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Houston Rockets decline to match on Chandler Parsons, sun rises Monday morning

All of my initial reactions to this story are on Twitter.

  • This is not the end of the world.  Friday, when Chris Bosh spurned the team, was the end of the world.
  • I am definitely shocked by this news.  As I had written over the weekend, I fully expected the team to match on Parsons.
  • I had been operating under the premise that even after bringing back Parsons, the team would still have the flexibility to make another impact move.  The staff determined that that would not be possible.
  • If bringing back Parsons means that that is essentially your team, that that is it, are you ok with that?
  • In response to the above, many of you have answered in the affirmative, wondering when the tinkering will ever stop.  One reader asked, quite poignantly, “when will Morey’s final team ever happen?”  I’d raise that one notch: Morey is in a race to realize his “final team” before Dwight Howard’s prime expires.  Problem: Dwight Howard’s prime is expiring.
  • Ariza is roughly similar to Parsons, we can all agree.  But today, you’re a worse team than you would have been had you matched on Parsons, simply by not having both Parsons or Ariza.  Though you keep open the hope, albeit slim, of drastic improvement via a later trade.  This whole thing gives rise to fascinating philosophical basketball questions: at what point do you stop?  at what point do you stop trading the present for hope on the future?  The Rockets could have gone all in this year, and they would have been better than they probably will be.  But on the flip side, they would not have been as good as they possibly can be if the right trade comes along.  Is that a wise gamble?  I don’t know.  The clock is ticking on Dwight Howard’s prime.
  • Unless it was the case that letting Parsons hit free agency was a condition precedent to Dwight Howard’s signing, on the part of Dan Fegan, Houston’s handling of the Parsons situation goes down, unequivocally as the biggest blunder of Daryl Morey’s career.
  • The team could have brought back Parsons at a shade under $1million next season.  Now, in hopes of securing him long term, they’ve allowed him to walk altogether, to a conference rival.  A horrible miscalculation.
  • This offseason can only be classified as a complete and unmitigated disaster.  Nabbing a star free agent had been Houston’s ultimate end-game all along, as they had refused to take back multi-year contracts in any trade made in-season (see: fake trade deadline, Asik).  They pushed forward all of their chips and whiffed.
  • There is much ire this morning directed towards Daryl Morey.  I don’t know if that’s justified.  As I’ve been saying, this was a colossal miscalculation on his part, but I can never blame a guy for swinging for the fences.  He had a clear and coherent plan and it simply backfired.  Sometimes in life, when you take chances, they don’t pan out.  I have to wonder whether those of you so furious with Morey would prefer he just aimlessly sign the likes of Mo Taylor and Moochie Norris.
  • It appears the “he only treats his players as assets” brigade has found it convenient to rear its head over this turn of events.  Again, I have to point out, if Morey didn’t “treat his players as assets”, we’d still be rolling with a nucleus of Chuck Hayes, Trevor Ariza, Kyle Lowry, and Aaron Brooks.  There would be no Dwight Howard.  You can’t have it both ways.
  • One wonders what caused Morey to exude such confidence regarding an Anthony/whomever signing by going so far as letting Parsons hit free agency.  It almost makes me feel this was a condition set by Fegan.
  • I have agreed with the plan all along and am still in defense of it, in hindsight.  But I think it has to stop now.  They need to use the flexibility saved in a trade in-season, or towards future trades.  But I do not support an eye towards 2015 free agency.  That game has become too great of a gamble.  What we’ve learned is that Dwight Howard was the outlier, not the norm upon which to bet futures.

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About the author: Rahat Huq is a lawyer in real life and the founder and editor-in-chief of www.Red94.net.

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