I'd trade for Anthony Tolliver now...Chriss plus a 2nd round pick might get it done. Tolliver has about 7 DNPs in a row since Butler was traded...and it's pretty clear he's not in their current plans, and at 33 is too old for their youth movement. Might as well bring him over to the geriatric Rockets. He would be 2nd unit player for us.
Here lies the damn answer and I don't know why everyone can't see this. Why the F did we literally trade 5 first round picks (Sam Dekker was a 1st rounder, Bev was worth a 1st, Montrezl is now worth a 1st, Lou Williams was traded to us for our 1st, then on top of that trade a future 2018 1st ((who ended up being Omari Spellman PF picked by Atlanta who is probably the best backup PF on our roster currently)) for CP3 when we really didn't have to? These weren't "THROW-IN" players like how everyone suggested/assumed. Hell look at what Miami Heat paid to get LeBron sign-and-traded in his damn PRIME? It wasn't even close to this debacle of a trade. To compound things further, we then pay an aging 33 yr old CP3 $40 million per year for 4 years! This literally could end up being a Ryan Anderson x2 v2.0 contract if he gets injured for the season. This is how you single-handedly ruin dynasty championship teams by having no depth. You also end up missing out on future trades by having no one on your roster worth anything besides the crap you find in the G-League.
This BS about the Rockets deciding not to re-sign Trevor is annoying. Here are the two reasons why it's total BS: 1. Trevor changed agents about six months before the FA signing period and that agent said they wanted "$50-60 million over 4-5 seasons." So unless you really wanted him enough to offer an extension overpaying him that much, you're left with letting him test the market. Once he sees what he can get, you decide whether you want to make a better offer. 2. The Suns called Trevor exactly 1 minute after the signing period began, Facetiming him and offering $15M. Trevor accepted right away and the deal was done. Morey never had an opportunity to say, "Yeah, he's worth $15M for one year since we're so close to winning it all." The only option Morey ever had in his control was a giant multi-year extension -- for an already-old role player. Talk all you want about how much we miss Ariza, but the fact is he bailed on us, not vice-versa. And for that, I say f%$k him.
Easiest Fix currently is respecting every opponent/game. After that, Gordon can start shooting a somewhat acceptable percentage.
If I was Morey Trading for Teosdic/Bringing in Anthony Randolph and trading for J.R. Smith would be what I would try to do. If I couldn't get Randolph, then maybe getting Hernangomez from Charlotte wouldn't cost too much. Another guy to look at would be Vince Carter. But I think Morey is holding onto his cards looking to make a bigger move.
And there will be many people who say Tillman needs to pay more. What ever happened to Isaiah Thomas? Is he injured? Sign him for vet min?
No he is suppose to pay Ariza MAX. According to some people's logic Tilman needs to have a roster more expensive than every other team combined.
The loss of Anderson, Mbah a Moute, and Ariza are big regular season losses, as evidenced by our current record. In hindsight, it looks like some of our regular season success was based on guys that didn't our couldn't impact the playoffs. Last year we were able to rack up a lot of regular season wins with our shooting, which we don't have at all right now. I absolutely don't believe our playoff performance will be reflective of what we're seeing now from a performance standpoint or a roster standpoint. 1) We need to get some shooting on the floor to pad the regular season win total, and get home court advantage. I don't care if the shooters make it on the playoff roster or not. Play anyone that can light it up - D-league, overseas, whatever. Bench Green if he can't hit anything. Reduce Gordon's minutes until he starts producing again. Maybe something good will come out of the experimentation. It's a long way until the playoffs, so we shouldn't worry about honing the playoff roster yet. One-dimensionsal shooters please!!? 2) For the playoffs, we have 6 reliable guys right now and we need 8+ for the Warriors series. The 6 includes the starters and Gordon - I think we live and die with Gordon because of his upside and the fact we won't replace him with anything better. Green was worthy last year, and I think we should assume will be this year as well - he had a lot of plays that were based purely on effort that won't show up until the playoffs. Nene will help in the playoffs, but not against the Warriors. Hartenstein seems like a huge longshot to play against GS, but maybe he could contribute a few minutes if he can defend Durant. Will Brandon Knight or Gary Clark be in that 8 man rotation? It seems like we're short at least one man for the Warriors series... we need a backup PG that can put in minutes in that series, and it would be great to have a 3 and D guy. I don't know if Clark can handle that. Also, in case anyone forgot, we signed Melo to provide instant offense against the Warriors when the offense stalled in playoff game fourth quarters.... essentially a response to Durant's one-on-one offense against us. We DID NOT sign him to replace Ryan Anderson despite everyone's insistence. Ryan Anderson didn't even play during the playoffs, so WTF would we be "replacing". He didn't give us anything at all, so there was nothing to replace. We definitely DON'T have that one-on-one skill right now, and we just let go of Melo, who was our only possibility. Either of the previously mentioned roles could include that skill, and it DOES NOT have to be a superstar. Remember Aaron Brooks?? The guy was lightning fast and unstoppable offensively in the playoffs against the Lakers. All you need is a Warrior-killer.
