A team that barely missed the 2012 NBA Playoffs, it seemed like the Houston Rockets would address a star/superstar concern. It nearly came to life as they were stockpiling picks to take a run at Dwight Howard, but as we know, Dwight ended up in Laker Land. The Rockets reported offer seemed anything but palatable to the Magic front office, but how did the rest of their off-season go?
Additions and Subtractions: Drafted Jeremy Lamb, Royce White, and Terrence Jones; signed Jeremy Lin, Shaun Livingston, Toney Douglas, JaJuan Johnson, John Brockman, Sean Williams, Gary Forbes, and Omer Asik; lost Goran Dragic, Kyle Lowry, Chase Budinger, Luis Scola, Courtney Lee, Marcus Camby, and Samuel Dalembert.
The Houston Rockets perplexed people this off-season, they perplexed critics, NBA nerds, they even perplexed themselves. They were in the mix for the longest time for Dwight Howard, but that went to shambles when their offer, reportedly, was half-ass. That was one thing, but their offer for Omer Asik was quite another.
Houston was attempting to offer “poison pill” contracts to stifle the competitions (New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls) books, but it backfired — kinda — on Houston as neither club matched Houston’s offer. By the way, Asik averaged 14 minutes last season, 3.1 points and under 6 rebounds.
Asik SWINDLED Houston.
While I do think Asik’s offer was meh-ish, I think Houston offer for Jeremy Lin was decent in the aspect of receiving a young, talented, and marketable player. With that being said, even critics that don’t think the contract was out of this world, would caution Houston for ditching a proven and underrated point guard in Kyle Lowry, for a possible one hit wonder.
Despite those two contracts, Houston drafted remarkably well in Lamb, White, and Jones; all three are highly skilled and any could be moved in the future for proven player.
Houston, I suppose, would be considered to be in “rebuilding mode” as they instantaneously went younger to keep up with the young and gunnin’ teams in the west, but will it be enough?
Final Grade C-
