Who Gets Cut?

Cut Ish Smith(no shot) and Adrien(lack of size) I think its best move moving forward. Black will be a BEAST with a bit more experience, I hope he makes it.

 

Black is forcing is way in to the team, last time that happened we got a pleasant surprise with Chandler Parsons.

 

Is David West the "elite player" that Morey is looking for. Will David West make the Rockets a true contender? West makes 12 mil per year, not sure we could make the trade work.

 

Cut Dorsey. Keep Black & Adrien

 

Dorsey has a guaranteed deal. They really like him as a defensive backup center. He is not going anywhere. there are too many guards and pf. Ish has to be cut and another PF will be cut.

 

Or do they think they can stash Black in the D-League like they did with Greg Smith several years ago?

My guess is they are going to think no they can't and he's going to get signed pretty quickly if they cut him.

The logical thing is to get more looks with Dorsey playing the 5. If he's clearly getting outplayed than the choice is simple. I personally see that Adrien has less risk of getting cut than Dorsey at this point. Adrien has looked like he could start for this team potentially when they face a team like Portland or Dallas (with Dirk). I see a ton of use for him this year.

The choice IMO would be to try and move Dorsey and attach a 2nd rounder or the rights to Llull to get him off the books. Its a small amount, but the salary he has guaranteed next year makes a difference in their free agent plans next Summer. Waiving Dorsey could potentially be more painful than losing one of the 2nd rounders Morey acquired in the Terry deal.

There is still the oft chance that Dorsey gets back in the swing on things in the next week or two, and outplays Black. In that case the choice is made a bit more simple, and you live with the chance Black gets picked up, and hope he can be stashed in RGV.

-Mitchell
-Covington
-Powell

are the first three cuts (would expect those 3 to happen sooner rather than later)

Will have to cut two of the following afterwards-

-Black
-Dorsey
-Adrien
-Garcia
-Smith

I think Ish and Black end up getting cut at the end of the month, but there is still some time for something to change this projection. If someone has a season ending injury, a trade happens, etc.

(*The reason I put Garcia on this list is because I really don't see him being in the long term plans regardless. Last year with the bench play as weak as it was, he didn't really have an impact other than a couple games. I'm not saying he's at high risk, but he definitely should be on this list IMO).

 

Exactly, but black has played great and it would be really hard to lose him and watch him shine somewhere else as a high energy guy we need off the bench. I just cant see them cutting dorsey at this point because of his size and need for backup center.

 

Also everybody keeps saying garcia, but he is one of their biggest vocal leaders and seems close with Harden. He also always plays the best D on Durant for some crazy reason.

 

T. Black is around the same size, is potentially doing the same things Dorsey does but better, hasn't had foot injury issues that Dorsey has had, and has more upside one would think. Also the fact that Dorsey is STILL hampered by Plantar Fasciitis at this point years later doesn't make me feel very confident about his availability in an 82 game season either.

Look Dorsey will probably outplay Black by the end of the preseason, but so far its hard to make a case that Dorsey is better at doing Dorsey-like things than Black has shown at this point.

If Black is outplaying Dorsey and its pretty clear to see, than its an obvious choice IMO. He has room to be an even better version of Joey Dorsey, and might even be that better version now.

We shall see though. Need some more time to let these two compete for the spot.

 

Reason being if black does make the roster he will spend a few months down in RGV with Capela and Johnson anyways until Dorsey is traded mid season in a hopefully significant trade. Once that is done black can be moved up and into the rotation.

 

To say Garcia played the best D on Durant is like saying Lin is the most potent scorer of all NBA PG when playing less than 5 and a half minutes in the 4th Q in a Tuesday night national TV game in the last 2 minutes of the game when the home team was trailing with 5 or more points.

Garcia is so far the worse Rockets players showing on the court and in terms of trade value/contract, he also isn't as important as Terry and Dorsey.

He should be the first on line to get cut other than Covington, Mitchell, Powell.

 

I think you tried a little to hard with your analogy. I didn't mean best D ever in the NBA, I meant on our squad he plays the best D on Durant. I should have clarified that, but i doubt Terry and Dorsey are more important. Terry has not played and hasn't played consistently in 2 seasons. Dorsey may be more important but he does have a chance at getting cut as well. ( I don't think he will though)

 

They are both listed around 6'9", 260. Almost exactly the same size and weight.

(actually the Rockets list Black at 6'11" but his pre-draft measurements are 6'9")

Either way, the Rockets don't really have a true traditional backup center, but they have size, defense, and rebounding. What they also do have is D-Mo matching up with them in the front court to help take up space in the paint & rebound, and better perimeter defenders than last year to keep people out of the paint (cough, cough Lin).

 

RealGM reported that Covington had already been released, I thought.

 

I was noticing last night when Terrence Jones and Tarik Black were both on the court and jogging back on defense side-by-side. Tarik Black is slightly taller than Terrence Jones. Enough to where you can see it from the far-back broadcast camera angle. He looks about 2" taller than Terrence and Terrence is 6'-9".

I really do think Tarik Black is 6'-11", regardless of all the pre-draft measurments out there.

And GOOD GOD YALL! When's the last time you saw a 2-arm monster block like that? For me it was Yao Ming on like a 2005 NBA Live video game.

 

Black will need time in RGV to get adjusted to NBA speed. Cutting Dorsey would mean they have alot of trust in Black to contribute at Center immediately. I have no doubts Black can beat out Dorsey but im not positive hes ready to contribute at the start of the season.

 

I liked Adrien from the start. His first stint I guess in 20 somewhat games over or under he had 11 boards one game.

Then he played well in Charlotte and with the Bucks

 

adrien plays with a lot of energy and hussle but i think hes too small to be part of the rotation consistently at the pf position. he'll make the team though

 

Dorsey did not help his case last night. He easily played the worst.

I think it speaks volumes that he will be starting again tonight. As in, this is his final chance to show us something. If he plays again tonight like he did last night, I think Les will drop that 2year-$2 mil guaranteed like it was nothing and never look back.

 

Dorsey has 2 years guaranteed contract, if Morey will cut him, that means the Rockets will carry a deadweight of 1 mil or so next year in the cap that you can not trade, not to mention Dorsey was pulled from Europe by Morey himself - I don't think he want to admit he is WRONG before he will play a single meaningful game.

The only things Morey cared about in this Terry trade :
- 2 second round picks
- his 5 mils contract which means a trading chip for Morey.

Now regarding Garcia, let me remind you again, people just want to glorify small details, no he did not play great D on Durant, but I will give you that he can play a little Durant's mind game last year, but when Durant was pissed and focused, Garcia was like picking up 4 fouls in 5 minutes in last year's game also.