Fixed. I think Rockets fans should exercise a smidgen of patience and faith. Durant will spend the first day or two of Free Agency with his 1st round of meetings. That behooves us. We will be using that time to try to land some big pieces. We land some big pieces and it instantly alters the landscape among Durant's suitors. Durant & his team gave the Knicks inclination to keep trying after landing Rose. Before the Rose trade the Knicks had no shot. If we make a big splash FA signing in the first two days, we will have a meeting with Durant. There really is only 1 reporter worth taking seriously (Woj), and that's why he is careful to use wording that says it "appears" "currently" the Rockets aren't in the picture. Well it's because we're not. We shouldn't expect to be...yet. Give it until the end of Saturday before you start all the Sturm und Drang.
Miami has Wade and Whiteside(assuming they both resign) along with Bosh(if healthy) and Dragic. Not a secure situation yet, but far more promising than anything we can offer. They also nearly got to the ECF last season and probably would have had Bosh played. Boston has a great coach, some young talent, and a crapload of picks and cap space. They're more about potential than anything else. I don't see Durant going there unless it's along with someone like Horford. But again, at least the Celtics have a chance to hit a grand slam like they did 9 years ago when they nabbed Garnett and Allen in one summer.
The most the Clippers can offer is $8m. Is there any chance he goes there? If Durant were willing to play for that, the rockets could sign him, Whiteside and Rondo. Or Parsons. Or really any number of combinations. Why even bother with the Clippers meeting? You know what you're getting there. I think that shows more than anything that the meetings are a farce.
A Rockets writer could have done an un-researched piece about Durant not being interested in the Mavs, and right now it would be equally useful and equally "reliable". It's still kind of weird for a rival team's writer to take aim at a specific rival team weeks before anyone could've known what is actually in Durant's mind.
Discontent in Disco Town. Wade stalls talks with Miami and opens up to Free Agency offers.... http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/1...e-agency-offers-negotiations-miami-heat-stall As for Boston, Durant wants to win before he is 30. Picks and Cap Space and Young Talent ain't gonna get you there. Him listening to Boston, and really to a lot of these fakers with official meetings really points to what Durant is simultaneously doing right now, which is a huge Nike marketing campaign for his new KD 9s. He was in Austin telling kids to meet him at Gregory Gym for free shoes. He was cycling around NY giving out shoes. He's about to go the China where Zhou Qi reigns supreme and do a big shoe campaign there. It helps his brand to tease some of the big traditional markets like Boston.
You didn't see Stein interviewing Morey right after we lost Bosh and Parsons? The way the corners of Stein's mouth kept trying to curl up into a smile as he basically asked Morey how he felt after "such a disastrous off-season" (I'm sure he didn't say "disastrous", but even if I don't remember the exact word, this was pretty close to what he asked), I just wanted to reach into the TV and jack-slap the f*** out of Stein right then and there. He's just a troll extension of Cuban.
Well the one thing you can say... And I'm not I'm not delusional... But you can say it. Harden + Durant = a chance to be great. No question. You need to surround it with more talent but two top players like that and you're talking about deep playoff runs continually Rockets already have ok talent they'd out around that - PBev, Ariza, Dmo, Capela - but even more, with those two as a start you are VERY likely to land another top FA if not this offseason than next. We already see grumblings of a Horford to OKC possibility. May not happen but you're hearing about it solely because the only way Al Horford leaves money on the table and loves to Oklahoma is because they've already got the two superstars. If you look at that... That's not something Boston can offer. KD + IT? Cmon. That's not really something Miami can offer anymore. For one they don't have the cap space to resign Wade, Whiteside and Durant. For two, even if they did, Wade is up there in age and his success last year was volume related not efficiency related. That's one good year perhaps in Miami. Then GSW is front running. If he goes there and wins one or four championships... They're all not as impressive as say Lebron's one in Cleveland imo. The Clippers need to move too many pieces to fit him. I like the Spurs as an option. They're too boring for anyone to "hate" on him if he chose them. He'd flourish under Pop. He'd be the clear leader of the new guard there. He'd be close to Austin. No state income tax. He seems to be more of that quiet professional type that fits in with them. So there you go. It's not going to happen... But that's why there's a glimmer of hope!!
First of all, we all know that the Rockets want to sign Durant. That alone is enough for this thread to exist and reason for Rockets fans to speculate on what scenarios could make the team enticing to Durant (however unrealistic). Secondly, all it takes is one move to change our level of attractiveness. Shoot, Phoenix signed a mostly-washed Tyson Chandler and it made them attractive enough to be a frontrunner for LaMarcus. All that aside, I want to push back on your argument. KD's decision has nothing to do with how disgruntled last season made the average clutchfan. He has every incentive in NBA free-agency to stay with OKC. But, if he hates watching another team lift up the Larry O so much that he's willing to ruin his brand, the team that put together the all-time best regular season in NBA history has the ability to sign him. Even if the Rockets had a similar season to 2014-2015 going into this offseason, there would have to be some sort of other dynamic to make the Rockets a real option on his decision tree.
Stein IS a troll, doesn't mean he's always wrong though and I said that pretty much every time. What I said is that I'm going to wait till I hear it from more than just him.....which is just a smart thing to do.
The good thing about this free agency period is this..... The current roster sucks lol. Morey and Les will find out just how delusional they really are about this team. Free agents are like....Get some better talent then maybe we can talk. Until then stop calling.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Knicks recruiting Durant....RT@iamisiahthomas: Great night at Rainbow Push honoring a great mom Wanda Durant! <a href="https://t.co/EcBvyeI5NP">pic.twitter.com/EcBvyeI5NP</a></p>— Frank Isola (@FisolaNYDN) <a href="https://twitter.com/FisolaNYDN/status/748511550307188736">June 30, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
So we are meeting Horford first thing tomorrow..... As i Said yesterday, Durant is not Plan A, Horford is! If we cant land Horford then we will likely push for Whiteside or Conley, if we convince any of them then we go after our PLAN B: DURANT! We dont need a meeting with Durant at this point, we already had one 3 weeks ago, we already now what he wants and in order to have a shot at signing him we need to improve the roster is as simple as that. If we land Horford or someone of his caliber then we can ask Durant for a SECOND meeting to show him what we have, right now there is no point in doing so we already now that with our current team he is not coming, but if we can provide a better picture he will consider us.
