I believe that most of you have some faith in the NBA efficiency stat. It is worthwhile looking at it when discussing possibly unloading Brooks, Martin and Scola.

• Luis Scola, our best player, ranks 37th overall and 20th amoung forwards.
• Kevin Martin, often referred to in many postings as being "super efficient", ranks 46th overall and 15th amoung guards.
• Aaron Brooks ranks 166th overall and 62nd amoung only guards.

Last season Scola was 47th overall and Martin was 66th overall so they've improved slightly. Brooks was 69th overall last year and has basically fallen off a cliff this season. We should have unloaded Martin while his value was high.

Basically, these stats indicate that the average NBA team has 2 guards rated higher than Martin and three higher than Brooks. That means we are outgunned at the guard position.

And the average team has 1.2 forwards rated higher than Scola so it looks like we are also outgunned at forward.

That is why we cannot win. Our best players are average, at best.

We have been talking about possibly trading Brooks, the 166th most efficient player, for Nene, the 32nd most efficient player and many of you think that would be a bad deal. It makes no sense. Amoung only centers, Nene is currently ranked 6th most efficient. That is high. Only 5 teams have a center ranked higher. That is the type of guy we need and we will have to offer more than Aaron 166th Brooks to get  him.

I tend to believe in the efficiency stats because you can look at the rankings and see that the guys you know are better are all located up at the top of the list. You can look at only Houston players and see that Scola > Martin > Brooks. That is the order you think you see when you watch the game and that is the order that the stats show.

Guys, you cannot rebuild the team around the 166th best player (Brooks). And we cannot build a team around the 37th best (Scola) or the 46th best (Martin) either. On average, a team should have one guy ranked in the top 30. Houston has zero. Even if were were lucky enough to get Nene, we would still have zero but we would at lest get a lot closer.

If you believe in the NBA efficiency stat then you have to agree with me that we have a sorry bunch of players. That helps explain the losses. In fact, based on the efficiency ratings of our players, we should be losing more than we do so maybe that indicates the coaching is good or maybe we are just lucky.

BTW, Dalembert, another guy whose name gets tossed out as an alternative to getting Nene, is currently ranked 174th overall, 37th amoung only centers. That is worse than either Chuck Hayes or Brad Miller. Thrity-six centers are ranked higher than Dalembert! Do you really think he is the answer? If you have any faith in the NBA Efficiency Stat, would you really want Dalembert?

How about getting a center ranked higher that Nene? There are 5 of them. They are Pau, Dwight , Amare, Horford and Noah and we aren't gettinbg any of those. So let's focus on the best we can perhaps really get, Nene.

http://www.nba.com/statistics/player/Efficiency.jsp?season=22010&league=00&conf=OVERALL&qualified=N&position=0&splitType=9&yearsExp=-1&splitDD=&pager.offset=150

There has been a lot of discussion about whether it is wise to try to trade a player at his peak value. Obviously, what we mean is his perceived peak since nobody really knows if the guy has reached his peak or not until it is over.

So, is it a good idea to trade a player when he has reached what is perceived to be his peak or a high point in his value? I say it is obviously a good idea any time you can get something of value that improves your team. It doesn't matter whether the guy is at his peak or his low, if you can upgrade the team then it makes sense to trade.

This came up mainly regarding Brooks but also applies to Martin and Scola. In fact, it might apply more to them than to Brooks since, because of his youth, Brooks may not have actually peaked out yet.

Is it a good idea to consider trades that include Brooks, Martin and Scola or should any of these three, our perceived "best" players, be untouchable?

I believe that the best trades every made by the Rockets were two that included shipping out better players and bigger stars than Brooks, Martin or Scola. I am referring to the trades of Ralph Sampson and Steve Francis. At the time of the trade, Ralph Sampson was a healthy Yao Ming. You could make comparisons between the Hakeem-Ralph situation and the current Brooks-Lowry situation. Today, some here argue that we need to keep both Brooks and Lowry to have tandem PGs. Back in the day, others thought we should keep both Hakeem and Sampson. Luckily, wiser heads prevailed and they shipped out Sampson while his value was at a peak. The result was a championship quality team.

More recently we had Steve "Franchise". Remember him? He was a lot better than Brooks, wasn't he? We sure unloaded him at the right time. We got Tmac and Juwan Howard, as I remember, for Steve Francis and Cutino Mobley. Francis and Mobley went to the dogs very quickly. Tmac was a superstar for a long period and Howard was very steady. 

Today we need to do the same thing. Brooks has a high perceived value in the NBA. He is over-valued (IMO) and it is time to cash in the chips with that guy. Let's unload him and get something we can use, like a center. 

I go further and suggest we do likewise with Martin and then, perhaps, even with Scola. They are both at their peaks. We are going nowhere with them. Let's build a future championship quality team.