Do Rockets Fans Still Feel That Morey Pwned Walsh?

[bruddahmanmatt]

Quick question for you Rockets fans. Over on another board a member and I are debating who got the better end of the T-Mac deal last year and whether or not the phrase "Morey Pwned Walsh" still rings true after Hill's lackluster (according to some) numbers last year. This guy claims that Walsh and the Knicks "won out" by being able to sign Amar'e and Felton and that the Rockets "didn't get much" in the deal. He claims that the Rockets owned the Kings, not the Knicks since Martin was (according to him) the only real piece that Houston ended up with after the trade. My position is that Houston wouldn't have been able to take on Martin without the Knicks taking on McGrady, and that three-team trades are called "three-team trades" for a reason. I also believe that Houston in taking on Hill knew what they were doing and took on a serviceable big with a rookie contract who can always be waived after 2011 should things not work out, and that the move was one of low risk and potentially high reward should the guy pan out. I also believe that Martin was a great move once it was evident that Ariza wasn't gonna work as a #1 option. This guy maintains that the Houston FO didn't know what it was doing by signing Ariza, but my counter argument to that is the fact that you guys only had 45 days to make a move with Yao's DPE, you needed to plug a gap in your lineup with T-Mac still coming off of an injury and if T-Mac was able to return healthy, Trevor would have been a good piece to have beside McGrady.

All of that being said, I'm just wondering (since you guys as Rockets fans are the "experts"), does the phrase "Morey pwned Walsh" still ring true? I happen to think it does since you folks got a lot pieces for McGrady's expiring while the Knicks IMO put all of their eggs into T-Mac's expiring Easter basket and ended up with Amar'e's surgically repaired knees and his detached retina. To me, New York wasn't betting on Amar'e, they were betting on LBJ and forced to settle for Amar'e who IMO doesn't make them a .500 team. The other guy argues that you folks were betting on Bosh but I don't think anyone seriously expected him to go to Houston anyway. That being said, I still believe Morey and your FO got the better end of the deal. What do you guys think?

FYI, all of this started because I said the following with regards to the Collison/Posey/Murphy/Lee/Ariza trade:

This was a straight salary dump by Houston. Lee is icing on the cake. Apparently Morey wasn't content with pwning the Knicks last year and decided that he had to go in and lay some smack down on a New Orleans trade which makes sense for almost every team involved except for well...New Orleans.

and the guy got all upset and responded with:

i see this a lot, but the knicks basically traded jordan hill (who appears to be a bust, and they knew it), the pick that became patrick patterson, and a likely non-lotto pick for amare stoudemire and raymond felton. the knicks did just fine. morey was supposed to use the knicks' assets to land a big fish and failed.

[M4P]

It's pretty clear that the Rockets won the trade. They managed to secure two first round picks and a young prospect for an expiring gimp who was a shell of his former self.

Also that pick didn't turn into Patterson. That pick was ours. We still have two picks.

P.S.
Jordan Hill was a throw in. We didn't take him 8th in the lotto - that was Walsh's doing. Aside from being a lotto pick, Hill has been productive during his tenure as a backup 4/5.

[Aaron Brooks]

Just Knicks fans being Knicks fans, they overrate their players when they have them, and call them scrubs when they get traded.

[zapatasblood]

Another thing on the Rockets winning that deal. Aren't the Knicks looking to reacquire Jared Jeffries?

T-mac was taken to hopefully land two max deal type players but they did not even get one. Sure Amare is good but not worth max money. Felton is an average PG and they could of had him without Tracy's expiring contract. Tracy's contract allowed them to overpay for Amare. Morey was hoping to land Bosh but Morey did not put all his hopes on getting Bosh unlike Walsh did with trying to get James or Wade.

[bruddahmanmatt]

Another thing on the Rockets winning that deal. Aren't the Knicks looking to reacquire Jared Jeffries?

T-mac was taken to hopefully land two max deal type players but they did not even get one. Sure Amare is good but not worth max money. Felton is an average PG and they could of had him without Tracy's expiring contract. Tracy's contract allowed them to overpay for Amare. Morey was hoping to land Bosh but Morey did not put all his hopes on getting Bosh unlike Walsh did with trying to get James or Wade.

This is exactly my thinking. The guy I'm debating with argues that the Rockets had Amar'e in their plans as a back-up if Bosh didn't commit but I didn't hear anything about that. Not only that, did Houston even sit down with Bosh this summer?

