Moreys offseason goal:

1st Goal

Dun embarrass yourself with signings like MCW or Not Olympic Melo.

 

How do you add two max players to Harden and Paul? Jimmy Butler is a max player and I'm assuming the big time center would be a max player.

 

You don’t need a big time center to make you a good team, you just need one that can rebound and shoot the 3 which is a plus. Guys like Lopez, Marc Gasol, or DJ who I know can’t shoot but I know he will at least rebound.
You don’t trade Capela for another Capela you trade him for a SF, PF, or G that can penetrate, shoot the 3, and play defense.

 

Man, that summer 2018 is really Morey's worst. What an awful dud in a history of mostly decent moves.

The Faried / Rivers signings had me feeling better about the team, but we never replaced ArIza properly and we had so many liability players and completely neglected the PF position. C'mon, Morey.

 

You lost me when you said the "Lakers"??

 

his goal should simply be to improve the team. That could mean blowing up the team to get a better reconstituted end product. It could mean adding to the existing core of the team that was good enough to be #2 in the west. It could mean swapping out some key pieces for net upgrade. Whatever the case, we need to improve the team as significantly as possible. last off-season we actually took a step backwards. We need to be much better this off-season.

 

Morey is done. The constant of shuffling players is just pure cluelessness. The top 5 franchises are the ones that find, draft, and develops the van vleets, Middleton, Lopez, Covington, Oubre... not the ones that pays top dolla for them. Those are very good valuable players and we get them too. Proof of this is going to be Rivers and House, we are ignoring them while we Chase a 3rd superstar or an old obsession spacing player.

 

VanVleet is the only player from that list that was found, drafted and developed by one team. (and he was found not drafted).

 

I'm not just talking about draft, journeyman too. Raptors proved you don't need 3 allstars and scrubs, go after nice role players + a strong coach.

 

Nurse's coaching has been good. As for their roster, I mean Lowry was an all star and Siakam should have been an all star. Raptors did a great job drafting Siakam and OG and finding FVV for sure.

 

Height and athleticism.

DD

 

Agree with OP. Said it earlier in the season, we are not the only ones who built ourselves to beat the Warriors. Two teams either lucked into or meticulously built it while we were plotting.

It's not some secret potion. You could never compete with the Warriors offensively with Durant - they have elite talent and 3 elite scoring options and they move the ball well and they have great chemistry. The fact that we were in that ball park is a miracle, you can explain it however you like. You can definitely outclass them defensively though. They are a really good defensive time, but not an all-time good defensive team. Bucks were actually an equal or better defensive team than Toronto despite having slightly lesser defensive talent. It's simply a matter of having several long, two-way wings + a smart defensive C and a smart defensive PG. If all of those players can at least hit the 3, then you are contending. Of the last 4 teams standing this season, virtually every single rotation player could hit a 3 or got benched. The trend is insurmountable now. Capela was in red alert territory - he is a 0 from 3pt range and even his FT's allowed teams to take an axe to his points per shot.

Where the Bucks failed is similar to where we failed - there was no plan B for when a team has the tools to limit their primary scorer/creator. Raptors had Gasol in the high post and two perimeter creators in Lowry and to a lesser extent Van Vleet - on top of Kawhi going ISO. Whatever went cold, they had a stress-tested alternative to go to. They may not have a bunch of potent scorers, but they have a variety of ways/dimensions they can attack you and that keeps your offense consistent.

I'm not jealous of anyone's offense to be honest. We're already historically elite at plan A, and just need to put in place a hybrid system where there is a game plan when Harden goes cold that doesn't rely on Paul creating something out of nothing. Harden will go ice cold when overextended, there is no doubt about that. Let's say the coach can convince him to manage his energy better and stay connected to the game when he feels whatever he feels. Then what? What do we do? Are we going to start moving the ball crisply and see players gliding in harmony in the middle of the playoffs when we've never ever done that? No. Is it going to happen with any random collection of talent that happens to be on our roster? No.

It requires better players, better training and more money. All those guys spent more than us, and they don't spend money for the f*ck of it. There is a real correlation between winning titles and spending money. Not everyone who spends money wins, but most of the teams that win titles are spending serious money. In some cases (see:Cavs) it has to be done in total disregard for profit. Luckily this is a very profitable franchise even considering the purchase involved taking on debt. Lucky for Tilman.

 

The key is to have the Warriors have lots of injuries finally. Durant, Klay and Iggy. Our team was good. Raptors are lucky to get them injured. Just didn't replace Ariza's team defense and not enough rebounding.

 

Am I crazy for thinking we could have beaten these Raptors in the Finals? No. No I am not.

The Rockets were already extremely close to beating the Warriors with KD this year. It was a 6 game series where each game was decided by 6 points or less. This is the only time that has ever happened. If Iggy doesn't shoot like Reggie Miller for just 2 of those games, we win. ****, if the ball bounces off EG's butt in a different way at the end of Game 5, we might have won.

I did not think these Raptors were all that special when we played them during the regular season. Playing us, Kawhi would have been forced to guard Harden or they would have been forced to play Danny Green so there wouldn't be any of those Lowry and FVV lineups that have worked so well against the Warriors. Gasol would have been rendered unplayable because we would have iso'd him once they switched the high pick-and-roll. And frankly, PJ can guard the **** out of Kawhi.

The Raptors right now are putting up a nearly identical offensive rating against these Warriors that we did (114 v. 115) except they don't have KD guarding Kawhi and Siakim.

Honestly, even if we #RunItBack, we are still one of the top-2 teams in the league.

 

The Rockets were, at no point at all, one of the Top 2 teams in the league this season. I am not sure why anybody seems to think this. And they certainly are not going to improve after this offseason with no assets or cap space plus another year of aging.

 

Which one of those players did the rockets pay top dollar for? Some of y’all are really funny on this board.

 

Mark jackson?

 

So you're saying that we should try to build a team good enough to beat the best teams in the league?

Good plan