pursuit of the #1 seed is important. HCA against the warriors could determine who goes to the finals. you don't have to limit guys playing time each game and play a 10-11 man rotation... but you can rest guys for whole games down the stretch against teams you know you can beat without them. wright, jj, and gg allow us to rest 1-2 rotations players on back to backs and against league doormats.
hopefully joe Johnson will get some minutes as well as green, everybody play less minutes would be ideaal
Can Markel Brown play in the playoffs with his 2 way status? I hope he will be able to give us some valuable minutes during the rest of the season.
That's only cause he makes 20 million a year and we need to showcase him for a trade. If he were making what he was worth he'd have been buried last year.
Where have you been? The trade deadline is over bro-chacho. ...also Ryno has been on fire the last several weeks now. He's streaky as can be, but when he is hitting shots like he is now, he's HUGE for this team because he stretches opposing defenses super thin even without getting the ball. Even when he is not hitting his shots, opposing defenses still stick to him meaning he has gravity even as a decoy. Doesn't seem like much when he isn't hitting his shots, but Harden & CP get to take guys off the dribble and don't have long wing defenders flying at them to help because they have to stick somewhat close to Anderson. He frustrates me too, but the fact is few players in the league have to be guarded 28 feet from the hoop and even when he is not hitting shots, Anderson is still guarded out there 85%+ of the time. Check this link for what it does to defenses: https://www.sbnation.com/2017/1/20/14284896/houston-rockets-three-point-stats-mike-dantoni
Yeah, I know. If you read the deadline posts I was extremely active that entire day. But in the snap of a finger, before you'll even know it, the offseason will be here and we'll be first in line to get a meeting with LeBron. With 1/3rd of the season left you gotta showcase him for the remainder of the year in order to dump him to pursue our big goals.
Fair enough - I see your point of doing whatever you can to dump Anderson for Bron. Honestly though, I'm very skittish on what we will have left if we resign Capela, and CP3 to big deals. Even if we found a way to dump Anderson, it would mean pretty much all depth would be gone after signing Bron. I mean, he's Lebron but am I crazy to think that this team can win a title without him? I guess we will find out later this year.
Chris Paul (32 mpg) James Harden (36 mpg) Luc Mbah a Moute (26 mpg) PJ Tucker (26 mpg) Clint Capela (28 mpg) ------------------------------------ Our best defensive lineup to start games, with the offensive focus on CP3, Beard and Clint as it should be. ------------------------------------ 6. Gordon (30 mpg) 7. Ariza (26 mpg) 8. Ryno (26 mpg) 9. Nene (10 mpg) ------------------------------------- Pure offensive firepower to destroy and conquer all second units. ------------------------------------- Situational players = (Gerald Green, Brandan Wright, Joe Johnson)
Cleveland really put themselves in this situation in giving Lebron a no trade clause and an option where he can all but force them to send him to his destination of choice or walk for nothing at all. They are at his mercy , either they get what we have to make salaries work (along with draft picks) or they get nothing if he opts out and signs for cap space elsewhere. Assuming he opts in and demands to be dealt to Houston its Anderson and one of EG or Tucker to make the money work. If its EG the Rockets can take back Lebron's $35m and change and another ~$6.6m give or take. They can also retain all their free agents - Capela , CP3 , Ariza and Luc because they have exceptions to sign them all to new contracts (Bird , RFA and MLE). Basically they could have the same roster we have today (before the buy outs sign) with Lebron and player X (that added ~$6.6m) in place of Anderson & EG.
We start our same 5 —> same rotation we use now. If one doesn’t produce that player just don’t see the court again THAT night again. Next game repeat with the same rotation. Goal is for GG / BW / JJ NOT to see the court but in mopping up the the blown out games. They are here on a as needed basis. We finish games with the mop up crew or hot hands Nothing is ever personal just results driven—> only do your role —> team first —> JUST WIN
I am curious as to who Morey is going to waive to create room for Wright and Joe Johnson since the Rockets have only one empty roster spot. I know some on GARM have suggested Tarik Black. Both Nene and Brandon Wright have had a history of injuries so I hope that does not happen. Morey has had an awesome year building this elite team while having depth. I guess we will find out what he decides this coming week.
Not wasting energy worrying who starts, it's the Death lineup and Hold the Lead lineup that intrigues me most. I believe Rockets will protect Iso Joe like they do Nene, no B2B and watch his minutes. And BW is Nene and Clint insurance. But come playoff time imagine a Death lineup with 4 guys who are elite isolation players (Harden, Paul, EGo, JJ) plus Nene, who can finish with power and thru contact, can stop and pop or sink his FT. If EGo or Joe unavailable, then Green steps in. Hold the Lead lineup will consist of best defenders plus Paul or Harden. Capela, Luc, PJ, Ariza and Paul are more than enough to clamp down on D without losing much on O. Ryno can be starter if need be under above scenarios. But the options are near limitless with this roster.
It's Black. He's $3.5M UFA at the end of this year. Troy Williams still has 3 years left at $1.5M per year. Same goes for Onuaku. And Qi is on a 4 year deal. So it's more of a numbers game: the 3 bench players are worse than Black nowadays, but younger, and on long-term developmental deals. Morey and the staff signed Wright with the intention of releasing Black - they basically chose Wright over Black for potential contribution to this season's playoffs. The younger players' value are in their futures.
Troy Williams is only 600K guaranteed for next season. Unguaranteed after that. Onuaku is 1.5M guaranteed for next season. Unguaranteed after that. Zhou is unguaranteed for each of his seasons. The key is the guarantees.
Valid point, but I'm talking about a team value perspective, not only committed salary. I guess it's reasonable to cut Williams or Onuaku if you don't believe in one of them.
This sort of assumes we'll be healthy, 1-12. I'd love to believe that but injuries are a fact of the NBA. It only takes one injury for Green/Johnson to get minutes and Wright will get his behind Capela when Nene is out. How many games have we had a fully healthy complement of players? I think it's been 2-4 games. That means that for 50-52 games we've had at least one rotation player out to injury. If we are fully healthy in the playoffs your post is probably right on, though I do think MDA is looking for ways to give Green minutes since he's been so productive, but it's highly unlikely we'll be fully healthy. And that's a heck of a good problem to have, being fully healthy in the playoffs such that we don't have minutes for Green or Joe. It's far more likely that we'll have at least one guy out each night to injury and if we do those guys get their minutes. Everyone is calling them "situational players." That's apt if you consider that "situational" means whenever we have an injury. It's exceedingly rare that we don't. Ergo, every player from Harden to our three most recent signings will get meaningful minutes. It's not something to wish for because it means injuries. But you can't wish injuries away either. They're part of the game as much as bad calls are.
