Boom Boom Pau! A letter to Daryl Morey

[Nice work from the FanPosts. -- Tom]

Mr. Morey,

I am writing this letter as a concerned fan of the Houston Rockets. I am concerned about your health. How must you be feeling right now? Your three year plan of trading for picks and young, tradable talent has just been blown up. And that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is it’s the commissioner that blew it up. Not a grumpy player or an over ambitious GM demanding more for a star player or a fan base threatening to burn the city to the ground. It was the commissioner of the NBA, David Stern. David Stern, may I remind you, is the man who just lead “his” league through one of, if not, the worst lockouts in his tenure as commissioner. He just blew up your baby. Your perfectly thought out and timed baby.

Trading the youth of Carl Landry to the Kings to acquire a great scorer was genius. Scorers will always be tradable, always easy to ship off if need be. Developing Luis Scola into one of the best post-players in today’s game increased his value exponentially. Making him yet another tradable asset you had in your arsenal. Getting rid of that one-kneed, sleepy, second-round virgin for a first round pick was a miracle when you look at how badly said player has declined since that trade. Throw in Goran Dragic and you know what that makes? A great trade package.

Now all you had to do is wait. Wait for the right trade to latch onto with your bag of prizes and hope that something would fall your way. Well as soon as that nightmare of a lockout ended you started to get a few phone calls. Phone calls from out west, Los Angeles to be more precise. The Lakers were going after Chris Paul and they needed someone to help them sweeten the deal. Someone who had youth, players that can play now, and draft picks to rebuild and retool. Well I bet that was music to your ears Mr. Morey. I bet you started doing back flips off your desk and cartwheels on your sweet, leather couch in your office. This was your time, your time to reward a faithful fan base for their trust in you as their GM. They had stood by you through thick and thin, and this was going to be their reward.

The city of Houston was finally about to receive an early Christmas present. They were finally going to get a Big Man. A big man that could control the paint, draw the double-team and kick it out to our shooters. A big man that could produce maybe a top 5 pick n’ roll combination in the league with Kyle Lowery. A big man that could send Tim Duncan to a bumpy early retirement and open up a division title for a city that has been craving one since 1994. Pau Gasol was the big man in all those statements.

And then BOOM BOOM PAU.

David Stern blocks the trade. He cites “basketball reasons” as his excuse for vetoing this trade while also saying the NBA owners “revolted” against the trade. Well sorry Mr. Stern, but Dan Gilbert gets in a hissy fit every time his Starbucks barista doesn’t make a cute little leaf in his coffee. He’s a bitter owner who lost his superstar and was too short sighted to think about a backup plan if the worst case happened (which it did, and then the worst case scenario became worse by the game…26 times), but I digress.

I really hope this letter helps you know that this wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have done anything about this. You were blindsided and now you’ve lost the biggest trade bundle you’ve ever had to play with. The entire three year plan has gone up in smoke (much like the feel good attitude at the Hornets, Rockets, and Lakers training camps) and all you can do is watch David Stern piss on the ashes. It must be tough for you right now but you’ve got to hold your head up and keep up making those phone calls. Something good is going to happen soon and everything’s going to work out fine.

Hope you feel better soon,

Go Rockets!