Originally Posted by hobojoe

Does anyone else get the impression this could set the franchise back a lot further than it appears on the surface? The timing couldn't be worse.

I don't know about you, but this seems like a built in excuse to keep the core of this team together this offseason and not blow it all up (trading McGrady) like they should. The thinking will be, "We had won 11 straight with Yao and T-Mac before this happened, we can win a title with those two healthy playing together". I don't really think that's true, I think they should trade McGrady this summer and rebuild. They're not going to be any better next season than they are this year. Thing about all the powers in the West is that they don't appear to be going anywhere in the near future, pretty much 1-10 EXCEPT Houston and San Antonio at least have the potential to be even better in the next few years than they are now. Maybe not Dallas, but we'll have to see -- you can make a case for them improving the next 1-2 years. Houston's not very young, and none of their young talent really has a lot of room to improve. Guys like Head, Brooks, Battier, Scola are what they are. They're not going to be superstars, and they're not going to improve a whole lot. Even Yao isn't going to get that much better. That basically leaves McGrady, who's rapid decline from super-stardom is slightly exaggerated at times, but he's still not the player he once was and definitely is declining.

The Rockets have over $63 million in salaries for next season before re-signing Chuck Hayes, Carl Landry, Gerald Green and a few other guys, so they'll only have the MLE to work with if they're going to continue with the current core. All of this adds up to me believing the Rockets can't compete for a title next year and would be better off trading McGrady given his decline and health concerns of his own. However this win streak combined with this being Adelman's first year with the team (incentive to keep the core intact and give him more time with them) has me pretty sure they won't rebuild, they will instead overpay a marginal talent to come in and make a minimal impact, win 40-45 games and miss the playoffs or get bounced in the first round again. They're just delaying the rebuilding process, which is especially detrimental in their case because if they wait too long they might also waste Yao's prime.