He doesn't have the leverage folks might think in free agency either. If he accepts his qualifying offer than he gets a raise from where his salary would have been essentially, and the Rockets get a steal of a good young player on a 1 year deal. Yeah they run the risk of severing the relationship and not being able to retain him in the Summer of 2016, but its a risk they might be willing to take. Again, his QO is more than it would have been had he accepted the normal 2nd rounder salary he was going to make had he signed the normal contract. If a team gives him a big contract due to his play with the Sixers than that's a risk they are taking where they might have to let Brewer and/or Smith walk to retain him with the MLE money.
Ceiling? No, he has physical ability above and beyond Shumpert. He is less of a sure thing than Shumpert, but he has the physical ability to be a top 1-2% defender. The question is whether his offensive game will develop enough to get on the court. He is a jumper away from being a very wealthy man.
if he can be a 3d guy off the bench then id say its a good trade. its not hard to find udnersized scoring guards. we still have johnson. but with canaan u have a contributor in a win now team. u have to wait for kj maybe 3-4 years.
i hope u dont michael jordan. maybe the sg version of deanre jordan since he can block shots and a good rebounder for a guard. kobe's the closest thing to jordan and kj has no chance at being anywhere close to kobe's level.
This season, both Ariza and Brewer is ahead of him. Next season it will be interesting if both KJ and Nick Johnson break out.
First, I don't think that the Rockets are benching McDaniels for any reason other than the fact that they are playing guys who give them the best chance to win. Harden, Ariza, Brewer, Terry are all better veteran options at SG or SF than young KJ. KJ bring energy but he is still a rookie who makes mistakes and can't really shoot (29% from 3 point line). Nick Johnson has basically the same issues. KJ did play in Philly, of course, but then again all kind of people play in Philly that wouldn't sniff the court for a playoff team. As for KJ's contract status, I don't think benching him helps with the free agency. Basically, the issue with KJ is that as long as he gets an offer that is something like $1.15M, the Rockets would have to dip into the MLE to match that offer-- and the issue with that is the Rockets probably may need to use the MLE for other things like keeping Josh Smith, bringing Llull over, or signing another free agent. Even if KJ McDaniels gets and accepts a $2M/yr outside offer, this could cause the Rockets to have to make some tough decisions. Even if the Rockets don't play KJ a minute for the rest of the season, teams know about him fro the 1300+ minutes that he played in Philly and I would think that at least one team would throw $2M or $2.5M at him.
He's more likely to get PT in D-League, but it's understandable that he looked decent playing for the Sixers. Look at Covington - he would probably be bouncing between D-League and the bench if he was still with us.
no im sayin canaan can help a team in win now mode, kj cant. he already proved himself in nov/dec with all the injuries. before brewer he was the 2nd best slasher.
He could help for a few games while we battle injuries, but McHale and co. are right in trying to go with guys who at least have a shot at playing in the play-offs. That group has to learn to battle through and having a new guy come in and mess with that, is not smart.
I made a huge post, but made a quick search and it kind of obliterated everything. I wasn't aware KJ was going to be a RFA. I was leaning he wasn't going to be on the squad next season, but that revelation kind of changes thing now.
I guess the only logical answer/non-answer is "for the future". You kind of have to speculate beyond that. Are they planning on shopping Ariza this Summer? Are they not wanting to bring back Brewer and Smith on the salaries they will command? Were they given the indication McDaniels is going to accept his QO for next year and then take a flyer for him for next year? I dunno, but its pretty obvious that they certainly didn't trade for him in order to play him this year unless there is serious disconnect between the FO and coaches. My most logical guess is that Morey is thinking that there is almost no way the Rockets are going to bring back Brewer and possibly Smith (if he doesn't accept a vet min contract) because those guys will command too much money. McDaniels backs up Ariza next year. The MLE money is split between KJ and possibly Llull if there is enough left to sell him on the Rockets. In the meantime you have some time on draft night trades to see about addressing the PG situation through trade so maybe you can re-arrange your offseason salaries a bit. Right now, the McDaniels trade, with my best guess, kind of signals that Brewer and Smith are likely gone this Summer unless you speculate otherwise.
I have a hard time seeing us bring back Ariza, Brewer, KJ, and KPap. At least one of them will have to go, and I don't think the Rockets want to lose Ariza or Brewer. So who out of KJ and KPap will go? Probably KPap since he's a pretty big expiring next year. As for why we traded for KJ... it's probably just because the front office feels he's a better trade asset than whatever it was we traded for him. We clearly didn't bring him over here to play this year and given his contract and our win-now situation, I don't necessarily see him having a future here either.
