The Anderson contract has probably been the Rockets biggest handicap in recent years. A lot of teams made contract mistakes during the cap spike by expecting continuous large increases. Even though fans will complain about how much stars are making, the biggest problem for teams and cap and trade flexibility are usually the non-stars and role players who they give too much money too.
Missing on later second round picks is almost inevitable, you're basically just guessing at the point. I don't think you'll find other top teams that are hitting any good percentage on those picks. You're looking at like a useful guy maybe once every 5 or 6 seasons if you are picking later in the 2nd round, maybe even not that often.
I HATED the signing of Ryan Anderson. I just don't like him as a player. BUT 1) As @Nook has pointed out MANY times, Les forced Morey to spend the money. Morey wanted to spend it on Horford & Bazemore. They came off the board and Gordon & Anderson were next. 2) Anderson DID succeed for awhile in Houston. He was PART of the turnaround for the team after the dumpster fire season with Howard/Lawson. The team profile was good and it perhaps got CP interested in joining up with Harden. When the team was in the dumps, KD didn't give them a meeting. But now, CP had interest. So those machinations made the team look good for perspective players to join. So there WAS value in Anderson in some aspects. Now we kicked the contract down the road with Knight. And we will see what else happens with the Knight contract. It is all connected. Context & Nuance
signing Ryno...he was worthless and costing us 20 mil, and then u trade him and get nothing of value that has helped us so far this season 20 mil worth of potential production just wasting away
I think it’s a fit issue. Do you really believe he’s regressed that much in a year because of the shoulder? Luc has always been a guy who sucks in the wrong system
Considering his shoulder was so bummed he couldn’t even hit simple uncontested layups, I would say that it is a realistic possibility. Have you ever had a shoulder injury?
I agree with you. But if u listen to Morey’s past interviews, he explicitly talks about how he pretty much doesn’t value picks for using the picks themselves. Only as trade assets. Therein is the problem. Because if we only deal in FAs, there is already a “premium” price to be paid for that model. Couple that with Morey’s generousity for superstars and it’s easy to see how out of balanced and how over paid and over budget a whole roster can become. Cultivating young talent is as much a skill in roster management as it is financial management.
Well if you trade away all your 1sts, then you kind of do need to hit on your 2nd's. The team is old and unathletic, they dont have any young talent to step as the older guys get worse every year.
I have issues with both my shoulders, so I am keenly aware of what a shoulder injury can do. I also have a medical degree, so I know with some confidence that (having spoken to an orthopedist myself about a similar issue) - these injuries can generally be repaired such that athletes return at a high level. So I am not ignorant regarding what is going on with Luc, although I am also not perfectly aware because I do not know exact details. He was a mess last postseason. He needed surgery. I don't think he got it this offseason? With surgery and proper recovery, he should be able to return to his old form. And, that doesn't really affect his defensive abilities - which are the main reason we need him. So to answer your question, yes I have shoulder injuries, and it is not exactly relevant to whether we should have kept Luc at the MLE.
Where? giving up 4 first round for a rental Butler could be a huge mistake, but it was avoided by another good luck
Hitting on your 2nd's isn't something you can just do, there's no pattern to it. It's not about being good at scouting or player evaluation or anything. Most (what, like 95%,99%?) of the good players have been taken, and you're trying to find a diamond in the rough. That's why a ton of smart and good scouting GMs let Isaiah Thomas drop to 60th for example as well as many others. Hitting on late 2nds is all about getting lucky, so the problem then would be trading the 1st's, not the inability to hit on late 2nd round picks. Late 2nd round picks have the same chance of being NBA contributors as the guys who went undrafted. The best case scenario with late 2nd round picks is that you will miss on most of them, there's no team or GM that doesn't have this issue. Even late 1st and early 2nd pjcks are not guaranteed contributing players even for the best drafting teams.
In that case, you should be aware that shoulder dislocation injuries are likely to reoccur. In fact, it did reoccur for LMM. Try asking yourself this based on LMM’s current performance and our decision to go with MCW: what is more likely, Morey deciding that an integral, completely healthy defender at all 5 spots who can hit a three wasn’t worth retaining over MCW or our much more informed staff decided he wasn’t worth shelling out $3-4M with the type and degree of injury sustained?
Other: -Trading draft selection (Nicolas Batum) for Joey Dorsey instead of drafting DeAndre Jordan (or keeping Batum). - Signing Dwight Howard - Letting Goran Dragic walk and picking up Jeremy Lin instead for effectively the same amount - Siding with Kevin McHale over Kyle Lowry - Drafting Marcus Morris over Kawhi Leonard Edit 1: - Giving up too much for CP3 (Montrezl Harrell) These aren’t “hindsight is 20/20” mistakes. I was opposed to pretty much all these decisions, except maybe for Jeremy Lin because I was hyped about Linsanity at the time of the signing.
Chris Paul contract spells disaster for long-term! It's cancer contract, and can't be recovered. Ariza and Luc walk spells disaster for 3 years. Ryan Anderson contract spells disaster for 2 more years.
If Chris Paul has 16th injury in 2020, you can trade him and four future first-round draft picks for an expiring contract. four future first-round draft picks 2021 2023 2025 2027 Rockets have to "rebuild the team" from 2028 to 2038.
Luc has been in the Clippers system before. He isn’t 100% or close to it.... which helps explain why he left the Rockets over such a relatively minor amount of money. He went after every penny he could get.
