After a Christmas break that has seemed to drag on forever, I figured I would get back into it.  I've gone from Atlanta to Golden State and now I am onto Houston. 

The Rockets had a lot of success in the 90s with Hakeem the Dream, Clyde the Glide, and The Alien, Sam Cassell.  With all of that success comes a lot of late round drafting.  Most of the picks are guys that are fringe first rounders that are usually fringe NBA players.  With that being said, I can't really put too much stock into a miss on a pick.  Instead, I want to look at the Rockets 2006 draft.

In 2006, Houston had the 8th pick in the draft.  With T-Mac and Yao already on board, a dependable third scorer was needed.  The Rockets chose wisely, they took Rudy Gay out of UCONN with that pick.  What happened next was sort of baffling to me.

In a crazy move, the Rockets traded Rudy Gay and Stromile Swift to the Memphis Grizzlies for Shane Battier.  Now, I know that Battier is touted as this defensive whiz and solid perimeter player, but you just had Rudy Gay fall into your laps with the 8th pick and you traded him away. 

Houston did have a record of 52-30 that season, but what did that really do for them?  So what they made the playoffs, they get beat in the first round every time, because they don't have a third scorer.  Yao is usually hurt by playoff time and T-Mac is usually hurt or just healthy enough to put his shoes on without grimacing in pain.

This trade really set the franchise back a few years.  Battier has had a few various injuries since his arrival and the Rockets have since traded for Ron Artest, the Tru Warrior.  If they had kept Rudy Gay, then they could have gone after some other free agents that could have helped their team out quite a bit more than Ron Artest and Shane Battier.  If you combine the two salaries of Ron Artest and Shane Battier (approx $14mil rounded up) and subtract the salary of Rudy Gay right now (approx $3mil rounded up), then the Rockets could have had $11mil to play with this past offseason.  They could have gone after a nice mid-level player to help fill a role or saved their money and used it for next summer's class or even tried to move more salary for the summer of 2010's class.