falls in our laps. But, until that time, he'll do everything in his power to keep us out of the lottery even if we aren't remotely talented enough to challenge the NBA elite for a championship. In spite of the fact that the NBA is loaded with examples of teams who get bounced out of the first round, for several years in a row, because they were trapped in that cycle of too good for the lottery/not good enough to win a championship. Awesome!
