James is only 29, his game should age gracefully as Paul's, so I'm seeing a 3 year window at the minimum.
We’re not going to give up unreasonable assets, to break up this team, to get Jimmy Butler. But we would love to have him.” “You can be the headline if you want to be the headline,” he says. “But the deal has to make sense.” "We are not going to include PJ Tucker in a trade package for Jimmy Butler."
These are excellent and important points. Important context. You can bet Morey could present a handful of avenues to Tilman on rebuilding. And it would be conducted with much better optics than what the 76ers did. It is clear that Tilman trusts his management group. So, if they are all aligned and have trust, I am sure the process would good well.
The celtics "anti tanking" approach only worked because they DID choose to rebuild and got an insane package from the nets . They chose to move on from their old stars and ended up getting two top 3 picks because of it . If Tillman expect Morey to conduct a fleecing like that , he better hope there are still some shitty GM's around . The celtics haven't won anything yet . How does their roster look if they don't have Tatum and Brown . What about Smart ? He was a #6 pick by BOS . They may not have purposely sucked that year ..., but they did only win 20 something games
Rockets are 3rd behind the Texans and Astros in this city...I think the lack of support for the team would reach ridiculous levels Rockets tank and it’s 12,000 ppl in the arena, no national exposure, and no one caring about the team at all...I think the team will become totally irrelevant in this city I’m not saying Tilman will refuse it, but it is something to think about
Rockets, then. The point is 76ers are not a poster child, yet. Anyhoot, I hate these tanking conversations. Too circular, and dependent on semantics. I shouldn’t have spoken. My point was Tilman answered the question using the better example — the Astros — and we got his answer.
Aside from tanking....there is the FA route. Like Tilman said. In 4 years Harden/CP come off the books. They will have Harden's bird rights and he will still be a solid player at, what, 33? (CP's age now). If the team is competitive (likely) then they will be a good FA destination. I am sure that is PLAN A for Tilman. Plan B might be tanking....but cross that bridge if you come to it.
A whole lot can change in 4 years. Only one Rockets player is still on the team from 4 years ago.... only two players from 3 years ago.....only 4 players from the team less than two years ago. There is a lot of turnover and things change quickly in the NBA....... there is likely a 15-20% chance that Harden isn't even an all star level player in 3 seasons because of so many unknowns.
@heypartner not sure if this question is in your wheelhouse, but can someone explain to me how this isn't tampering on the part of Tilman? Directly mentioning a player that's under contract with another team, by name, as a potential trade target seems like the definition of tampering, no?
Morey has shown that going from Yao/T-Mac to Harden/CP3 tanking is not necessary. Are there mediocre years? For sure. Are there years where you know this team doesn't have a chance? Definitely, but as long as Morey is at the helm I think this team won't have to tank. You don't have to go 0-82 for a couple of seasons to win. In fact, entering into tanking doesn't always work out either. Cleveland had how many number one draft picks? It wasn't until LeBron decided to come back that Cleveland got its groove on. You could argue Kyrie was/is up-trending, but people were debating at the time of his extension if he was even worth a max deal. Since leaving the Cavs, we have yet to see any major proof Kyrie is a feature player on his own (admittedly due to injury, but whatever). Again, there are a ton of what-ifs in this, and I get that. I feel like Morey has positioned this team to weather the storm. A lot of our deals are trade-able, and we still maintain a decent amount of our assets. Kudos.
Good point. Yes, that qualifies as tampering, and we should note that Morey refused to mention Butler by name on Media day, and to date -- as well as never mentioning Melo. fwiw. He should have replaced 'Butler" with "All-Stars" or "Team USA players." That said, like many crimes/laws, tampering requires a team to lodge a complaint. And then, even still, I suppose Fertitta can claim some comments were off-the-record, and the writer broke his promise.
The owner is a rookie and it shows. Silver will call and give a warning he may also be slapped with a fine and he will learn.
Better than "I wish my owner moves our only championship trophies to Florida and have his face all over the arena like he did anything but inherit a legendary team"
That was a long ass read but a good one. So glad less sold the team. I was in denial for a long time of what a good owner was and now, I have seen the light.
