Thank you. Jesus, since coming back from his ban DD has been annoying and downright stupid. His arguments stink of logical fallacies and it fuels other idiots to make the same kind of points. I think he might need another ban to get his crap together.
Would rather acquire Reggie Jackson. He would complement Harden much better. Or pick up another 3 & D wing and have Ariza slide to the 2. The die has been cast, Harden is only true center piece of this team (LOL at 3 superstars), where he goes the team goes.
The Lakers could offer to put a big 3 together of Durant/Conley/Horford and then trade Russell for something. Who knows. Morey may be correct that we are a top 5 destination this summer but that won't mean anything if we are 5th on that list.
How about we get a coach who can actually implement a sideline play and get on the stars a****. We need a Phil Jackson type of coach and I don't think there is one out there sadly... Start there, then head into FA with a clear plan. Lure Durant in on a max deal w/wo the assurance Howard will come back. Then, try to get Dwight to sign with whatever money we got... If he leaves... well ok. Plan B. The problem is... Who is the plan B going to be? Can we turn Capella into an everyday starting center? If so, we have Harden, Capella locked in. Do we let Lawson go or trade Bev to keep him? Do we move Ariza, Brewer to shed cap? Probably, Brewer. If we can bring in another star, trade Ariza... if not, well we got this... Bev or Lawson Harden Durant, Dekker *****, Harrell Capella Lots of questions to be answered.
Horford is the most likely to sign with Houston out of the three. I'm not saying who will sign where and who wont sign where because absolutely no one knows stuff like that. I will say that I think the thing that makes most sense is for Conley to re-sign with Memphis because he has this foreign characteristic that most Rockets fans don't have called "loyalty."
I don't think that's enough to win a championship. You would have to hope that Dekker, Harrell, Capella all flesh out great. These guys are must keep or dealt for the star we need.
Thats right they could. Those three players could take less money than they could earn in Houston to have not as good a team. You are absolutely correct.
Morey acts like the Rockets will be the only team this summer with money to spend. A lot of teams are going to have cap and star players are going to look at a number of teams before looking at the Rockets. I get the dilemma though. We have a great Robin, just need a Batman. Worst catch 22 when the team needs to build around Harden, but building around Harden means getting another star.
A lot of teams gonna be left holding their money or overpaying non-max, non-superstar guys. From yesterday, Al Horford(max) Joe Johnson Nicolas Batum(max) Al Jefferson(close to max) Pau Gasol(close to max) Joakim Noah LeBron James(max) Dirk Nowitzki(PO) Chandler Parsons(PO) Deron Williams(PO) Andre Drummond(R)(max) Harrison Barnes(R)(max) Festus Ezeli(R) Dwight Howard(PO)(close to max) Mike Conley(max) Dwyane Wade(close to max) Hassan Whiteside(close to max) Ryan Anderson(close to max) Eric Gordon Kevin Durant(max) Evan Fournier Rajon Rondo Tim Duncan (PO) Manu Ginobili (PO) David West (PO) Terrence Ross DeMar DeRozan (ETO)(max/close to max) Bradley Beal(R)(max/close to max) Nene Hilario Only a few true superstars but many more will see max or near max money coming their way. $40M? That's nice. 20 of the 30 teams will have $30M or more to spend.
So....when the Rockets strike out this off-season and end up overpaying non-superstar players, what will the narrative be then?
Most likely, Morey won't overpay anyone if we can't get Durant, Barnes, Conley. We'll sign Ian Mahinmi, Gerald Henderson, or Speights for $10M a year and then maintain open cap space for next year because flexibility.
If we strike out on stars this offseason the narrative needs to be that Les is finally convinced to tear down and rebuild through the draft, something Morey wanted to do from day 1 when the Yao/McGrady situation blew up. Morey has ALWAYS said that the approach we are taking has never been done before and is a lot harder than rebuilding through the draft. However, he has a mandate from the owner to stay competitive while trying to build a champion. No other team has to do that.