I want LeBron but think we will be right there with GS again if we: - bring everyone back but Anderson - use Anderson's salary for players that can actually contribute in some way - use the MLE wisely Unless Kawhi joins LeBron then I'm not worried about him going to LA. George is overrated IMO. It will be us and GS again, nd the only player really impacted by being 1 year older is CP3. I would expect Harden and Capela to improve as they have every year.
Don't think it's "franchise-crippling" to max cp3. He is/will be a large part of why another star will come here. Capela is the wild card to me. Teams have to know that without Harden and CP3 he will not look as good as he does. So teams that have passers and playmakers like that would be the most interested. If Morey is gonna ship a major piece like Capela out, he is going to want back a major piece. Which might be the very player the teams want to pair with Capela in the first place. He's worth more as far as impact on our team then anywhere else. Same goes for Paul. He showed he fits perfect with this team and taking the entire season as a sample size (injuries included). At this time he is worth the max. I'm all in for resigning everyone and dangling Gordon, Ryno and picks for the next tier player.
Harden averaged 29 and 7 in the playoffs, and he put up 32 in Game 6 and Game 7 vs. Golden State. He had the highest playoff PER (24.9) of his career, Turnovers significantly reduced (5.4 to 3.8). Two of his three series were against the league's best regular season defense (Utah, 101.6 Def Rtg) and playoff defense (GSW, 100.5 Def Rtg). That's supposed to be a negative? Get a grip.
Cybrex I owe you an apology. I just read that one article about golden state and dwight. Sorry my friend.
No worries, we get all this info and we all can confuse it, especially from that long ago. I just wanted to make a point: Everyone assumes I am just saying Lakers everything, but I report the truth, regardless of what it is. I worked in the west coast, so lots of what I hear does come from there. Much Love.
Sure there are definitely teams out there that can, but it is also risky. Paul George will be a good example of that with the trade OKC just made. Oladipo is now an allstar in Indiana (some will argue it's because he was able to unleash his potential having his own team) and if George decides to walk to LA, they will have gotten nothing for him and lost an allstar. Off the top of my head, the two teams that could nab him away and convince him to stay and also possibly offer a better package than LA would be Boston and Philly. They both have multiple picks that look great either in this draft or moving forward than San Antonio would probably love, and they have young players that they can trade to San Antonio. The Lakers merely have just young players and the #25 pick from this year.
Say what you want to say, but CPs longevity is definitely an issue. The poor guy cant finish playoff games. This has been a constant theme and he is only getting older. He is a great player, but do players feel he may not be able to go the distance? Of course.
Marc Stein just said LeBron James is going to Miami on the Dan Le Betard show... @cyberx Ridiculous......
This is my biggest worry of “running it back.” CP’s body is running down. When healthy, he’s as good as anybody. But he can’t go 40 minutes a game.
I expect this from people on twitter that only watch a handful of Rocket games, that read tweets from people that only watched a handful of Rocket games and repeat back the sheeple speak but not actual Rocket fans.
It is a valid concern. But I think it is more an issue with high usage. If the team is buoyed by multiple stars the usage goes down and you get more efficient value. CP as he gets older has to move into the 3rd star role. So James Harden + 2nd star is the goal.
Especially when you factor in how often he was getting fouled with no whistle. How many more points should he have had going to the line? In some games it could have been as many as 10 or more by my count The Lakers don't have anyone that comes anywhere close to Oladipo in terms of quality, if they did, then I'd be higher on their odds to pull off one of those trades.
We all know the numbers don't tell you everything abt Harden in the playoffs. But keep believing the B.S. If it was strictly abt numbers we'd be celebrating a championship instead of hunting for a 3rd star who we can count on Every game in the playoffs.
I think with Harden and if you were to add Lebron then we can decrease the usage of all 3 players, more so for LeBron and CP3. And I think Houston is the only team where LeBron can have a decreased usage. It will also help to have LeBron in Houston and have CP3 and Harden go through LeBron's summer training regiment.
I'm proposing a new rule: No one should say a deal is "crippling" unless they can show a specific example of a positive scenario that it would prevent. For example, if the Rockets "run it back" but balk at CP3 because it's a max deal, they're still not going to be an under-the-cap team for the foreseeable future. Certainly not this offseason, and next offseason, when Harden's deal bumps up... you'd be looking at close to $65M between Harden and Capela alone! The only way it makes any sense whatsoever to let CP3 go is if you let Capela go as well, and at that point, Harden would probably ask out and you'd be looking at a probable rebuild. Personally, that seems a little extreme after coming absurdly close to the title. If the Rockets are going to add another star player to this iteration of the team, it's going to be via trade. LeBron and PG are the best candidates right now because they have the most leverage... meaning that because they could literally leave for nothing in a couple weeks, it's the best shot to bend over their current teams. If that doesn't work out, my guess is the Rockets start trying to poke around on 2019 FAs and see if one of those (@cyberx referenced Butler ITT) might be willing to go scorched-earth to get out a year early, like PG did with Indiana last summer. Worst case, Rockets will run it back as-is and try again for a star at the trade deadline and/or in the 2019 offseason. In all of these scenarios, there's one common thread: It's the trade route for the Rockets... which means that CP3's exact salary is pretty much irrelevant to the pursuit. Not sure how this is so hard to grasp for some.
