Melo is a selfish player, he doesn't make the players around him better and he will butt heads with Harden and Dwight over who is the leader of the team. Dwight is refusing to play to his strength of pick and roll. He came to Houston to focus mainly on his post game. How is he gonna get his touches when Melo comes in here demanding his 18 shots a game? Dwight is also a really poor passer out of the post. Both Melo and Harden are subpar defensively. To get Melo you gotta get rid of Asik which will force Dwight to play even more minutes a game especially when you got two huge liabilities on the floor.
Sounds like the sky is falling too......So what do you propose the Rox do this offseason instead of signing Melo? What's the better strategy?
FWIW, let's remember Melo is willing to take a pay cut under certain circumstances, which I don't think will be difficult for Morey to present to him.
Ok so how about this. Trade harden for love. Sign and trade for Carmelo and jr smith. Trade Asik and parsons for rondo. Fill out bench with MLE and LLE. Rondo JR smith Carmelo Love Howard Bench I have no idea. All this just occurred to me. I'm GM of the year now.
I don't think its as simple as you are making it out to be. Super max players as you call them like to pick the best situations for themselves based on city, fit, and ability to contend. If you set a precedent by signing one of these guys, promising him the world, and then turning around and instantly flipping him into a situation he doesn't like than a future super max free agent will be less willing to deal with your GM. Fit matters because I think you are basically required to at minimum give your star free agents 2-3 years and only then can you trade them if fit is really bad and there are obvious problems. If we had flipped Dwight at last trade deadline to a non-contender do you think we'd even be on Melo's radar?
Use that caproom to go after 2 or 3 quality role players to compliment Howard and Harden. This team doesn't need another superstar scorer. They need defense and guys who can fill specific roles. Look at what a complete unknown like Daniels did for the Rockets in the playoffs. The guy saved them from a sweep by doing the one thing he was brought in to do. Shoot 3-pointers. Now imagine if they went out and got a 4 whose specialty was defending and blocking shots. Or a 2-3 guy who provided instant offense and could allow Harden and Parsons to play 35 minutes a night instead of 40+(not to mention preserve a lead instead of blowing it). Or a backup point guard who can play perimeter D and knock down open 3's. Les and Morey's philosophy is completely out of whack. This fixation on signing or trading for superstars is a waste of time. Especially when you're fortunate enough to already have 2 of them. Focus on the supporting cast.
Dudes playoff record and stars "during" the playoffs arent too impressive , in fact some could argue they were lousy and that he disappears. Um.... Playoffs are the most important part of the season so that might be why people are down on him. He needs to have a SERIOUS offseason, and get his mind right. He needs to attempt defense!!
It's all common sense. Some people are just really dumb enough to let their hate override us winning a ring. First, Melo, Harden, and Dwight are superstars. It doesn't matter if any of us want to believe it. What matters is, it's a fact. If you can obtain all three, not only do you absolutely do that, but you don't get rid of any of them, just because you dislike them. You keep all three and build around them properly. Harden brought Dwight, which will bring Melo, and he's gotten us in to the playoffs in the tough western conference, despite having a guy like Lin on the team. He did that before Howard joined the Rockets. You know who couldn't do that, that everybody else seems to love....Love. If you hate Harden, you should want nothing to do with Love. Worst defender considering the positions they play. We've all seen what a detriment of not having any defense at the four spot can be. It can lose you a series to a team with a lesser roster. We had no bench play that series against POR. None. Plus, we push the ball quite a bit, with relying on transition buckets and three pointers. There's no player, who could've done better overall. If Harden had played tough defense, he would've played himself out of the game. We had no PGs who could dribble, much less distribute. Everything had to go through Harden. The kids also 24, and wasn't a primary or secondary option before becoming a Rocket only two seasons ago. Again, using common sense, you absolutely pursue Melo. And, you certainly don't do something completely stupid and use that as an excuse to get rid of a younger superstar, who has a higher ceiling than your other two stars plateaus.
One more thing...Harden kills SA, who just came out of the west and won a title. And one more thing, what happens when Howard and (if we get) Melo reach their twilight. Would you rather be done like Boston was with KG and Pierce, or would you rather have your best star in his prime, to continue to contend and possibly bring in another star once Melo and Dwight retire? It's common sense, fellas. Nothing more, nothing less.
The biggest reason why Harden isn't scoring as consistently in the playoffs is because he relied on the referees to bail him out when he wasn't able to shoot well. His defense started to pick up too near the end of the season but it was already too late, his bad habits were more exposed in the play offs. Not sure if switching out Harden with Melo would put us over the edge if that second star was Howard. Our players suck at help defense and always seemed a step late on rotating. Some of it was due to the inexperienced coaching staff and some of it was due to the lack of effort on the players end. I would welcome Melo with Harden/Howard but Melo/Howard? No thanks...
You over rate the value of a max contract. Yes the price ceiling typically means you are getting more than market value. But the imposed budget limit must be taken into account. The wrong max contract can screw a team over for years.
Good points and I had thought of this too. There are two extreme conditions that help illustrate the answer to this point. Let's say this past year with the addition of Dwight, on one end of the extreme if the fit was bad and we weren't any better with his addition or in fact worse don't you think Dwight himself would want to be in a different situation as well? On the other extreme lets say we went to the wcf, then everyone's happy. Or take Miami's situation actually. That's a real case study. Let's say Miami couldn't win any titles in their first three years. You think anyone would think less of Miami for moving on with the experiment and trading bosh or that bosh would have a problem moving onto a different situation where he could be used better? Losing would obviously create a big enough problem for everyone involved which would demand a change for everyone. Miami could flip bosh for someone like say Asik + 1st rd picks without any difficulty. And they could do that having given up nothing by signing bosh outright from the start. It still makes too much business sense.
True not all max/supermax players are the same. The contract doesn't define the value, it's whether the player outperforms their capped contract. Wade, Kobe, and other aging players for example aren't worth their contracts anymore and as you've noting are now screwing their teams over). The greater discussion here is whether a player like melo can outperform the value of his contract for 4 more years (or at the very least at least a good number of GMs who believe he could). Melo is in his prime so this will be his last max contract IMO. Someone else might give him another afterwards but they'd be making a bad investment. Right now he's worth it though. If you want to argue that he's not you'd be wrong since we know a slew of GMs would give him that contract. If you want to argue he won't be in 3 or 4 years than you could have a point. No one really knows what he'll be in the future. Your initial point was that I might be overvaluing the max contract since some players can't perform to the level of that contract. But that's true of any player at any size contract. That is on the GM giving to contract to properly assess value. Still my point stands, all things being equal (assuming proper player performance for the contract) the max contract and the rookie scale contract have highest value and are the easiest to maneuver.
Just curious, what would be the reaction to a trade between Indy and Houston, Harden for George? Both the same age, Harden's a better scorer, George is a better defender. If the Rockets were able to move Lin/Asik/? for Anthony, then flip Harden for George, seems like a nice starting 5. We lose a little O with Harden leaving, but CA will pick up that slack. Then we get some help with the perimeter D with the addition of George. Howard Anthony Parsons George Beverly
