Zach Lowe: "Loser: Houston Rockets"

the rockets needed that first round pick and lin's expiring contract for a longshot in-season or trade deadline move for a star.

as they stand, not that they have assets anyway, they'd need to include ariza's contract just to make the salaries work. little chance of that happening, the fallout would be too much.

 

i knew it! other players don't take howard and harden and legitimate players to winning it. when i read the harden stood around part, i thought he was talking about him standing around all seasons on defense. because that would have spot on as well. are we in a position where we are over-valuing our two best players? did it hurt their image when they couldn't even get past the first round last year when we were expected to compete for the WCF?

 

Yeah, obviously our offseason is an F. But, other parts of the article bother me.

The catastrophic Lin trade -- someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the final execution of that trade on Sunday, after Bosh said no? In other words, we knew we struck out but went through with trading Lin anyway. Not really catastrophic when you do it on purpose.

The other bit is the agent conspiracy stuff. Maybe it's all true, and maybe Fegan did arrange this whole thing, but if he did he's done his other client, the one that makes over $20m/year, a disservice. I can comprehend how superstar players would allow agents to leverage them so that other people can make more money. What this conspiracy suggests is that Howard's agent used Howard's market power to drive away a player that helped convince him to come to the team in the first place and that would be a major piece to help Howard win a title. If this is true, Fagan has done a terrible job looking out for Howard's interests. I'm house-buying right now. That's like my realtor using my purchase of a large house contingent on the seller also selling a little bungalow down the street to a certain buyer -- and the buyer of that bungalow turned it into an infamous meth lab that tanked property values in the whole neighborhood. You think I'm doing business with that realtor again?

 

If Rockets were the offseason loser, you have to put the Lakers in that category too. Just saying.

Btw Warriors need to step their game up...wtf are they still holding on to Klay Thompson if they really could get Kevin Love. Is it because maybe Love doesn't want to sign long term with the Warriors? DM is still a better GM than Bob Myers.

 

Bosh in a an interview implied he wants to be first option. He also hinted that he won't mesh well with Howard and Harden

 

You could argue that it was Rockets that turned down the market offering and that accellerating the parsons contract gave the rockets more control to determine his future over unrestricted FA the next year.

People seem to forget how giddy we were when we poison pilled NY and laughed at NY fans for thinking Lin was a traitor rather than pointing fingers at Dolan for not matching because he'd be ineptly over the tax bracket. As for letting Parsons go, there were speculation articles posted on here about doing what Morey did. So if the risk had paid off everyone would be riding Moreys jock right now rather than dissecting and complaining about his high risk maneuvers. Just the nature of the game...

Plus it's not like Morey is some old school GM that works on handshakes and loyalty fueled agreements. Who knew what else he did to slight his assets and remind them it's pure business.

 

This article contradicts itself. Were the loser yet the signing of Ariza was smart. Unloading Lin and Asik is bad but good for cap. Bosh is smart and was intrigued but thought Howard & Harden could be bad teammates although a bunch of teams wanted both of them esp Howard. Bosh was smart to use us to get the max! I'll remember this article when we do get a big name 3rd guy and the only way we could have got him is by not matching Parsons, while Dallas has to overpay him. Wonder if he'll still think the Rox as the losers of this off-season?

 

Losing Parsons, Lin, and Asik isn't that big of a deal. Ariza should be able to replace Parsons. Hopefully he can continue to hit the open 3's and play great defense.

Lin and Asik were bench players and Rox had one of the worst benches in the league so it can't get much worse.

 

It's certainly a terrible deal because Morey himself said that Lin was worth keeping unless they got a superstar talent with the freed cap space. Not only did they not get that superstar, but they also had to give up 2 draft picks.

Without Lin, their PG situation is limited to Beverley and... Canaan? What happens when Harden goes down, as he is sure to do at some point in the season so long as McHale insists on playing him 40 min a night? Especially without Parsons, there is absolutely no other playmaker on the team. Remember those nights when Lin had to carry the offense? He didn't always succeed, but there were many times when he did. How are the Rockets going to replace that? With Ariza?

 

I beg to differ. Lin and Asik are pretty valuable off the bench. Asik is the foundation of the defense 2 yrs ago. He basically locked down interior defense preventing any pentration and easy lay ups. It's going to be hard to replace that type of guys. You're going to see the Rockets getting exploited by giving up TONS of easy layups...i have no doubt about that. When Howard needed to sit and rest...you will see. Lin is the catalyst that push and jolt the offense and get them moving. If he doesn't show his potential is because he was being used and play out of position. He was not giving the opportunity to lead. Every possession seems to go through Harden. He has a quick first step and hard to guard when he attack the basket but unfortuntely the Rockets don't use him properly at time. Losing these 2 guys will make the Rockets thinner than last year as far as people coming off the bench.

 

Interesting definition of "almost" that a lot of people seem to have. Miami and Bosh decide to wait for Lebron to make up his mind. It's pretty clear to everyone that Miami is where Bosh wants to be. Lebron agrees with Cleveland and then Bosh agrees with Miami about 30 minutes later. Had Lebron stayed in Miami, the same thing likely would have happened. Yet somehow this qualifies as "almost hitting a home run" here. "We almost hit a home run except for the fact that we weren't the place he wanted to go and we weren't offering the most money. If not for those small little details, we would have had the best lineup in the league. And we have FLEXIBILITY."

 

Except it wasn't clear that Miami would stupidly give him a huge deal. If Bosh wasn't offered the max by Miami, I doubt he was going to give them a discount, especially after opting out of $42 mm guaranteed.

It's debatable whether or not Morey should have anticipated that, I go back and forth on it myself. I don't think Morey would have given that deal to Bosh as Miami's GM; it's really a bad move for them in the long run.... and I think he transposed his own rationality onto Riley/Arison.

Mistake.

 

This is exactly right. I think we executed the trades fully believing that there was no way Miami was going to come forward with a 5 year max offer. It will be (along with Carmelo and Chandler Parsons) the most untradeable contract in the NBA in 2 years. Morey never thought Miami was going to go into full desperation mode, and assumed they would embrace their rebuild with grace (similar to what the Lakers did). Pat Riley is an old man however, and probably convinced Arison that "ain't nobody got time for a rebuild", and the rest is history.

 

Yeah... They traded a disgruntled back up point guard that was the goat of the Blazers series and his own coaches and teammates didn't have confidence in for a lottery protected #1 pick and a #2 they end up buying every year anyway.

 

He did not consider Morey. That guy is ultraserious yet professional

 

Bosh was coming to Houston until the Heat offered the fifth year at the max. There were many people that did not think they would do that if they lost LeBron James... So yeah they almost had Bosh.

 

And this, folks, is why we aren't the Spurs:

"...there is an undercurrent around the league that Harden and Howard don’t represent the most appealing duo of teammates for any star who has lived within ultraserious professionalism."

 

Sure, keep telling yourself that in order to ignore the fact that the Rockets basically paid the Lakers to take a key player/expiring contract.

 

The trade may have become official on Sunday, but the decision was made before Bosh said no. At that point some preliminary paperwork was submitted and it was too late to go back.

Probably had to wait a day or 2 for Lin to fly back from Asia to pass a physical and what not.

 

The expiring contract part is irrelevant because they didn't get a long term contract back. Lin's time in Houston ran its course. To call it catastrophic is stupid. Even if they had kept Lin, Canaan was going to take his minutes.