Hollinger & Duncan rank Rockets organization 23/24 of 30

next time you're in the mountains shoveling snow you should listen to Duncan and Brady:

 

I can’t stand listening to Nate Duncan so thank you for transcribing this. Good info, enjoyed their takes.

 

same lol…his monotonous voice and sometimes pompous attitude, but mostly his voice

 

U see what Hollinger said about Tilman? Let the congregation say amen

that last paragraph too…so on point

 

Tilman slander. Some folks on here won't like that.

Even with all the evidence and people saying tilman is a cheapass. Folks still blame harden as the number 1 person that force poor Ole tilman hand to blow up a championship caliber team

 

Squandering assets to save money on a championship level team isn’t a good sign…. Who woulda guessed?

 

He must’ve done that on Harden’s orders since Harden allegedly ran everything. Poor ol’ Tilman had no choice, he just did what James wanted

 

It will be interesting to see what happens with Tillman - by all accounts he pinched pennies to barely be able to afford the Rockets - and that's no shade to him because it's increasingly rare for a single person to be able to afford a sports team but I suspect he couldn't afford to run the team deep into the luxury tax when he first purchased and that timing ended up having a big impact on the org - then he took an L when Morey spoke out against China(I'm not mad at Morey for that btw), found himself in ALL the wrong industries during the start of the pandemic(restaurants, casinos, sports teams), and then Harden forced his way out as a symptom to the luxury tax issues above.

....but my understanding is he just enriched himself quiet nicely by selling off shares in his online sports gambling business($1.56BILLION?!?!). Hopefully he starts to see a little more breathing room in his finances and won't be as overleveraged next time he has to pony up for the good of the team. I'm not sure if Tillman is really a cheap/meddling owner or just a guy who wasn't liquid enough when it mattered most but I hope it's the latter. He seems to be a real fan so I reserve hope that he will not be cheap next time it calls for him to start fielding a competitive team.

 

He's a wealthy Rockets fan and Leslie Alexander put the team up for sale on his own timeline - Tillman probably couldn't really afford it at the time but had one opportunity and was close enough to being able to afford it that he tried and the league probably sold to him when it shouldn't have...I suspect he didn't have the money to afford running a championship level team at the moment and unfortunately the decision to go deep into the luxury tax came right after he acquired the team(no doubt part of why Les sold the team when he did). Lord knows I have bought things I couldn't really afford at the time and ate ramen for a while until I could financially recover - I've just never had enough money for those "things" to be sports organizations but if I did I probably would have done the same thing and the city of Houston would be eating ramen right now with me.

 

Hmm 2 smart people downgrading us to oblivion because of who our owner is…

Im shocked

 

now do the mavs lol

 

I think it’s plenty fair to criticize what he clearly directed the organization to do once he was calling the shots. Especially when championship level teams don’t come around often.

Hopefully there will be a “next time”. I’m not 1000% convinced he will never spend if another opportunity comes around. But he clearly didn’t on his first opportunity. Whether he could or not is on him, not anyone else.

Also making the situation more frustrating for some was that a certain selection of the fan base refused to acknowledge what was happening(cost cutting) as it was happening. Lots of Daryl and Harden blame for things that appeared to be pretty clearly TFs doing. And that’s not to say that he deserves all the blame and others deserve none. But I think it all started with him.

 

not only would Tilman not spend, but he kept lying

from February of the 17-18 season

I have no problem paying luxury tax if I truly think that it truly gives me the chance to win the championship next year, okay? But believe it or not, we're not in the luxury tax today and we truly have a chance to win the championship this year.”

when talking about the 18-19 season

“Last year (getting under the luxury tax) was a fluke,” Fertitta said. “We were going to be in the (tax). It was an accident. I’m still trying to figure out how we got under. I was positive we were going to be in it by $11 million. But if I’m in the luxury tax, I expect us to win.

Who was he trying to fool?

 

He fooled plenty of people on this forum.

 

I mean its pretty clear he was pinching pennies the problem is the narrative over exaggerated the type of penny pinching he was doing.

Lots of people just focused on the tail end of penny pinching (omg we traded our frp just to get Ryan Scrubberson off the books) without focusing on the reason why we got there (why did Morey blow our cap over paying 18M for Ryan scrub).

Your quotes didnt really say Fertita was lying, IiRC he said he'd spend the tax if the Rox made the finals which they didnt. He said in both those quotes he'd pay the tax if he thiught they have a chance to win and they really didnt. Paul was a mess in 2019 and the year after they made the WB trade which made the team even worse. The window closed right before Alexander sold the team.

 

stop…he was talking about LT savings right after coming off that WCF appearance

This year, to be able to make sure that we hopefully get back to the Western Conference finals, we were going to have to be in it around many millions of dollars. And I am here to win championships, and I’m not going to let 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 million dollars make a difference. Because if you do win the championship, that’s easy money back.

Now, if we’re in the luxury tax every year and we’re barely getting into the playoffs and a first-round game is a struggle, then I’m going to go find me a new general manger.

no where did he say I’ll pay the tax only if they make the finals…the WCF against GS was basically the finals anyways because whoever came out of the East was fodder

So he knew in the summer coming off game 7 that we were no longer a contender? Rockets started 11-14, and then finished the season going 42-15 which is a 60 win pace. Even with CP3 playing washed, the Rockets were still right there against GS. Somehow, the Rockets just tripped and fell into LT savings that trade deadline, and Tilman had no idea how that happened. He clearly was not willing to pay the tax despite his claims. This is not debatable

 

Any time an owner puts his child in the front office, you know your org is pure garbage. Stone has been decent and if he starts to really impress around the league, he is so outta here.