I'm going to go with PJ Tucker out of this group. But can someone please tell me who Kostas Papanikolaou is. I keep hearing about him. Was he a draft pick. Is he highly thought of around the league? Or is he just one of those players want to try because he can't be worse than Casspi and Garcia.
Maury probably burned the bridge with Ariza. The only realistic options are CJ Miles and PJ Tucker. Both of those would be upgrades to the garbage wings that are on the Rockets' bench. Houston should, however, inquire about Randy Foye as well.
I know this is his highlights video but Tucker might be the real prize... http://youtu.be/BOr9nZQPEcw
I think Kirilenko will opt out. Not a shooter but nice vet piece off the bench for a contending team.
Since free agency is probably Morey's least favorite way to acquire role players, I'd suggest you guys start playing around with the Trade Machine a little more instead of just focusing on guys who are about to be free agents.
You're welcome to if you want, but that's just not an exercise I like going through. To say a player on another team is attainable is such a guess. If this thread is good for anything, it might show the size of the pool of 3 & D players there are out there that are available, and people can use that as a basis for determining whether criticism of Morey for not getting them as just or unjust. I prefer to think of it that way rather than a bunch of bored folks playing fantasy GM. Also, how do you figure that Morey doesn't pick up free agents? Casspi, AB, Lin, Asik, Powell, etc. were all picked up as free agents. And why would a GM prefer trades? You have to give up value to get value. We don't have a lot of value to give up. I just think your assertion is a little silly, no offense.
It's not about getting the Tucker/Parsons/Bev of the world (AFTER they established their value) through free agency or trades. It's about finding the next such guy with minimum deals. We also got Lowry/Dragic/Lin(before cutting him) in similar style when they were undervalued. That's why picks are so valuable and why Morey brought in Greg Smith/Covington/Daniels...
Yeah, and he also drafted Royce White, Jermaine Taylor, Joey Dorsey, traded for Johnny Flynn and Hasheem Thabeet.
Why trades for quality role players?- (note: NOT vet min or rookie minimum gambles..... I am referring to established players) You are picking up an existing and likely shorter contract. Morey himself has said that they prefer trades as a way to build their team (before the Harden trade). However after the Harden trade and before the Howard signing he mentioned that it was way more likely that they make their next move in free agency... which they did. As for that elusive 3rd star player, who knows.... they've mentioned the ability to create max cap space so you have to think that they are focusing on trades in some way shape or form. As for role players, you are right that last season they were at a place where they had to fill out the roster with minimum salary players. However that was mostly because of having to gut the roster to sign Dwight, and make most of the signings after free agency had been going on for awhile. If Morey was putting together Shane Battier type of players to be the finishing touches of the roster to support the star players, I can almost guarantee you that he's going to look at trading for that type of established player through trade before he looks at paying a ton of money in a bidding war for a player like that. However if he can get a steal in free agency he will, but its not a for sure signing obviously (see Casspi, Garcia, and Camby). Im not saying that Morey WONT use the MLE to get that Battier type, but I am saying you shouldn't just limit yourself to looking at free agents because if you look at Morey's previous trades to get that coveted 3&D 3rd piece, (Battier & Artest) you can see that there are prime examples of guys Morey is viewing as impact key 3rd pieces, and both times those guys came from trades. Again..... the market for players has changed with the new CBA, but I'm telling you now to not limit yourself to only free agents going into draft night. However, I will say that given the fact that Morey's prime targets might be bigger now than Battier and Artest were back then (probably because he thinks Harden & Howard need more help than a healthy T-Mac & Yao), its probably unlikely we see Morey make a move for a really good player until he does what he wants to do in free agency first. Until he's exhausted all of his possibilities to get that 3rd all-star, I think its more or less status quo until then unfortunately (which is probably going to give us another year of Casspi/Covington types if Morey can't make the move he wants to make this July).
Why dont you break down the full extent of those "trades" and "draft picks" and tell me if those ended up being that bad for the Rockets- A. Morey Traded cash to the Washington Wizards for the draft rights to guard Jermaine Taylor. Taylor had led the entire NCAA in scoring the year before. Go watch the highlights from the Lakers game his rookie season, and tell me this guy didn't have potential. That was a gamble, on a good looking second rounder, and it didn't pay off.... who cares? Its Les' money, and its a 2nd rounder that probably wouldn't have panned out anyways. B. Royce White.... yes he sucked, but 2 of the 3 other draft picks turned out to be steals. 1 of the draftees (Jeremy Lamb) turned out to be a key cog in the James Harden trade, and the later pick, Terrence Jones is arguably a top 7 or 8 player in his draft class still. Scoring on 2 out of 3 mid first rounders.....That draft was a win in my book even with one loss. C. Morey didn't trade for Hasheem Thabeet and Johnny Flynn.... Morey took those players salaries off the other team's books to get draft picks either moved down (Flynn to move down to take D-Mo) and in Thabeet's case, they got the that pick the next year because of taking on his salary. Also the next year, Morey parlayed his expiring contract & Flynns contract into Marcus Camby who had a huge 2nd half of the season to help the Rocket out tremendously. Morey has always used the salary of un-wanted players to make moves... see Derrick Fisher's tenure with the Rockets as an example. Point being.. you can't knock Morey for making deals like these in a vacuum. There is always a story to go along with the player or pick. If the story doesn't make sense, than that's ok, but cherry picking to depict wins and losses Morey's book is arbitrary.
Great thread, but I think we should only sign players to 1 year guaranteed contracts. 2015 is the huge free agent season and we shouldn't lose our financial flexibility because we sign role players.
Sources tell me the Indy economy is on hard times. We all know the power of Lin to turn economies around. Lin for Paul George? We get the best 3&D guy in the league. Indy gets a viable economy and a guy who is probably just as good as Tony Parker if he were in the right environment. Jokes aside. Would like Tucker at the right price. If it came down to it and we needed to include Parsons in a trade I would love to find a way to get Ariza back here for the right price.
Very talented athlete... quite the head case. Definitely a miss that Morey readily admits to making. Had Morey not traded that pick for T-Will, they would probably had to trade either that pick or Terrence Jones/D-Mo to keep max cap space to sign Dwight. Imagine giving up Jones because they chose to take that pick instead and Jones turns into a difference maker on another team. So if there ever was a mid first rounder to give up in a draft, last year ended up being the one to give up. Still sucks to give up a pick for T-Will, but it didn't turn out as bad as it could have been.
If we land Melo in a SnT, I think Ariza is the logical choice with the MLE. We have targeted him in the past, even putting a value on him. He is better now than he was then as well.
The only question is.... has Ariza really fixed his shooting from now on, or is this season a fluke? The way he's shooting the ball this season... he's worth every penny... The way he's shot the ball throughout his entire career before??... he's not so much. There is something about contract years....
Given his career shooting-% and the fact that John Wall is excellent in setting up shooters, Ariza's shooting-% probably is about as high as it will be going forward, but he's definitely made some changes in his shooting motion. More on balance now when going up. Feet much tighter. As far as trade candidates go... if the Bobcats bring back CDR, perhaps Jeff Taylor? Cheap. Expires after next year. Good defender. Can shoot. Wouldn't be asked to handle the ball as much. I liked him a lot coming out of college and still think he'll be a nice role-player for a team where he can just focus on the things he does well. He destroyed Papanikolaou at last year's Eurobasket. <iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/QnQqcIPvX1g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