As far as the Knicks attempting to reacquire Jeffries, it's a rumor, but I still think that you have to laugh at the notion of a team attempting to get a player back that they just traded away. My thinking is that New York is now going all in and banking on picking up Melo next summer but they still need to fill out a roster in the meantime. Curry isn't gonna play whereas Jeffries can at least see minutes on the floor. Ditching a big expiring for a slightly smaller one doesn't make sense except when you look at it from the perspective that NY just needs bodies on the court this summer that they don't wanna keep long-term. It's why the Knicks only offered Shannon Brown a one year deal, because while they need players for this year, they still want as much cap space as possible next year.

[Mr. E]

I am of the opinion that all three teams "won" in that deal.

You have to realize that the three teams - Houston, Sacramento & NYC - all had clearly different goals in mind:

Houston) Get the most out of McGrady's massive expiring contract in what was the most anticipated Free Agency Bonanza of all time;

Sacramento) Move their best player who did not fit in on long-term plans while picking up youth and shedding prohibitive contracts;

New York) They were swinging for the fences and did what they had to do to step up to the plate.


This is a textbook example of a "Good Trade" on all parts. yes, I'm thrilled with what the Rockets got for McGrady (and landry - we cannot forget that); but again - each team got exactly what they were looking for in this deal. Win-Win-Win.

[zapatasblood]

Another thing on the Rockets winning that deal. Aren't the Knicks looking to reacquire Jared Jeffries?

T-mac was taken to hopefully land two max deal type players but they did not even get one. Sure Amare is good but not worth max money. Felton is an average PG and they could of had him without Tracy's expiring contract. Tracy's contract allowed them to overpay for Amare. Morey was hoping to land Bosh but Morey did not put all his hopes on getting Bosh unlike Walsh did with trying to get James or Wade.

This is exactly my thinking. The guy I'm debating with argues that the Rockets had Amar'e in their plans as a back-up if Bosh didn't commit but I didn't hear anything about that. Not only that, did Houston if sit down with Bosh this summer?

It is easy to have backup plans when you got $30 plus mil in cap space while our backup plan was keeping our players. Now the Knicks have had a good off season but it was a complete failure when they did not get a superstar like James or Wade. Since all past moves were made to land James and Bosh/Wade/Amare makes their of season a failure and all the past moves.

[Bruteque]

First of all, when NY held up the three-way trade because they didn't want to include Hill, Houston and Sacramento agreed to do Landry/T-Mac for Martin trade (this was a Martin salary dump swap), at which point NY got desperate and agreed to include Hill (this was a Jeffries salary dump, as Houston was the only team still offering 2010 cap space at the time). The trade was going to happen with or without NY. Secondly, the Lee trade was about getting Lee. It wasn't a salary dump. It wasn't that the Rockets didn't want Ariza (that is an absurd notion), it was that they wanted Lee more.

Hill is here because he is low risk and he fits Morey's notion of "future big man." Personally, I don't think I'm sold on Morey's notion of "future big man," which apparently requires not giving a darn on the floor. As far as whether Morey pwned Walsh in the trade goes, it remains to be seen, as it is going to depend on NY's record in the coming years. At this point I would say that Morey did, because Amare + Raymond = lottery. Now if NY lands Melo next season, they will be locked down in lottery hell for years with no way out, then the pwning will be complete, but it is not inevitable.

[kam_soluusar]

Apparently, I am the only regular poster on this board that feels that we got partially screwed in this deal, (having to give up Landry.) However, we won in the end, because I really feel that New York will be a subpar team for the next couple of years. Stoudemire is good, gret even, but remember this. in Phoenix, he had arguably the best PG in the league in the last 10 years feeding him the ball. That isn't going to happen anymore. Now while Felton is certainly no scrub, he's no Steve Nash.

If NY stink, we get better draft picks. NY made a play for LeBron and Bosh, they failed. Essentially, they have traded away their next 2 - 3 years in the draft, and look at us. we have assets coming out of our, well, assets. Houston is in the stongest position of ANY team in the league come trade deadline time.

This is going to be a real interesting season. We may not be on ESPN every night with highlight reel plays, but we will be sitting near, or at top of our division, the toughest one in the league.

I pity NY fans, they deserve better, and year after year, they get worse, with a facade of improvement. Dolan is a moron, and I actually would nearly go to say, that he's dumber than Mark Cuban.

