Sleepy51 wrote:-= original quote snipped =-
Houston has made a huge mistake this year. They were positioned as the Spurs were the year Robinson went down. They should have faked a Tmac injury (totally plausible) and just played for Beasley. You get a chance to add a top 3 lotto pick to an already contending team with a a credible excuse to not alienate your fanbase, you do it.
I've never been a fan of tanking with a team that already knows and loves losing, but when a house falls on a good team, there's nothing wrong making a strategic decision to prepare for the next campaign.
Tanking would've been the huge mistake. Houston had 37 wins when Yao went down (about half of that great win streak was with Yao), so they had no chance to tank and get a top 3 pick. Even if they had lost every single game since that injury, they would've been the 11th worst team.
Instead, they shored up their PF situation with Scola and Landry, developed a good bench group for the future in Landry, Hayes, Head, along with some veterans like Jackson and Mutombo.
They'll probably play Utah in the first round, and as good as Utah is, that's really the best possible matchup for Houston out of the top 4 in the west, and it is conceivable that they can knock out Utah in the first round. Utah couldn't stop Tmac last year in the 1st round, and instead of Yao trying to stay with Boozer, they have Hayes, Landry, and Scola to throw at him. And even if they have no chance for the championship, if they get past the first round, its certainly a successful season of having gotten Tmac past that opening round, developing some youngsters, and of course, getting Yao back next year.
