Alan Truex: Fertitta in panic mode, taking the Rockets apart
Updated Thursday, May 30
HOUSTON – A year ago, when he bought the Rockets from Leslie Alexander, Tilman Fertitta let us know what sort of CEO he’d be: an autocrat.
“This is my building and my team,” he declared in his inaugural media conference. He didn’t see himself as a steward of a local treasure created in significant part by public spending. He said he will pass it down to his children.
He coveted the Rockets for 2 ½ decades – ever since he was runner-up on buying the team when Alexander outmaneuvered him. Alexander paid $85 million for the Rockets and sold the franchise for $2.2 billion to Fertitta, who sees that sort of growth as normal.
As he put it, “There’s never been a sports team that sold for less than its purchase.”
Actually, that’s not entirely true. The Houston Astros were once in receivership.
But Fertitta is essentially correct; the Rockets hold a monopoly on pro basketball in the country’s fourth-largest city, and he’s too prudent a businessman to wreck this wonderful asset.
Fertitta became a billionaire by investing shrewdly in properties – restaurants, hotels, casinos. “I’m into details,” he said, “but not micromanaging.” He trusted in Daryl Morey, who he called “the best general manager in the NBA.”
But he also said he expected to be consulted if the team is trading the 15th player on the roster. Sounds like micromanaging to me.
He made another comment that might concern Rockets fans: “The name of the game is get to the playoffs.”
Seems like a low bar. The San Antonio Spurs, in a city that’s barely big-league at all, have made the playoffs 22 consecutive years. Do you want to be San Antonio? Or do you aspire to be Golden State, winning championships, not just making playoffs and gargantuan stashes of money?
I do feel compelled to mention that Fertitta is a civic builder, gives generously to hospitals, hurricane relief, the U of Houston, for which he’s served four terms as chairman of the regents. He also paid for the renovation of the school’s basketball arena.
But as much as I applaud the urban vision of Fertitta, Scottie Pippen is right: he’s not zealous about delivering a championship. It’s not that important to him. Or to Houston.
Pippen, Hall of Fame player and former Rocket, has said that “in Houston there’s not a lot of pressure to win championships.”
Indeed, there’s a discernible sense of complacency about the Rockets, who apparently get a forever pass for back to back championships in the Ninetees.
I sense no public outcry to toss Mike D’Antoni into the ship channel. But when the Rockets were one-round wonders in the playoffs – losing to the defending champions — Fertitta saw the need to micromanage. While negotiating a multiyear extension with a head coach whose contract expires at the end of next season, Fertitta demanded the firing of five of his assistants.
As Marc Stein of the New York Times wrote: “The flurry of changes imposed on D’Antoni’s staff has some in the coaching community wondering if the Rockets are trying to nudge D’Antoni toward the exit.”
The flurry of changes suggests panic, not an orderly process by a leader who knows what he’s doing.
Fertitta offered D’Antoni an incentive-laden extension that was rejected. D’Antoni wants to coach for the final year of his contract and see what develops.
This is not good for the team. There’s no chance of assembling a staff as good as the one Fertitta gutted. Who wants to work for a lame duck?
Specifically, I wonder about the dismissal of Jeff Bzedelik, whose switch-happy defense was effective against everyone but Steph Curry.
Like most novice owners of sports teams, Fertitta lacks expertise. “I’m in the hospitality business,” he says, as if that’s the same as being in basketball. Mostly he’s in the business of cost control, albeit with an eye to growth: “Don’t let the business get ahead of the financial side. Accounting, accounting, accounting. Know your numbers.”
A championship is important to Morey, who says he’s willing to trade anyone on his roster except James Harden. But a year ago Fertitta squeezed him on extending Trevor Ariza, who left in free agency to go to Washington. You can argue that Ariza’s $15 million salary was not justified by his 14.1 ppg, 5.3 rebounds and 2.5 assists-to-turnovers. And you wouldn’t like to go long-term with an athlete who’s about to be 33.
But how do you quantify grit, boxing out so your team isn’t outboarded by Golden State? Houston ranked 29th this season in defensive rebounding.
Whatever Ariza’s ROI might have been in Morey’s analytics wormhole, this is a versatile 6-foot-8 player who would have been useful in Bzedelik’s schemes.
Not to mention his corner-shooting might have brought a win at Oakland.
In the 2018 Western Conference finals, Ariza’s physical and lengthy perimeter defense curtailed Curry, until Chris Paul’s Game 5 injury exit. Which now looks like a turning point in Rockets history. There was the Ming dynasty that didn’t quite happen, and now we’re looking at the wasting of Harden, king of isolation.
Fertitta went all-in on Paul: $40 million a year through the 2021-22 season, when he will be 36. And instead of paying Ariza, the seafood captain hired a player who was a year older, Carmelo Anthony, 34. That was $2.4 million into the dumpster.
Responding to criticism that he’s selfish, unwilling to pay the “luxury tax” that Ariza’s signing would have triggered, Fertitta insisted he was budgeted for “an excise tax of $11 million.” Another time he said $15 mil. He was surprised to find that his team all along was below the threshold, that this “was a fluke.”
Which seems to contradict his mantra about “Accounting, accounting, accounting” and knowing your numbers. Here’s the most important number: 29, age of The Beard. He may have one or two more years of end-to-end MVP-type excellence. It’s never good to panic, but Fertitta needs a faster learning curve if the Harden Rockets have any hope of a championship.
