Rockets owner Leslie Alexander said months ago that he wanted to see his team play just 10 games together.
Sorry. It's too late. They've played just six together. That will have to be enough.
The trade deadline is in 10 days and Daryl Morey is on the clock.
亚历山大曾说他想看看这支队伍阵容齐整的打十场比赛再说。
不好意思，已经太晚了。现在才一起打了6场，我们就已经看得足够了。
10天之后是交易截止，莫雷的钟，滴答滴答。
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There have been too many signs that this team just does not care enough. For whatever reasons - and that silly, little locker room tension would qualify as a pathetic excuse/explanation - the Rockets cannot maintain intensity and focus, effort and energy game after game.
If they can't do it for more than a few days at a time in February, does anyone think they can do it week after week against a Western Conference playoff opponent in April or May?
This is who they are. It does not matter now who they thought they'd be. They cannot depend on who they might still believe they can become. They are a team on the fringe of the playoff pack, very capable of losing to anyone, especially on the road.
"Now is not early in the season," Yao Ming said. "It's not 20 games into the season. Now it's 50 games into the season. We're still stuck in here and talk about we still have time to fix it, from first game of the season and 10 games in the season and 50 games into the season. We still talk about we need to fix it."
This is not a call to panic. You don't make trades to get rid of people. You don't make trades just to shake things up. You do that and you end up with someone not good enough and you usually end up stuck with him much longer than the guy you got rid of.
In other words, you don't trade Tracy McGrady for anyone that makes the money match just because you're mad at him. (OK, you do that in the fantasy trade-blog world, but in the real world, you calm down and only trade for players you actually want.) You do, however, evaluate him based on what you see today, not what used to be.
As Morey heads to Phoenix for the All-Star break/swap meet, he needs to go with a sense that the chances of this all magically falling into place and igniting into some sort of late-season fire have been reduced to far, far longer than longshot.
Yao remains untouchable. After that, Monday might be the last bit of evidence needed for Morey to most value those who most reliably play with heart and determination.
Perhaps that's what the Rockets need most and the quality Morey can find out there. It's time, past time, to forget about the preseason expectations and prognostications and judge this team solely by what shows up on the floor.
The Amar'e Stoudemire fantasies are nice, but since that sort of thing is not going to happen (the team that offers the best young player gets him, and Aaron Brooks or Carl Landry probably don't qualify) the Rockets might have to seek small, but important improvements.
Whatever they do or don't do, they have to progress now with the understanding that they cannot wait and hope any longer, assuming change will come.
It might, but that cannot be the assumption.
"There's no sense or urgency," Rafer Alston said. "And I don't think guys are paying attention to the league, to the standings. We're not that far from the top; we're not that far from 10th. We're back to taking baby steps. We have to start with guarding a man. We have to start with focus. And then you can talk about achieving, what kind of playoff we want to have this year."
Rockets coach Rick Adelman is right when he says all he and his players can do is keeping working. That's their job. Morey's is to keep working the phones, and to make those calls with a different evaluation of his team.
Every game offers evidence. The evidence has grown to overwhelming.
Morey has gone from planning only slight tinkering to hoping to be "opportunistic." The idea now has to become to be aggressive. He does not have to trade everyone. There are a lot of guys he probably can't trade, at least not in any deal he would or should consider. But if it is possible to forget the Rockets' latest flop, he should be sure to consider it with every phone call.作者: sylk 時間: 2009-2-10 05:52 PM