[Aaron Brooks]

How things went down:

Trade Talks began
Knicks Fans: If we're gonna take Tmac's corpse they better take Curry and Jeffries/Hughes, They must be crazy to ask for Hill

Hill Rumored in Trade
Knicks Fans: Curry, Hill and Jeffries/Hughes but no picks!

Trade goes down
Knicks Fans: Hill sucks anyways, what a bust, WE GONE GET LEBRON

Current Day
Knicks Fans: We got Amare ZOMG YES111oneoneone,

disclaimer: this post may or may not be exaggerated

[Kal El]

Yeah everybody pretty much hit the nail on the head. In conclusion, there are going to be posters not worth debating with. It could be that they're kids or just plain irrational or biased. So it's great to hear different opinions from logical posters but your going to run into some not so logical... i got used to simply ignoring them.

On a side note, Real GM is the best board iv been with... not too much BS like you'll see with other forums.

[bruddahmanmatt]

Yeah everybody pretty much hit the nail on the head. In conclusion, there are going to be posters not worth debating with. It could be that they're kids or just plain irrational or biased. So it's great to hear different opinions from logical posters but your going to run into some not so logical... i got used to simply ignoring them.

On a side note, Real GM is the best board iv been with... not too much BS like you'll see with other forums.

It's actually not such a bad forum, just that I thought it whack that a member would defend the T-Mac trade so adamantly after a jab on my part at the New Orleans and New York front offices via Morey. In case you're wondering it's a Lakers forum and yes, I am a Lakers fan (don't kill me), I just thought it was odd that a member who had been registered there since '05 would feel so strongly about a negative comment directed at...New York? I've seen the xtranormal vid and thought it was hilarious (chicken and rice stand hahaha) but just wanted to get your folks' insight and opinion on the matter since you guys and gals as Rockets fans would know best.

[College Boy]

You brought up a good point. Some people would argue that just like NY did with James, we lost out on Bosh. But here's the difference between Morey and Walsh. While we were both going for big FA's, Morey hedged his bet while Walsh put it all on the table. When James decided to go to MIA, NY was left with nothing to show for all their hard work and sacrifices. And to make it worse, it appears they're going to do it again next summer. But Morey secured a very competitive roster first, then decided to pursue Bosh via s&t. So when we lost out on him we still had a very competitive roster. So in the end, we still had a very successful summer. Meanwhile, Walsh has to hold his breath all over again next year. Also note that we could have had Amare last trade deadline, but we turned it down.

[moofs]

Hedging bets is a great way to get through life, in my opinion.

Sure you have better shots to hit homeruns when you swing for the fences, but your batting average falls in the toilet.

[The Franchise_]

How things went down:

Trade Talks began
Knicks Fans: If we're gonna take Tmac's corpse they better take Curry and Jeffries/Hughes, They must be crazy to ask for Hill

Hill Rumored in Trade
Knicks Fans: Curry, Hill and Jeffries/Hughes but no picks!

Trade goes down
Knicks Fans: Hill sucks anyways, what a bust, WE GONE GET LEBRON

Current Day
Knicks Fans: We got Amare ZOMG YES111oneoneone,

disclaimer: this post may or may not be exaggerated

That was a little mean, but it didn't stop me from laughing.

[thetennisyao]

How things went down:

Trade Talks began
Knicks Fans: If we're gonna take Tmac's corpse they better take Curry and Jeffries/Hughes, They must be crazy to ask for Hill

Hill Rumored in Trade
Knicks Fans: Curry, Hill and Jeffries/Hughes but no picks!

Trade goes down
Knicks Fans: Hill sucks anyways, what a bust, WE GONE GET LEBRON

Current Day
Knicks Fans: We got Amare ZOMG YES111oneoneone,

disclaimer: this post may or may not be exaggerated

LOL

[Baller 24]

Walsh is a joke...one of the most overrated GMs over the past 20 years. Has put together a max 5 contending rosters in 15 seasons with the Pacers, continued to build around a 3rd tier player. He's been doing good, definitely above average, but nothing noteworthy to state that he's by far one of the best in the league.

[Q00]

WTF does "Pwned" mean?

[Guy986]

WTF does "Pwned" mean?

You must be new to the Internet sir.

[Optimism Prime]

WTF does "Pwned" mean?

You must be new to the Internet sir.

Unsurprisingly, pwn even has an entry on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn

I weep for the future.