Fair point about Miami. I just think they are content with being a 2nd round out in the East as they are a team that retools and doesn't rebuild. Agreed. However, I refer back to the point about "unknowns". I don't think the primary goal was to stay under the tax but it became the primary goal if we couldn't do "A", "B", or "C" or some combination. I agree that opportunities were lost due to choices made. I wish we had a Steve Ballmer type owner. I do agree, we should have gone all in with CP3 and I think even Tillman would have agreed. It sucks we missed last year's opportunity but what if we got the second seed and Durant never got injured? We get better seeding with slightly better players (because we went over the tax) and lose to a healthy GSW regardless. Who knows. I have no idea if time works like Terminator, End Game, or Back to the Future. I sure hope we are able to grab one more forward/large wing this offseason for some depth as you said. However, I wouldn't be opposed to Love in some circumstances. It seems Morey made a decision to prioritize continuity once the masterplan(s) failed and we were able to get House and Rivers on good deals because they wanted to be here. Aside from the value of their contracts, I'm not sure what that is worth since it makes it seem like the Rocket's chemistry isn't toxic at all (maybe tense due to the nature of losing). Why can't House be a solid option by the time the playoffs roll around? I must confess I like our group of young players in House, Clark Jr, and Hartenstein and worry more that MDA won't use the regular season to let the latter two players to grow into roles. We just need some competent play from them.
This was a smart plan. You duck the tax when you are facing an historical juggernaut in the Warriors. That’s not a smart time to go all in. Now we have Harden at 30, 31, 32. Prime years and we can go all in.
Since 2002, with the exceptions of 4 teams, every NBA championship has gone to a tax paying team. The Wade/Shaq Heat team in 05/06 The Kawhi/Dunc Spurs team of 13/14 The Curry/Klay/Dray/Iggy Warriors of 14/15 The Curry/Durant/Klay/Dray Warriors of 16/17 Yes shocking that the Warriors team of 4 all stars weren't over the tax. Explanation is the huge cap spike. http://www.shamsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/TAX2015-1.jpg
I am sick tired of this organization. Want to win championship? Totally BS!!! Rockets are always laugh stock of NBA.
The timing of it was very bad as well. It was a great year to go into the tax and try and improve the team instead of waste assets to dip below. If we had better personnel we could have easily shored up that 2 seed and played a KD less warriors team in the conference finals. Harden already dicked on a healthy Raptors squad with G leaguers too. Terrible timing to dip below
i agree with this. funny how we somehow met in the middle. its completely possible that options A-B-C-D were all tax related and fell apart. now they may think there's no one left that will move the needle enough to spend the tax. but of course had they prioritized differently (say option D was spending the full MLE on someone like morris) they might've snagged some help at the start of free agency vs being in the wrong place at the wrong time. i was driving with my wife the day before free agency started and telling her (mostly telling myself as she scrolled instagram) that the rockets expect to get jimmy butler, have lined up a trade for capela to facilitate that move, and scheduled meetings on day 1 with FA centers to replace capela. and as she continued to scroll and hum mhm, i went on to say hopefully it works out before if it doesn't they have no need for those centers and the players they should target if they're returning their starting 5 will be meeting with others teams and they'll be left with nothing. and, well that's what happened. i don't mind them going for stars. sure, kick the tires. but its ok to believe in our big 5. there's reason to believe in them. they proved themselves. just support them with more depth. pay the tax for 2 years before paul and tucker aren't good anymore. unfortunately although i believe there is a chance they intended to pay it if certain things worked out, there is also a strong belief that they don't intend to pay it at all. we'll have to wait and see if they do.
