But the Rockets love Cousins. Tried hard to trade up the draft to get him. You may feel that's the wrong player to go for, but their player evaluation system obviously put Cousins as a better choice going forward.
Awesome post by the OP. I'm on the side of letting our young PF prospects develop. I'm pretty excited about the potential in these guys. Unlikely that all of them pan out, but I would think the odds are that a couple of these guys turn out. Also, I just don't like the idea of devoting that much money to an undersized player.
Couldn't disagree more. The Rockets have very little to offer Kings if Cousins became available (at least in terms of what other teams would be offering). Over half the league would be making offers for him and I just can't see a combo of Parsons, Jones, Donuts, and Morris will be even close to the other offers coming in. Don't forget we owe our first non-lottery draft pick to Atlanta which means we can't even trade draft picks until that one is conveyed.
I'm okay with signing Millsap as long as people/the FO don't assume it's the big move we need to make. We're only a lower-level playoff team with him. If we pick him up (at a reasonable price) we need to go after a high-level PG as the major followup move.
I think after 7 years Milsap has already shown what his is all about. Like a lot have said he is a good player but not one that is going to make a big difference. I would like to see how Dmo performs when they bring him up later in the year. I think his offense is already at least good enough to play but I'm assuming his d and rebounding are the reason he is working on his game in the valley.
We're only a low level playoff team with Millsap THIS YEAR. If we continue to let the young guys develop and grow their chemistry, and Harden gets better and better... who knows? Maybe next year, or the year after, we're legit championship contenders.
While Millsap is an obvious improvement, he does not make us a championship contender. I say NO to Millsap especially considering the type of money he will demand. We need an elite PF in order to compete for a championship not an above average player like Mr.Millsap. For those of you saying where do we find that elite player.....need I remind you we were able to attain Harden and trades go down all the time. It may take a year or two but i'd rather wait than settle.
The notion that Paul Millsap is not a star is, quite frankly, idiotic, and completely dismissive of advanced statistics, which a) the very clever Rockets front office pay very close attention to and b) suggest that Millsap is one of the premier big men in the NBA. I think it is fairly obvious that Morey would like to get Millsap. Take a look at the boxscore in the recent Rockets-Jazz ballgame. What we saw there is the Rockets auditioning the three young power forwards (Patrick Patterson, Marcus Morris, and Terrence Jones) that would be made available to the Jazz in a pre-deadline trade. Compare the minutes allocated to these three power forwards in this game to that of other games. Teams do this fairly often. It should also be completely obvious at this point that Morey is done with this approach of accumulating cap space and attempting to sign a top free agent, or to use this cap space to acquire a star. This approach has been completely unsuccessful over the past few seasons, and was spectacularly unsuccessful this past summer when Houston went all in with Dwight Howard and failed. My projected pre-deadline Millsap-to-Houston trade has for the past several weeks been something along these lines: To HOU Paul Millsap DeMarre Carroll (expiring contract) Jamaal Tinsley (expiring contract) To UTA Patrick Patterson Daequan Cook (expiring contract) Terrence Jones or Marcus Morris Royce White Patterson is clearly nothing special, although Utah may view Jones or Morris as a decent young, cheap big with upside, and surely there are any number of teams that would take a flyer on the extremely talented White. Since Millsap is such an undervalued player, many teams are not going to view him as being the near-max player that he most definitely is, and are not going to want to give up solid assets only to lose out in a bidding war this summer to an aggressive team with cap space. I think the above trade offer would be about the best offer Utah is going to get for Millsap. The only question, for me, is this: Does Utah recognize that Millsap deserves a near-max deal and do they want to simply keep him for themselves? The Jazz very obviously cannot afford to re-sign both Millsap and Al Jefferson (both unrestricted free agents in the summer of 2013) to large extensions, and have two young bigs in Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter who were very high lottery picks in the recent past. It appears to me that Utah will trade either Millsap or Jefferson for a package that brings back at least one good young big on a rookie contract, re-sign the guy they don't trade to an extension, and pairs the guy they keep in their starting lineup with Favors, with Kanter and the replacement big (Terrence Jones, for example) coming off the bench. I will also say that almost all Rockets fans who are predictably overvaluing their own players and are resistant to trading 2-3 of these young players for Millsap will almost immediately change their tune after the trade is executed and Millsap is putting up big numbers for the Rockets.
