Lot's of strong opinions floating around the board about this Butler situation. Here's a simple question, who would you be willing to part with to land us Butler?
Any two of capela gordon and tucker,honestly wen rockets land butler the biggest problem for.us will be depth bcuz of cp3 contract.Even though i was the first to advocate rockets trade capela id rather have him over pj and gordon bcuz hes the youngest and warriors will be weak in which draymond is his kryptonite but they are now beatable even with capela,pj is.old and will begin to decline and gordon will want more.money wen his time is up.
Any 2 out of 3 of Capela, Gordon, Tucker. I'd try to keep Tucker out of it using picks. I'd give up Paul and 2-3 picks for sure, even if it meant paying Butler $40m a year instead of paying Paul that amount. If I ignore salary matching, I'd also give up Paul and any one of those 3 role players. A core of Harden-Butler has a significantly longer window and that's extremely important. Even if it would not improve us immediately, it would certainly improve our 3-year projection. Don't be emotional over role players we love. In case you haven't noticed from the litany of shitty and cynical Rockets fans on this board, getting a top 15 player is not common at all in the NBA. You don't F with that. Look what a declining Paul did for us in his first season here, we were up 3-2 on Durant's Warriors when he played. Harden, Butler, Paul and the organization's interest in implementing better ball movement is a match made in heaven. Paul and Butler would champion a defensive culture, and Butler is allegedly as clutch as they come which is something we've been lacking.
Better poll would be: Which of these 3 would you rather keep? Gordon Capela Tucker My vote would be for Capela.
Capela + Gordon + Nene(filler) at the most. I really want Butler, but honestly it might be the riskiest move Morey would ever pull off. Depth would absolutely be terrible. Part of me might want to go the super safe route and just sign two really good forwards to give PJ some help at the 3/4. Paul/Harden/Butler/Tucker is really good, but it's going to be REALLY hard to fill out the remaining six rotation spots with so little resources. Paul/Harden/Gordon/Tucker/Capela is also really good, and it will be much easier to fill out the remaining four rotation spots with a bit more resources. I read that something like 40% of NBA players are becoming free agents, so it's possible we can get some good 7th and 8th men but still though.
Opt in + Gordon + Nene + pick If they call right now, I'll throw in Gary Clark & Isaiah Hartenstein for free! Operator Daryl Morey is standing by.
Ideally … I think you send out CP3 in exchange for Butler but I don't at all believe that's happening. It has to be Capela and EG to make the money work and satisfy the hard cap and fill out the roster. I do that assuming Morey has a suitable Capela replacement via FA on the cheap.
Idealy CP3 for Butler swap. Gordon is infuriating but when it comes playoff time vs good teams he is usually our second best guy. Capela could still be ok but this is second time versus the Warriors he was Dreymongs B. Ideally what would happen is we move Capela in a 3 team trade for a team that need Capela and they can give Philly something.
It's nice to speculate and all, but this potential deal is like a hail mary pass. We don't even for sure if Jimmy wants to be here. And if he does we have to get the 76ers to play ball.
