I'm talking about that gap between the start of FA and training camp. Lots of hand-wringing, consternation and sky-is-falling threads plague the GARM while we wait for team activities to begin. It's the dog days of summer, which are only broken up (a bit) by SL, which at least gives us something else to talk about besides Morey, ownership and media conspiracies. I know it's part of the organic nature of the GARM but it's still tough to consume and probably why I don't spend much time here during this time.
The buyout market this year looks to be poor. 1) Not a lot of old vets on bad teams 2) The Lakers will be a buyout MAGNET and will get all the premiums. I would not feel *confident* that we will have our *pick of the buyout guys* this year. Rockets have to be aggressive early and not wait around and hope. @Clutch and I workshopped this out a bit. Here are some potential buyout names. some good LOLs. Evan Turner Allen Crabbe Bismack Biyombo Marvin Williams Andre Iguodala Chandler Parsons Avery Bradley Jae Crowder Ryan Anderson Jeff Teague Timofey Mozgov Dwight Howard cc @The Cat @justtxyank @heypartner @Nook
I agree with you, but I'm not a sky is falling poster is all I'm saying. Last summer was the first time I was alarmed, and this time I'm just tired of sounding the same alarm. We've improved nothing and lost some things since we took the Warriors to 7. If there's any purpose in having a discussion board, what's going on now is worthy. The other thing is our SL team is not very exciting to me this time around. Arguably one of the worst in the league, which I guess is fine given we are contending.
yeah so then that's on MDA and he can play good players or not get his contract renewed. and there WERE good players available for the full MLE but we passed on them to resign house. granted house is worth his contract but there were better guys out there, even if they are more expensive, we had the funds to pay them! at this point there are still good players well worth the remaining $5.7 (JaMychal, Markieff, Justin Holiday...) who would actually help win some games and go for the 1 seed again. I think the rockets must surround James with talent and depth now. we've waited long enough on finding a second star to pair him with. he doesn't need one. he needs talent worth more than the minimum, and locked in more than 1 year so that the whole team really commits. however morey/tilman are probably calling it an offseason unless they can get a couple of steals for the minimum. they may resign shumpert to a large 1 year deal and say oh look we'll try to trade him at the deadline. great, so more than halfway through the season we might, maybe, if we're lucky, get some depth through buyouts, or trade which will cost us a pick. we all need to be willing to say "keeping options open" is not acceptable anymore. James is 30. pick a friggin option and shoot your best shot. enough flexibility, its a constant waiting game, and then one day James will be 33 or 34 and we'll have lots of options for that cap space too and none the flexibility or options ever amounted to anything. its nonsense.
The hard cap is at about $138MM right? How are the Rockets going to get close to that even if they use their exceptions? The only way I see them approaching that is through a trade for a bigger contract and not using the exceptions in the hopes of that doesn't sound like a good plan to me.
trading Paul brings back less talent since his contract is a negative so he is here for good. for better or worse. till retirement does us part. Paul and tucker will regress. so we need more depth to lower their minutes. not minimum value players. if ego/tucker/capela need to be traded lets do it now, and if we can't lets plan to win with them by adding depth. there is no reason to not spend the rest of the MLE and BAE if you're serious about winning instead of saving money. what I don't want to hear morey say is lets wait until the deadline to get a good team. that's more than half the season wasted with no depth. ok so lets hope to trade Shumpert's expiring deal and hope to land a good buyout player. and maybe it doesn't happen. and if we do sign shumpert to a large deal and trade him at the deadline we have to spend a pick to get a good player back when we could sign one now and keep out pick. you want flexibility? get a few first round picks on the roster who are severely underpaid and extremely cap friendly/tradable. why trade them half way through the season? why hope for depth at the deadline instead of signing good players now and winning from day 1? I just think we should all be mad at this perpetual "keeping options open" idea without ever actually choosing an option and going all in! James is 30, no time to wait.
I would be truly, honestly, genuinely surprised if we hard-capped ourselves / go over the tax and be all in. It just won't happen.
I’m in favor of saving 1 exception that gives us more than the minimum to offer for buyout guys during the season. Whether it’s use the rest of the mle and save the bi annual or the other way around. I think what we have, with 1 more preseason addition, plus hopeful reliability out of at least one of Hart and Clark is plenty to go into the season with. Worth the risk to wait for someone who could be a big difference maker in the playoffs.
I have no major problem with your opinions, but this line stuck out to me. If you play around with trading these three on one of the trade simulators you quickly realize how much salary this is. Not only to trade out, but also to take in. In order to get salary to match you really have to tear a team up. You can take on the John Wall contract's of the world, but what's the point.
that's the point. morey is forever keeping options open to trade for another superstar. how about just trying to win now? this starting 5 is good enough if it only had a damn bench. stop trying to save money and keep flexibility to trade for the next star and start trying to win with the one you have. you wanna know why no one is signing with us? its one of 3 reasons and they all suck. 1) tilman doesn't want to spend the money. 2) morey wants to keep options open and hope for a bigger trade half way through the season 3) players are on to Morey's "options" operation and don't want to be flipped the second a star becomes available. they see what happened to ego all last summer and clint all this summer, and they think to themselves, that's gonna be me. after winning 65 games, Paul, clint, ego, and tucker's names shouldn't have come up in trades at all. show some loyalty. you dance with the girl that brought you to the club. that's what attractive to free agents. all we needed last year was to spend the MLE to replace ariza. although I would've preferred to match his 1yr/$15M, I understand if the tax on that was too high, but at least replace him so 6'4 ego doesn't have to start at SF. pay the tax last year and we win 4 more games, finish 1st seed, don't play the warriors until the WCF when they're all injured, and we probably win since we lost to a fully healthy GSW team by 6 points or less each game. the key to winning is to build depth around the one star you're getting. the key to building depth is to attract FAs. the key to attracting free agents is to show loyalty to the team that almost knocked off a healthy warriors team 2 years in a row. our big 5 should be golden here. give ego the extension he wants he was our second best player all playoffs. and bring in some guys that can actually lower their minutes.
These dumb****s don’t realize that “stars” didn’t get them 65 wins. It was harden talent and Paul’s leadership with role players
Dude, the cap is a real thing. If BimaThug was complaining like this I’d listen because I’d know that knowledge and thought would be spewed congruently but this comes off as utter nonsense. For some reason my ‘thought’ tells me that signing Luc and Trevor for 20 mil would’ve killed any idea of getting the Houses, Manimals, Imans and Riverszes out there.
and that's all we need. DEPTH! stop trying to trade our big 5. if an opportunity happens to come along, like if the wizards called and said do you want beal for ego, NG contracts and a couple picks... ok fine... but stop SHOPPING ego, clint, tucker. they won 65 games and almost beat a fully healthy best team of all time, twice! show some respect for our guys. it might even raise their value around the league if it looked like we wanted to keep them!
Maybe, maybe not. You ASSUME that's all we need because based on your posting, it fits your bias. That's fine, but I think "depth" is a bit curious since if MDA doesn't play you, it's all for naught. And they also keep losing to the GSW. It's not a simple fix. Morey actually brings the band back together (the same team the was on pace +60 wins last year) and it's never enough.