Well I retired in 2006 and significantly upped my post count due to boredom. You can be a DD hater, it's all good - at least we both hate the Mavs. DD
LBJ? Durant? Conley? Any other Tier 1s? Horford? A lot to get a guy who has lots of miles. Define Tier 2 in this FA group. Please. TheGoodGuys need to add pieces that fit the guy Owner Alexander hand-picked then jettison the ones who do not. The former do not have to be Tier 1, they need to fit the ficockta system that is the new reality. PS not Ryan Anderson. Please.
One thing I'd take away from the interview is that Tier 2 and lower FAs won't receive offers beyond 2 years, maybe 2 years + Team Option. I expect this will limit us to primarily scrap heap players.
I think that is 100% wrong there will be a lot of teams overspending - especially the ones trying to get out of the basement fast, they will pony up those contracts - and players will take them. DD
Well to be honest I'd rather kick the can to next year than sign an overpaid guy to multiple years. There's only so much money to go around and with teams overpaying for guys who don't deserve it might be better to wait around. We'll see what happens in FA I suspect even the Rox don't know how its all going to go down.
This is the most likely scenario; it doesn't sound like any top FAs will be beating down our doors and Morey will not overpay for marginal talent. He may be focusing on next summer to try to sign two max players (like Westbrook and Durant, etc.).
Agree that no one knows how FA will go down. But it's a new world in terms of $$'s paid. What we think was fair and reasonable a few years ago is different now. Like it or not, players are gonna get paid and sometimes a chance needs to be taken. Problem is we're not the only team with a lot of cap space which makes it a players market where they can pick and choose dictating their own $$'s.
Harden will be 29 in a couple years and weigh who knows how much. At that point it might be time for a full rebuild
If anyone is built to play ball as an old fat man in this league, it is Harden. His cunning will keep him effective for years to come.
I criticize harden a lot but he has (I won't use the word because of the threat of jinx...) not been predisposed to the same pattern Yao/T-Mac were. That build prevents him from it tbh
I think many of you are overly harsh on Morey .... He did put together a team that went to the WCF just a year ago and went to pieces this season because the teams second best player decided to act like a selfish child rather than buy into what made the team better .... That cancer is now gone (we assume) and the $23m albatross of a contract with him. Morey has had the right idea and executed it twice with Yao & McGrady which was destroyed by injuries and again with Dwert & Harden ... with Dwert sabotaging that attempt. All he can do is reload and try again ....
Actually, I don't hate the Mavs - I feel sorry for them because they are totally ****ed with Mr. Shark Tank as the owner. His arrogance and hubris is only exceeded by that of Jeral Jones.
Hmmm, Hillboy, that was to Mav-Hater - and you responded, did you accidently leave your beard logged in? BUSTED !!!! Hillboy=Mav-Hater. DD
but flipping through players is the correct strategy. no one stays put with a bad/mediocre team. they just don't. you cycle and cycle until you have a good team, then build continuity. you don't want continuity if you are only going to win 45 games a year. and as soon as the rockets won 56 games and made the WCF, they tried continuity. and it resulted in our most disappointing season, maybe ever. that's what makes the "don't turn over the roster" complaints strange to me. the time we did it the least resulted in the biggest disaster. everyone turns over the roster because you can't sign role players to market value contracts when the team isn't a contender. you just hamstring yourself. well first off, most teams don't win a championship every 20 years. it's difficult. and as for morey, he spent the first half of his tenure trying to build a team around yao and tmac. and he did. then they got injured and he tried to acquire another superstar. and he did. and then he tried to build a team around harden. and he got to the WCF. then it blew up, which basically no one saw coming. everyone can pretend they saw it coming now, but the preseason prediction thread, analysts' predictions, vegas, etc didn't. so now he tries to recover. teams don't always ascend linearly or always stay on top. miami and the lakers collapsed in between championship runs. danny ainge has been at the helm of championship boston teams and mediocre boston teams. but we have made progress. and that was getting a 26 year old runner-up mvp player to build around. getting a young mvp-caliber player is the hardest part of building any team. and morey somehow did it by trading for the guy, which is virtually impossible to pull off (although strangely the last team to do it might also be us with tmac). so now we hope his track record of signing quality players to quality contracts and pulling off pretty good trades continues and then hope we get whatever luck/breaks most championship teams get along the way.
Morey reminds of that dumb narcissistic serial killer when they get interviewed live. "Oh yeah, I have X amount of guns but I didn't do it"
Harden is gone in 2018. There's no way we win a ship by then. He gone. Why would he stay here on a hated franchise in an irrelevant market instead of going to his hometown Lakers? Just enjoy him carrying our team to 6th, 7th, 8th seeded sweeps while putting up all time great regular season numbers. No way we wise up and realize we have to trade him now before he's got 1 year on his contract and teams with future stars that are young will not want to trade for him without a promise that he will resign there. You have to trade him by this deadline while his value is extremely high...but we wont. 6th seed here we come.
