What will the Rockets do

[Nconroe]

All Star break, Rockets had one all-star, Yao Ming, who isn't playing, just gets lots of fan votes.

Team is 5 games below .500. play good occasionally, but not consistently.

Likely out of playoffs again, even if they get back to 500 by end of season.

Supposedly active in trade discussions, but hard to see them doing too much till offseason, so, hope any moves help in long run, as this year about gone.

Any trade predictions? I think Mooray does good overall, tough right now.

[Nconroe]

Anybody care to comment on the trades Rockets made yesterday.

Independent of trades, for playoffs, I was just looking at schedules for Suns, Jazz, and Grizzlies, who they would have to pass from current 11th position, and they seem to have a much harder schedule than Rockets this last month and a half or 23 games to go. Not that they will make playoffs or would go far, but they have a slight chance to make playoffs.

On the trade, I had a few thoughts, one could easily see it differently.
One thing, I think Adelman likes a rotation of 8 or 9 guys, but he had been rotating through 11 players, so perhaps, tightening the rotation will help team a little.

Second, getting two future no. 1 picks, 1 this year and one in 2013, helps for the future, either as picks or pieces to trade to get someone better.

Third, we wanted to get bigger, so we got bigger at C and PG positions, not sure if it helps much in short term though. maybe next year. And Rockets are fairly young now, so we hope they will improve with experience.

And salary cap wise, we might get to renegotiate Yao's contract down next year or somehow improve that if still here and still playing, anyways, Rockets are now under the salary cap and that helps in future trade flexibility, and no real bad contracts stuck with for now which is unusual in basketball world.

Then, NBA likely also facing a salary displute, lockout, and these teams do seem to have many in financial losses , so something needs to get done and likely it will, with difficulty next fall.

Last, there is a NBA draft coming and Rockets will have 3 first round picks, so maybe they can find a few good players this way, maybe trade up, trade down, get lucky we hope.

[painekiller]

Yao's contract is expiring and he is not due any more money from the Rockets after this year.

[Nconroe]

I didn't say that very clearly on Yao's contract. It will end this off-season.

But I think Rockets do a lot of business in China due to Yao, so, if he does rehab successfully and wants to try it again, I think they will given him some incentive laden contract to stay.

I think we will both miss Shane and Aaron who were team leaders, but perhaps do better in future with the younger guys.

[painekiller]

The trouble with the Rockets is they have been middle of the pack for to long. Yao made them good enough to be mentioned but they have not been good enough to become a top tier team.

Sometimes you need to go down far enough to get solid picks, having multiple picks this season is like have no picks in a deep year. This draft is projected to be shallow and no looming superstars, not a good recipe for rebuilding.

Also the NBA has become a five city league, LA, NY, Chicago, Miami and Boston, if you are not in one of those cities trying to draw free agents is tough at best.

The NBA has a lot of issues to fix.

[Nconroe]

Yes, the NBA owners have a lot of problems compared to NFL.

Seems about half of them really are loosing money.

They don't have revenue sharing like the NFL to help a little.

They have guaranteed contracts no matter what, of course self inflicted.

They don't have a hard salary cap so, those rich teams can stockpile all the good players.

So, if they allow above to continue they will loose even more TV market share in many cities if they have no chance to ever win.

The Rockets should however be structured now for three things, to think some hope is possible- just my opinion, might be wrong for sure.
1. They are still profitable it seems
2. They have many young players with upside, who might become stars as they mature, certainly a risk, but maybe, they were good in college.
3. Their contracts and salary will be fairly flexible this off-season to help with good trades and acquisitions should there be a chance at one of those stars, ie. assuming it is the biggest money, not the city drawing them.

I will say it is fun to watch the guys given the no playoff expectation, a nice up tempo game, for a few minutes every game.

After watching the 4th quarter of the game win tonight with New Orleans, in New Orleans, who have two all-stars, I think a lot of credit goes to Rick Adelman and his team of coaches, along with the players who played real hard, excellent defense, despite being down by 16 points in 3rd quarter.

[Nconroe]

Ok , Rockets season ended with a 43-39 record last night.

They played pretty good the last third of the season, like 17-10, which if sustained would have been 50 wins and in the playoffs.

Current record would be sixth if in the East division. They became a really good offensive team lately.

Maybe a true big man center and/or overall better defense and they are real close. They had some wins over all the good teams, and losses to lots of bad teams.

See what happens with players and coaches during the off-season.

I hope not too much changes, but we shall see, if they want a star power name, that could be tough to get or take some big changes.

I hope Rick Adelman stays, he has been really good, and one of top 10 coaches ever. Now he one of the winningest coach ever if NBA. And I suspect he will go to Hall of Fame at some time after he retires. Perhaps he will be coach of the year this year.

So, now two months of not involved playoffs, then a draft, and then likely a messy labor dispute over revenue sharing before the next season begins.