Nothing can be fixed right now because of our player salaries....NOTHING. CP3 wasn't going to take a pay cut after last year (and this being his final NBA payday), Harden is on a mega-contract, and we swapped the bloated contract of an underperforming player for that of a physically unable to perform player. Hell, even if I was as filthy rich as Fertitta, I wouldn't go that far into luxury tax hell to keep Trevor and Luc. This is a business first and foremost. Yes, yes, I know the notion exists that "good owners pay the luxury tax to win championships", but everything has a limit, and that includes the amount of luxury tax owners are willing to pay. This sucks. This sucks HARD. After the season we had last year, this year has been such a kick in the crotch. I'll hold onto hope that Morey can somehow work some magic and get us some serviceable 3&D players/backup bigs (IDK enough about salary cap nuances to provide any examples of how in hell this would even work) and that maybe Trevor will get bought out and come back and that Knight will come back and be at least 75% of what he used to be. Until then, I guess we shall have to suffer together my Clutchfans brethren and take solace in the fact that the Texans are the hottest team in the NFL.
It's true. This team is giving playoff level intensity to win medium-difficulty regular season games. It's not sustainable. Harden, Capela, Tucker and usually Gordon are worth their contracts. CP3 was worth $35m last regular season and $40m in the playoffs. Any other year, this would be fine. I have no doubt we can beat any team other than the Warriors in the playoffs just by swapping Knight/Pick for a forward, or picking up a buyout guy. The problem is that the Warriors players care more about winning and less about money than our players. In fact, every single player on their roster except (arguably) Iguodala is underpaid. It's very important to make the distinction: they are UNDERpaid, rather than adequately paid. On our roster, we have many appropriately paid players and a couple of overpaid players. That stuff matters. That stuff adds up to $10m of breathing room with luxury tax. CP3 went with pride and ego on this. Those are the things that made him a Point God, and those are the things that made him hamstring his team. CP3 should have taken a $8m pay cut if he wanted a real window. Morey should take responsibility for the fact that he signed Ryno to $20m, which has now slightly minimized in the form of Knight taking up $15m (not to mention costing us a minor prospect in Melton). I feel like he is trying to prove that he can fix his screw up, but he doesn't realize that waiting for an opportunity like that to arise is eating into our fast-closing window. He needs to cash in future picks and turn Knight into 2 rotation players. Then he and Tilman can sit around and talk about how trading those future picks is the cost of Morey's Ryno mistake. But this team shouldn't be suffering right now, and for ONCE it is not the time for patience. This conference will step on our throat if we let it.
Can't blame the organization for giving in to CP3's greed and retaining him over the players who left in free agency. It's not good PR to get into a low-balling contest with a player of CP3's status in the league after he poured out his heart and soul for your team. Fertitta and Morey must consider the big picture and long-term impact this signing has on future free agent signings...even if it shuts our championship window now, as painful as it is for us as fans. I would have done the same thing in Morey's shoes: give CP3 the money he wanted and gamble on replacing Luc and Trevor's production from the trash heap. Morey had only options A and B. There was no C.
either way cp3 was still too greedy howbout instead of 160m cp3 compromised at 140m? thats definitely not a "low-ball" offer or maybe some of that extra 20m went to melo's pocket hehe
