the need to trade him was necessary a long time ago. So they're way past that point which has been brought up on numerous occasions around here. His name as continuously come up in trades and clutch has already confirmed the rockets have turned down offers for him as they continue to hold him hostage
To be fair, he didn’t say he cared about winning “first and foremost.” He said “I want to win also.” It was a throwaway line that I think people are reading too much into.
I mean when he reiterates winning and he's sitting on a 20 win team. well it's not exactly much to read into. it's common sense "when i first got here, that was my goal" in response to staying in houston. "but im all about winning" right after
Gordon may have somewhat accepted his fate of never playing on a championship team. Well, lots of good to great players have the same fate too. He came kind of close during the couple of years when we were fighting the Warriors. His injuries also limited his chances of becoming the star player he could have been. I wouldn't be surprised if he settled for an extension and stayed here. For the Rockets, keeping him would drop our draft position for next year and limit the capspace when we are ready to launch. But he would help the team reach the playoffs sooner in the next 2 or 3 seasons. They certainly want to trade him. The question is, what is the lowest return they are willing to accept?
Players are humans and it’s not a shame at all to admit you don’t value championship over stability in family and living situation and just loving where you live. I’d choose friends, good school for kids, family and culture of a city over championship aspirations any day.
I feel this too. This feels like the mid-90s where Jordan's Bulls were a dynasty and most of the league was just fumbling around.
I say trade Gordon sooner rather than later No reason for E-Go to be here past February. He has a new agent & deserves a chance to win.
Not only that, but the bottom is racing past us! It's going to take under 20 wins to Wembymax yourself this year.
I agree with the analysis but the issue for us is our young players want to win. You can hear the hunger when they talk about the potential this upcoming season. I'm not sure it's a good idea to kill the spirit of young developing players for an off chance at winning the lottery. Which I will remind everyone, we lost two spots last year and one spot the year before based on record alone. So the race to the bottom is going to suck for a lot of teams because there are no guarantees to win the chance to draft Wemby and no guarantees he is the next coming. I know I will laugh my ass off if the Spurs become the worst team in NBA history only to lose out on the #1 pick. I want our young players to grow and learn how to win a few games. If we still suck organically and finish with 5th or 6th worst record worsening our chances, so be it.
I'm all for our young players being enthusiastic and I too hope they play well but that's about it. Other than that sacrifices must be made. It's long past time to bid adieu to E-Go and fully embrace the youth movement around here. We're still so incredibly young that winning won't come easy. When looking around the NBA landscape I can easily envision us being right back in the high lotto, and it's an important year to do exactly that. This draft is deeper than Wemby and Scoot. What's of key importance is that Houston hits once more as they have with Green and Jabari. That could be Wemby or it could be Amen Thompson or Cam Whitmore. Stone just needs to get it right. I'm not advocating to be the league's worst team. We just need to stay within striking distance and can leave the rest up to the basketball gods & a little lottery luck. The first 15-20 games should tell us a lot about our season anyways as our schedule is especially tough. There may not be many Ws to be had despite how hungry the guys are given their youth and inexperience. Boban will keep their spirits up so no need to worry about the vibes.
Kevin - jalen - tari - bari- alp Tyty- jgup - tate - kmj - fernando nix - matthews -Gordon- garuba - boban let’s roll with this squad . Keep Gordon and kmj. injuries happen so we have 3 solid players at every position. This team will fight for the play in. We don’t need wemby or Henderson. Get a steal at a top ten pick instead and try to win as much as we can
Agreed. The odds are no longer as stacked - I think people underestimate the “flatness” of the new model. Beyond the worst three being all identical, the difference between the worst team’s odds at top-2 and the 5th worst team’s is 27% vs 21%. It’s still meaningful, but either path requires a LOT of luck. Better to enjoy the ride in the first half at least and then decide whether someone needs a lingering injury to at least lock in a bottom 5.
After having the worst record in the league for 2 years and missing out on the top pick, I think it would be awesome if we improved this season to the point where we are in the conversation for the play-in yet end up winning the draft lottery. It happened before with Yao maybe it will happen again
Not trading EG last season was such a stupid decision. Thinking that his value was just magically going to increase. If I’m not mistaken, the picks that were available could have got someone like Kessler who we saw tonight as potentially a very serviceable big for the foreseeable future. I love EG and he’s been a terrific Rocket but the guy just adds nothing at the point that Garrison Matthews could give you.
EG is old and slow and we aren’t getting sh#t for him. That ship has sailed. apparently we didn’t need another asset for our rebuild.