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OPENING STATEMENT:

Our goal is to win a championship and be a championship caliber team. Our goal at this deadline was to make significant upgrades and that’s our goal constantly. These moves position us better in the future. The big move that helps us now and in the future did not materialize but we feel like this positions us better in the future to make that move.

Shane [Battier] is a winner big time, on and off the court. His leadership, everything he brought to the city of Houston and our team will be very hard to replace. The players we brought in the past few years here are obviously younger and we feel it’s their time to step up and make a big contribution.

Aaron [Brooks] was obviously a big time player for us over the past few years. He was my first draft pick and every year got better. Great person, and losing him was also very difficult as well.

Obviously we need a center on our team. We lost Yao Ming and we’ve got a chance for Yao Ming to come back in the future but Hasheem Thabeet is someone who has the potential to develop into a very significant interior defender, a very significant center over time. Right now he’s not there. Right now, if he was there, we would not have been able to get him. Unfortunately, you cannot acquire 7-3 centers after they become good easily, if at all. So you need to take a chance on a guy who you think has a chance to contribute over time. In addition to that, we picked up two first round picks we think will help us upgrade the team in the future as well.

Dragic has a pretty similar career arc to Aaron Brooks. He came in pretty unheralded, has contributed significantly to the Suns behind Steve Nash and has had great playoff games just like Aaron did. We like Goran here for the future and our point guard position, we felt like Kyle Lowry was our guy to start for the future and Aaron Brooks, as I’ve always said, we think he’s a starter-quality player as well, and very soon both Kyle and Aaron were going to make an amount of money that wouldn’t allow us to have both of them on the roster going forward. So we made a move for Dragic, who we like his potential very much and he’s already contributing and he’ll contribute right away for the Rockets.

http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/daryl_m ... 02_24.html

with jeffries gone
don't look at yao and miller
the guy with the most nba experience on our team is ... ... kevin martin

the rest of the transcript

ON THE FIRST ROUND PICKS THE ROCKETS ACQUIRED:

The Phoenix first round pick will come this year. It will either be Phoenix’s pick if it’s outside the lottery, or it will be Orlando’s pick that [ Phoenix] acquired in their recent trade. The Memphis pick is lottery protected, starting in 2013.

The main issue on our team is defense. If we had an average defense this year we’d be solidly in the playoffs. Shane was the guy who was the core of that defense and the best defensive player we had, so losing him will require others to step forward, no doubt.

The reality is right now this team, as constructed, isn’t a championship caliber team. I’m not telling any secrets, so we need to figure out how to upgrade the team. These moves will position us better to get there, than if we had kept Shane and Aaron for sure.

Shane is someone who we would have liked to keep, but had a good chance of losing in free agency; Aaron Brooks was the same. So to add a young, recent No. 2 pick, 7-3… guys like Hasheem who have struggled early, if they’ve struggled multiple times in multiple stops, I think the probability of them turning it around is low. Guys who have had difficulty in their first stop, there are many examples of ones who have turned it around. We feel like he’s a good bet and we were very concerned about losing Shane. Shane, as is his right, would have been someone who has every team interested in him, including us, this offseason. We did not want to take the risk of losing him and not maintaining our ability to upgrade the team going forward.

http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/daryl_m ... 02_24.html

EDIT: Please don't post more than 3-4 paragraphs of an article. Thanks! -Prime

Good conference.

I really do think that our situation is improving consistently, given the set of uncontrollable circumstances that we've been shunted into.

While I don't think we can be in contention for 2-3 years, it is nice to see that it looks like we're moving away from the Yao Ming Rockets era and into the Yao Ming Potential Contribution era, with the team built around someone else, and Yao coming in as a contributor as he's capable.

i wonder who we were targeting at #2 in 2009 draft
got to be one of those in the top 5 or else no need to move up to #2
not griffin, since everyone know he will go #1
not thabeet, since morey said it's not him
rubio? evans? sure hope it wasn't harden

MaxRider wrote:i wonder who we were targeting at #2 in 2009 draft
got to be one of those in the top 5 or else no need to move up to #2
not griffin, since everyone know he will go #1
not thabeet, since morey said it's not him
rubio? evans? sure hope it wasn't harden

Rubio. Morey has had a hard on for him for a good while now.

ON WHETHER OR NOT THE IN-SEASON ISSUE WITH AARON BROOKS LED TO THIS TRADE:

No, we want our players to want to start. The bottom line was we had to decide who was our starter going forward and we decided on Kyle Lowry. Didn’t mean anything against Aaron Brooks, we think he’s starter quality as well. But we feel like Aaron is a very good starter in this league and he’s about to get paid that way, and a guy who’s about to be a free agent isn’t someone who’s easy to trade for a significant amount, when every team knows they can just offer him money in free agency. Same goes for Shane, he was about to be a free agent and getting something significant is difficult there.

so if aaron hadn't been injured by ginobili, and continued to be the starter, playing comparable to last season, would we have kept him?
ginobili killed aaron's tenure in houston?

zapatasblood wrote:

MaxRider wrote:i wonder who we were targeting at #2 in 2009 draft
got to be one of those in the top 5 or else no need to move up to #2
not griffin, since everyone know he will go #1
not thabeet, since morey said it's not him
rubio? evans? sure hope it wasn't harden

Rubio. Morey has had a hard on for him for a good while now.

Yeah. I'd be very suprised if it wasn't Rubio.

What will the rotation be like?
Lowry/Goran
Martin/Lee
Chase/Twill
Scola/Patt/Hill
Hayes/Brad/Thabeet


And the minutes? Twill/Thabeet will probably not leave the bench?

The rotation seems about right, though I wouldn't be suprised if Adelman went with a starting lineup of Lee & Martin.
Terrence Williams is likely to see some minutes, but it's no given. Thabeet will likely only see garbage time minutes, if at all.

Edit: Just watched the Adelman practice interview from yesterday. Budinger is going to start.

x- wrote:The rotation seems about right, though I wouldn't be suprised if Adelman went with a starting lineup of Lee & Martin.
Terrence Williams is likely to see some minutes, but it's no given. Thabeet will likely only see garbage time minutes, if at all.

Edit: Just watched the Adelman practice interview from yesterday. Budinger is going to start.

Thats what I figured. Hopefully this will get bud to be more consistent, I think thats his biggest issue, well that and his defense of course