Houston acquires Carmelo Anthony & Dwyane Wade New York acquires Ryan Anderson, Trevor Ariza, Clint Capela Chicago acquires Eric Gordon and Houston's non-guaranteed contracts (Quarterman, Long, Taylor, Johnson) PG: Paul / Brown SG: Harden / Wade SF: Anthony / Williams PF: Tucker / Mbah a Moute C: Nene / Black / Onuaku Bench: Jackson, Qi, Oliver, Hartenstein New York gets Capela and an expiring contract in Ariza who can be flipped for a pick to someone else, but they have to take back Anderson if they want those assets. Chicago saves a bunch of money in the short term and can flip Gordon to a playoff team for a pick. Then, when you get to the summer of '18, Anthony opts out and Paul, Wade, Mbah a Moute, and Black expire, giving the Rockets a massive amount of cap space to split evenly between Anthony, Paul, Wade, and... LeBron: PG: Paul / Brown SG: Harden / Wade SF: Anthony / Williams PF: James / Tucker C: Nene / Onuaku Bench: Qi, Oliver, Hartenstein, 2nd round pick Admittedly you are thin at center, but among Onuaku, Qi, and Hartenstein at least one of them should develop into a reliable option. If you stay the course, you'll have to continue on with Anderson's contract, you'll lose Ariza to free agency, you'll have to continue to worry about Gordon's injury risk, you'll have to max out Capela and Paul with zero flexibility in the future, and you still won't be as good as the Warriors. Even with everyone getting older, the banana boat + Harden has the best chance of beating Golden State. So yeah, it's time to let Clint go if you can attach Anderson's contract to him and get in the best position of anyone to sign LeBron.
This only works if you get Lebron. We're better THIS YEAR with Ariza/Anderson/Gordon/Capela than we are with Wade/Melo. Wade isn't all that necessary in our offense with Harden and CP. He would just be taking ball handling posessions away from more capable playmakers since he can't spot up for 3s.
Of all the people on the boat, Wade is the least helpful at this point for sure. But come on! Having Harden, Paul, and LeBron on the same team? You don't need that much from Melo and Wade. You're basically Team USA, and Morey has said that the best way to win a championship is to have as many Team USA guys as possible.
Don't like it. You are risking too much for the small, tiny chance that maybe we might get LeBron next year
I'm happy with our rotation with Capela. I should have clarified I meant if Capela gets traded then that's a big workload to put on nene and black
Black & Nene are more than capable. Capela has Harden and system numbers all over him. Black signed a one year deal because his statistics are about to get crazy and he is going to get PAID.
