Truth is this team would've beat them without Durant. Until he leaves it doesnt matter what team you put together.
Rockets already beat them last season WCF with fair officiating... even without CP3 for last two games. This year's Rockets team is no where close to last year's team..last year Rockets won 65 games for nothing... at one point last year they had the best offensive ratings off all time when Rockets were starting CP3/Harden/Ariza/Anderson/Capela and from bench Gordon/Nene/Tucker/Mabuote/Green.
Pretty sure we'll try to get another star...Butler (especially) and Beal are the names i would keep an eye on, but also Davis, cause even though it's the most unrealistic, i expect the Rockets to up their risk profile, be super aggressive and put everything on the table this summer. At this point i wouldn't be shocked if we end up moving Capela, especially if we can somehow sign DeAndre to replace him. The problem with DJ is that as today, assuming we would be a taxpayer team, we could only offer him a contract around 6M per season, that's probably too cheap...i wonder if in a scenario where we dump Capela and Gordon along with Nene (around 35M) by taking back Butler and a rookie scale contract or just pick/s (20/25M), we would be able to operate as a non taxpayer team, cause if that's possible we could offer DeAndre a contract around 10M which should be closer to his market value. Like: - opt in trade for Butler (Gordon and Nene to Philly) - trade Capela for assets, maybe even in a 3-way trade where you take back a young prospect on a cheap contract like, i don't know, Jaylen Brown (Codman mentioned him multiple times as a Rockets target) and/or a pick/s. In a similar scenario we would end up with something like this: DeAndre/Hartenstein Tucker/Clark Butler/Brown Harden/Green Paul/Frazier Plus maybe one or two guys between Rivers (unlikely imo), Faried, House will stay for a minimum contract too in the end. Random ideas aside, one thing i would really like is to see the roster get somehow younger and more athletic, sometimes i really feel like this team gets overwhelmed too easily in terms of physicality and athleticism...Capela lack some strenght, Harden is not exactly explosive and reactive, Chris has always been a little pest but he's getting older and he's clearly losing some of that energy, PJ is still a freaking beast but he's getting older too...i really feel like we need to add some athleticism to the roster, and fwiw i really like our young players so, i wouldn't be mad to bet hard on them for the next season.
Convince Jimmy Butler to opt-in and then trade for him like they did with Chris Paul - move Eric Gordon and Nene plus a pick.
We need a real big that can’t get boxed out by Klay Thompson Would help to have ariza out there playing d and getting rebounds
Y'all so eager to move eric Gordon our 2nd best player in the off season. I would rather move Cp3 and take back two good players who are slightly overpaid.
As someone who liked the MDA signing, he still has to prove that he is a successful playoff head coach. My buddy from work who is pretty knowledgeable about BB opined that the Rockets will never win a championship under MDA, and history so far bears that out. The deficiencies you speak about like lack of focus, that's on the coaches to prepare them to succeed. Big fail so far because the first 2 games ain't close to the type of bb our team is capable of playing.
We need to build our depth. Teams play about 7 guys once playoffs start and they have to be good. That’s why Golden State has had this run. Their top 7 is the best in the league. Benches don’t matter like everyone says. It’s all about the rotation and how well those 7 players can play consistently. Realistically we have a really solid 1-4 and then a pretty below average 5-7.
