Monday, February 22, 2010

Two Games Later

My heart is heavy. Mediocrity prevails in Toyota Center and there is little hope on the horizon. I have made several posts this season about how much I enjoyed watching the team because of the heart with which they played. I complimented Morey and Adelman for the manner in which they handled the team and Alexander for his leadership. I was positively giddy with anticipation for next season with Yao returning and high hopes for signing a serious impact player to put the Rockets over the top.

Now next season looks like the last ten. The Rockets will put a winning team on the floor, but will not have the hungry world-beater that can forge a championship with his will. Morey, Alexander and Adelman have proven themselves to be impatient and short-sighted. This "new" team is no better than the one with Carl Landry, but now they are stuck with what they have.

I have been a loyal Rockets fan through thick and thin. That won't change. Still, I can help feeling sad for what could have been.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

The Trade

McGrady, Landry and Dorsey are gone. In return, the Rockets got Kevin Martin, Jordan Hill, Hilton Armstrong and Jared Jeffries. Reporting the facts is easy. Figuring out why this trade went down is not.

On the surface, it makes sense to get something for McGrady before he becomes a free agent at the end of the season and walks away. But McGrady was a key to this trade in salary cap considerations only. The real trade was Carl Landry for Kevin Martin. Everything else is just making the dollars work. Unfortunately, in making the dollars work, the Rockets have given up their ability to sign a significant free agent after this season. They have locked themselves into almost $19 million in new salaries that extend into next season or beyond. Barring off-season trades, that effectively eliminates them from the James/Wade/Bosh/Stoudemire sweepstakes. In fact, most of the biggest names in the league will either be untrestricted free agents or have early termination options this off-season.

What did the Rockets get in return for losing their flexibility? A one-dimensional guard, a third-tier backup center, an overpriced journeyman forward and a young big with potential. It's hard to find much to love in this trade. So why did it happen? Do the Rockets know something about the available big name free agents? Are they all likely to sign with teams other than the Rockets? Was Landry already at the top of his game with no upside? Does Hill have more potential that the Knicks envisioned? Did Dorsey have more holes in his game than Adelman admitted?

Given his history of smart personnel moves, I can only believe that Daryl Morey knows things that we do not. This is the first move he has made that does not sit well with me at all. Rockets fans were completely understanding of the fact that the team was without its two best players, but still winning with grit and determination. We were perfectly willing to be loyal to the team and wait for the off-season to sign an impact player that would take them to a championship. But now, that hope is lost. The four players the Rockets got will not take them anywhere.