As you’ve probably heard elsewhere, Houston have reunited Rick Adelman with Ron Artest, acquiring the Tru Warier for the price of Bobby Jackson, Donte Green and a future draft pick. A disillusioned Richard Justice, blogging for the Houston Chronicle, concedes, “if the Rockets win a championship–and they’re good enough if Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming stay healthy and Morey makes a move to upgrade point guard–no one will care how they did it. No one will mention that the franchise suddenly seems diminished.”
He’s a wonderfully talented basketball player. He’s only 29 years old. He did a terrific job with the Kings on the court. But there’s a reason this is his fourth team. Not every team has considered Ron Artest worth the trouble.
Rick Adelman coached Artest for 40 games, so he certainly signed off on the deal. I want to trust Rick Adelman in personnel matters. I want to trust Daryl Morey, too. This is a tough one to swallow.
It could be another example of Les Alexander pretending to be a general manager. His last good idea was wanting Steve Francis back in uniform. That one should have taught him to stick with stocks and bonds and whatever else he does. He doesn’t know basketball.
We’ll eventually know whether Les forced this deal on his basketball team. It may be two or three years down the line, but someone will let it slip. They always do.
The Rockets had pursued Artest in the past even after he’d gotten into trouble. In an odd twist, once he was accused of animal cruelty, Artest seemed to disappear from the hearts and minds of the Rockets.
Come to think of it, if you can forgive Artest for all the other stuff he has done, you should be able to forgive him for neglecting an animal.
Justice lists “attacking a fan” as part of Artest’s rap sheet, neglecting to mention said fan precipitated the assault by throwing a full cup of beer . Indeed, there are many reasons why Artest is on his 4th franchise. But since we’re on the subject, Tracy McGrady is a trade away from having played for just as many. If Artest’s reputation precedes him, how about T-Mac’s coach killing history?
Wasn’t Justice pretty ok with Tejada? To say nothing of Ed Wade?
justice is an astros mouthpiece pretty much, jason. he turned a blind eye to roid freaks like bagwell, caminiti, clemens, etc in there time in houston and only just now has started to rip the org over the acquisition of superstar flamethrower 12-6 curve dirtiest slider in the game taught mariano the cutter guy randy wolf. so i mean….he doesn’t know talent when he sees it i guess.