Um, what? Up until this summer (when we purged the roster), we didn't have cap space. Morey has been trying to trade for stars, not sign them outright. We got one in Harden, and now we have a desirable destination. That's been the plan all along. Stars join up with other stars. That's how today's NBA works, Morey & Les know this.
One more point that I forgot to make: if Utah decides to trade Millsap and keep/re-sign Jefferson, Houston is going to be one of the teams trying to trade for Millsap in January/February. If Utah decides to trade Jefferson and keep/re-sign Millsap, however, Houston is not going to be in the mix for Jefferson, as he lacks the skill set they desire, is not especially efficient, is not getting any younger, and has quite a bit of wear and tear. All of the reasons why Houston's very clever front office will pass on Jefferson are reasons why Utah's very clever front office may seek to trade Jefferson, although Utah may value Jefferson more than I think they should. Anyway, it will be interesting to see who Utah keeps and who they decide to trade away. This is a very proactive Utah front office, as evidenced by the Deron Williams trade. Look for them to make a deal sooner rather than later, and without any advance notice.
I like Millsap. Good shooter, good on the glass, even shoots the 3. I think Morey wants to hold out for a player that makes him spank his monkey and puts us on tv and makes fans buy tickets. Some of that would happen anyway with winning, which Millsap would help at, and I hope we don't miss the bases-loaded triple while Morey looks for the home run, which would seem the sexier play. Love ain't available. Ditto Aldridge, Cousins, and probably Dwight Howard (but I'm sure Morey has made that phone call to DH12's agent on the sly). And I hope whatever Morey does that we don't give up the wrong personnel. (But since Tjones and Dmo are on the short side of playing time, who would that be?)
I have always liked him but he is the kind of player that you want to add as a third piece, given that he is a big man and will command premium price (translation: whichever team gets him will overpay for him). If you are locked in with Harden and Millsap and a bunch of decent role players, its good enough to get you into playoffs each year and a second round exit or maybe a trip to WCF. IMO, that will be your limit. He is not the kind of guy who you can ride off of in the playoffs. He is better than a very good role player but he is a not someone who can consistently carry a team, even as a second fiddler. Of course, this all assumes you are trying to build a championship contender and not simply a playoff team.
One of the great myths among NBA sportswriters and fans is that great players are going to be willing to leave tens of millions of dollars on the table and sign with a different team. The reality is that there are close to zero examples of great players who sign with a different team. Almost every single one of these dudes ends up getting re-signed. Lebron James and Chris Bosh were exceptions to this rule. James Harden was available only because Oklahoma City understood that it could not afford to keep this core together, and they were proactive. Young stars such as Harden are rarely available. Some of the big names that are being thrown around here--Kevin Love, Lamarcus Aldridge--WILL NOT become available. Their teams will keep them. The best PF who appears to be potentially available is pretty clearly Millsap.
This is the consensus opinion on Millsap, and this opinion is not supported by the evidence (advanced statistics), which support the contrary conclusion, i.e., that Millsap is, in fact, a star. Morey is all about exploiting inefficiencies. I believe that he recognizes that Millsap is grossly undervalued and will be happy to give the guy the near-max deal that people who are dismissive of advanced statistics (pretty much everybody) think that he isn't worth. James Harden is a STAR. And so is Millsap. Houston is a legitimate championship contender, for the next several years, with these two guys IF Jeremy Lin returns to 2011-12 form.
Which is why we continue to play the waiting game. As Morey stated before, we have Harden for at least 6 years and we need to be patient. When trades like the Deron/CP3/Harden deals go down, the teams that ended up with the stars were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Morey will continue to make his own luck by being in the right place at all times.
