With all of the speculation surrounding the potential trading of future picks, I thought it might be time to revisit a post written earlier in the year.
In Part 1, I wrote:
Calculated risks are a big element of team management. This Houston Rockets team had a nucleus last year which, if healthy, could have realistically contended for the championship. If Daryl Morey felt that the probability of Artest’s presence pushing the team into the elite outweighed the odds that Donte Greene himself ever became elite, then the trade was justified. And I do think this was the case.
As we know, Omri Casspi is what that other pick included in the deal became and he is a legitimate NBA player, certainly making the merits of the initial deal a bit more open for debate. But I still stand by my earlier stance. That Houston Rockets team, as composed, if healthy, had all the ingredients for a title run. For a stronger chance at a championship, in ammunition in the person of Ron Artest, dealing two late first-rounders in an era when they can be bought for pocket change was a no-brainer.
