very refreshing to see someone take a holistic macro perspective of team building instead of just knocking a move in 1 specific situation that it hurts you in. Maybe Ryno wasn't the only guy we could've gotten, maybe he's overpaid (yah he is), but what is the alternative with harden in his prime. if we have another 41-41 season you are looking at harden becoming the next paul george (bolting to la at first chance) and no other star considering coming here. we needed to show harden and other players that we were serious about winning and could win
Also, had we not lost to the Spurs, to the point everyone is mad at Harden and Anderson, we might not even feel a need to go after Paul.
I would have given less money to Marvin Williams (who did well on Hornets the year before). He might have not been as good of 3 point shooter but he actually defends. We would still have Ariza, Gordon, and Lou Williams after trade deadline. Considering Anderson did not even shoot that well at home, how many games worse off do you think we would be with Marvin Williams in Hornets form from prior season on the Rockets? Do you think we would be that much worse off that Chris Paul would not even want to come here? I would have been ok with him if it wasn't such a horrendous contract. I have no idea what Morey was thinking.
If Ryno had 5 win shares, doesn't that insinuate that the Rockets are 5 games worse without him? Therefore the 41-41 argument is a little exaggerated. We'd drop from 55-27 to 50-32, and a season still viewed as upward movement from the 2016 disaster.
This is the first fair post you've made. Again, I don't love Ryno, but I want to be fair with the criticism of him and Morey. And I don't know the answer and I don't know if your opinion is correct, but at least it is legit. Would the Rockets have been better off with Marvin Williams? Statistically, Williams and Ryno have similar impact in terms of PER and win shares. But they are different players. Would Williams be the right fit? Is his contract easier to move? I'd say yes, I agree with the contract being better, but I don't think Williams would have helped as much as Ryno last year during the season.
You're right. Williams remaining $44m for 3 more years until age 34 is exactly what we need to trade to the Knicks for Melo.
He was part of a historic offense. A fairly big part of it. He's overpaid but it was a product of that off-season and the Rockets previous season. If he can somehow shoot at home as well he does on the road, he'd actually be arguably more valuable than Carmelo. It's foolish to not recognize his contributions. I'd trade him for the right player without hesitation but he's not value less. He just makes too much money.
At the end of the day he's still not quite Chandler Parson mistake level 10. IMO Andersons contract is bad but not terrible. Saying Morey shouldn't have done that is playing Monday morning quarter back. Most were cool with it when it happened. Also worse players then Anderson have been able to turn their careers around. Paul could make him better. Yule C
Even if he wouldn't have helped as much, it is far fetched to think that the difference would have been so much that CP would not have come here. We had several players on this team that performed well last season.
Wasn't a mistake in my eyes. With all his foibles, I still like Ryan Anderson. I'm not mad he is still on the roster. Don't @ me, come at me.
That's a fair point. But who else should the Rockets have gotten last year? And a 50 win season would just have been another good team, but similar to other teams (8th best NBA record last year)....and it's statistical guessing. I think having the 3rd best record in the NBA mattered to CP3 in the sense that he wanted to join a good team. And I think fit mattered with Ryno. There are better players than Ryno for the Rockets, but I don't think there were better players available last year in free agency.
I think most people just overvalue Anderson's importance to the team. Sure Anderson shot 40% from 3 pts, he provided spacing and gravity etc. But most people praising him fall into the trap of Anderson vs scrub, ie what if we replaced Anderson with a scrub then Houston would be worse off. Anderson shoots 40% from 3 but he only contributes 13 pts a game, that is a limited contribution for a specialized shooter who is bad at everything else. He makes everyone look good om the offensive but he also makes the opponent look good on the defensive side, the opponent has an easy time scoring on him and getting rebs! Anderson isn't the only stretch 4 in the league, and he is the only roleplaying stretch4 that made this much. What if the Rox just got Frye for 7M or Patterson for 8m? They could've saved more money to keep better guys on the team. What if the Rox traded for Wilson Chandler and just had Ariza play PF the whole season? You think Rox record of 55 games would be better or worse?
i don't think that we have the 20-2 december without ryno. Ryno is a player that can be figured out but is deadly when you don't prepare for him. As the season went on and especially in the playoffs when teams could game plan for him, he was shut down. If we don't get melo then ryno can still help us. having 2 double team threats in harden and paul is just going to get better shots for ryno. Harden was our only guy capable of drawing double teams last year so naturally ryno never got open. Would that change with Paul? maybe we will see.
This is half fair. Patterson and Frye weren't FA's last year. The Rockets, by letting Dwight go, had money to spend. So who would you have acquired instead? Here is the list: http://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/2...where-players-are-going-whos-still-available/ And rumors were that the Rockets did want Wilson Chandler. But what is the cost? (Personally, I'd rather have Wilson Chandler than Ryno, and I think maybe the Rockets would too even though he's not a 3pt sniper, but I just don't think he was available at the right price). I agree that Ryno gives up a lot of D. But it isn't a trap of Ryno vs. scrub, because really, last year's FA class sucked. It was Ryno vs Meyers Leonard or whoever else they had on their target list.
Yeah but the assumption here is you lose Ryno for nothing, which is dumb because why will Rox leave 18M of blank space on their team? I'm not criticizing the Anderson signing per se, I am criticizing the amount and more importantly THE YEARS of his contract. I think Anderson signing was a great gamble, there is this statistical gem named Anderson who shot 40% from 3 and provided 12 pts ppg on a Pelican team with no elite playmaker, you put that guy on the Rockets 3 pt hapoy offense and shouldn't his scoring increase to 15-18 ppg while maintaining the same %? The problem is they locked him up for 4 years, I feel that is why they aren't able to trade his contract now.
But why should the Rox limit themselves to the list of available FAs? Nobody is preventing them for trading for Wilson Chandler from the get go. Thats what they did with Chris Paul, its not like they looked at the list of available FAs and said we must spend all our cash on FAs. In fact Anderson signing was a rushed signing because they waited for Durant and Horford and when thise two guys signed almost all fas had been acquired already.