One of the many curious aspects about the Houston Chronicle is that the local newspaper employs Richard Justice as a sports reporter and columnist. We already know that he has trouble evaluating baseball (see also here) and football. So, today Justice nails the trifecta of incompentence in evaluating Houston’s major sports teams with this post about Houston Rockets assistant general manager Dennis Lindsey’s decision to leave the Rockets to join the San Antonio Spurs front office:

The San Antonio Spurs have the NBA’s smartest front office. The hiring of Dennis Lindsey reenforces that notion. This is a tough loss for the Rockets, a very tough loss. He was excellent at what he did. Carroll Dawson had groomed him to be his successor, but Clueless Les went for Daryl Morey.

Who is calling who “clueless?” As noted in this post from almost three years ago, the Rockets have been mismanaged for a long time. The club has not won a playoff series over the past decade, one of the few NBA teams to hold that distinction. With the exception of Yao Ming, the Rockets’ draft picks over that period have been generally mediocre or poor. As a result, the Rockets have gone from being one of the top NBA teams playing in a sold out arena to the third best NBA team in Texas with an arena that often resembles an expensive mausoleum. Although Lindsey is certainly not responsible for all of that decline, his tenure with the Rockets coincided with that downturn.
So, owner Rockets Les Alexander went outside the organization to hire a new general manager. That hire may or may not work out, but it was certainly an understandable decision. Nothing that the Rockets have accomplished during Lindsey’s tenure with the club merited that Alexander simply hand him the job. That Lindsey is apparently cordial to Justice — as was former Stros GM Gerry Hunsicker — doesn’t justify Justice simply ignoring the facts.