John Wall trade talk is just silly. The only type of expensive PG we might trade for is a George Hill type.
Any trade talk involving any remotely expensive PG is crazy, if you're not at the same time moving out one of the three guards. The fact of the matter is that you can't invest $90+ million in your guard rotation without having serious deficiencies in other areas of the game. Which would be part of the reason you might consider trading CP3 anyway. He's being paid to be healthy and produce. He has the 2nd highest salary in the league (tied with Westbrook and Lebron). He's already missed 20%+ of the season to date. His numbers are down pretty much across the board. The last game was one of the worst of his career. Definitely his worst as a Rocket. If you have to invest even more meaningful money at the guard position to soften the "burden" that might be keeping CP3 healthy, and in top shape and performance... that's a problematic sign.
It’s problematic, no doubt, but it is what it is. We paid him and he’s here to stay. The bright side is this team’s ceiling with a healthy CP3 is contender level. That’s good enough for DM to keep the Harden/CP3/CC core intact for at least one more year. I agree you can’t overspend in the backcourt. You’ll neglect other areas, and right now we have several. But if the opportunity to flip Knight for a George Hill type comes along, I think you have to do that. I’d prefer to try to flip BK for James Johnson to get some Tucker insurance (we’re running him into the ground), but beggars can’t be choosers. Either way, we’re too thin and BK is making too much money to contribute nothing. I’d imagine DM is working hard to correct this issue.
It's pretty annoying to see yet another expensive signing in the Morey era of a player that's just got too much mileage to actually stay healthy and on the court. I don't know what you do. Seems like the Rockets have gotten themself into an overall salary cluster**** that's going to last for years and long outlast Morey's tenure.
I mean there's only 96 guard minutes. You can move Harden to SF, and maybe you should experiment with that a bit, but offensively he's clearly a guard, and I'm not sure how having Hill/CP3/Harden or Hill/Gordon/Harden is a ton of a better lineup. Hill's usage and performance was pretty much down across the board in his time with the Cavs last year... which isn't unexpected now playing next to Lebron at SF, but it'd be similar in Houston, imo. He'd be solid injury insurance - more so than Knight - and if you can't get anything else, I'm not opposed. They desperately need long 3&D wing and defensive, rebounding bigs, so would target that first. I'm reading on Spotrac that Hill's contract is only $1 million guaranteed next year if waived before 7/2/19. I like that aspect of this "asset" as much / more than just adding him as a player. You'd have $18 million contract you could trade to a team looking to reduce salary immediately by trading potentially the type of 3&D type role player that they are otherwise overpaying that would work on the Rockets. Not sure why the Cavs would trade that for Knight then, as he still has $15.6 million guaranteed for next year? For a second round pick??
