[SHAMS] Rockets waive Gary Clark

Chandler is one thing. Thabo has nothing to do with it. he's literally waste of a roster spot and has done nothing to help this team. now that everyone has seen he's no longer playable all that leadership, wisdom talk from Thabo is a gimmick.

 

"greater flexibility later"

I'm just so tired of this. How many years can they say they are going "all in" and then make a move that's about "greater flexibility later" and expect people to buy it?

Honestly I'd be embarrassed to have to defend those comments.

It has nothing to do with Gary Clark to me and everything to do with the process. They are operating with one foot in and one out. We are trying to upgrade and win but want to make sure we can duck the tax in case it doesn't all work perfectly. That's not all in.

 

exactly. some people on this thread are acting like everyone is all upset because of gary clark itself. no, that's far from it. you have multiple wasted roster spots on a team that is playing a soon to be 35 year old PJ almost 40 mins a game w/ now no backup in sight. You want to create a roster spot for someone better or whatever, that fine. he can always be waived later for that. but cutting him now just reeks of what we know is happening. LTS. hou already doesn't have the most healthy bodies around and they're not exactly young. some kind of depth actually matters

 

FWIW, and apologies if got mentioned already after your post, but Portland is monumentally over the tax threshold this year. 13.7 over the threshold, with an estimated tax bill of over 25 million bucks. Dame', McCollum, Whiteside, Bazemore are all right at or way over 20 million, and Nurkic makes over 13.

So not the best comp, this year. I agree with the gist though.

I honestly think Fertitta bought the Rockets in order to synergize his business ventures with the, at-the-time, unusually large East Asian fan share the Rockets had. I think he thought he could use the team to help get a competitive advantage in introducing Golden Nugget/Landry's/etc to new markets in East Asia. Then Morey took a giant $hit on that idea with his tweet, LOL. Now? I don't know what he does. Probably eases Morey out sooner than later, and has the team go on an apology tour, I dunno.

Back to Clark. It's not that Clark was a noteworthy player, it's that it's another example to add to the stack that current ownership is more concerned with finances than with being as committed to a championship as they expect their players and coaches to be. Plus, NG contracts like Clark's, or Mac's, or iHart's, could have value to other teams that are seeking to dump salary. In exchange, those teams could send the Rockets a non-minimum salary role player who could be that last complementary piece. In another thread, I mentioned Markieff Morris for Mac, Clark, and a 2nd, as a hypothetical example. Smarter posters would come up with better ideas.

But that would mean going into the luxury tax. And the Rockets just won't do it.

 

Pretty much this. This flexibility bullshit gets stupid. What are we being flexible for later? Harden is 30 and Russ is 31, they aren't in their mid 20s.

You either put your money where your mouth is at and do what you say you are going to do or you shut the hell up and stop hyping up spending money. As a fan, I see this year as another major opportunity to go all in, unfortunately we have limited assets to even trade salary out since we traded what would have been expiring salaries away.

Those defending Tilman, I hope you enjoy your "future flexibility".

 

What scares me even more if that harden is a California guy (particularly LA). I know neither LA teams can afford him right now but LeBron is in his mid 30s and AD didn't sign his extension. I am afraid eventually harden will say enough and demand to be traded. We are royally screwed if that happens

 

i hope it doesn't happen but tbh would you really blame him? A year ago, they set out to get the likes of Knight, Chriss, Melo, Ennis, MCW as the role players for Harden and co to work with and win because the rockets have an ownership that is too cheap to actually get him quality role players bc it would put him in the tax bracket. Then come playoff time, they had to rely on 7 actual players. One of them being shumpert who actually played well, who half the board despises

 

The guy just wasn't gonna contribute to the big team this season. I'd rather they focus their development on Clemons and Hartenstien instead.

 

BasketMad leads that group,
Roslolian, J.R. , Zboy are also frequent MDA critics

 

And while that something that does move the needle hasn't materialized yet, wouldn't we need Gary Clark as depth at PF and even Center for small ball lineups? Not having him means no legit PF backup/insurance for PJ and more minutes and PJ and Harden (since House and our other perimeter players will now have to be used as PF backup/insurance for PJ.

 

People are complaining “it’s not about Clark, it’s about this process”. But what’s confusing is what do you guys expect after the summer? We didn’t sign any contracts that would force us to pay the luxury tax, so we have to commit to continuing ducking the luxury tax this season. We went through the trouble of having no assets and not adding any key pieces, you think we’re going to all of a sudden jump ship and pay the tax in order to keep Clark or sign a buy out candidate.

Its not right, but at this point it’s the only way. No matter how much we complain, nothing is changing the course this season.

 

I mean we’re technically tied for 2nd place in the mean West and people are b****ing because we didn’t keep Gary Clark? CP3’s pet project Gary Clark? Give me a break.

 

Interesting rant, but I think this is the most salient and crystallized summation and shouldn't be undersold. Ownership/ management has purposely navigated the contracts on this team so that it's only filled with either big salaries or minimums.

Every step along the way, the Rockets have shed future assets to save money/"maintain flexibility" and never taken an opportunity to add or keep tradable mid-salary pieces. They purposely boned themselves and then state "we have to do the moves because of how our team salaries are structured" but they are the ones who strategically decided to structure the team that way.

Anyhow, I like Clark, but I'm not angry with the move. I've come to terms long ago with Tilman's used-car salesman brashness and true imperative to save money. The man has publicly complained about being one if the poorest owners and implied that it restricts his ability to aid the team, prior to making the "whatever-it-takes" statements. So this Clark move made sense.

Cutting McLemore may make financial sense too. I hope Morey and MDA can convince him otherwise. I know the team is Harden, Russ, House, PJ, Clint, EG + min salary junk, and that will never change, but McLemore has been valuable junk imo. Apparently Clark was not valuable enough junk.

 

What is the use of having a mob boss for an owner if he does not do mob things.

Zebras should be scared shyteless to pull these BS shenanigans against Rockets.

Maybe Silver is the real mob boss. Then Tilly is just a scared filly.

Silly Tilly.

 

ahahahah!
btw where is (Official) Gary Clark appreciation thread?

farewell gary!

 

First off, Clark is a jouneyman level player right now but thats my point. If you traded him for a better more expensive player then fine you're going ALL IN. But pinching pennies in the midst of an ALL IN CHAMPIONSHIP RUN? If "Tax Savings " Tilly doesn't have the money to fund a championship roster then he should " SHUT UP & SELL"! It's getting stupid when you have two Former MVPs on the roster and you're so petrified of the Luxury tax that you won't go all in. If you can't do it now then Fertitta IS NEVER GOING TO PAY THE TAX. Hell if I was Morey, I'd consider other jobs where the owner was willing to spend money. This is complete BS!!!

 

The "future flexibility" is back in play since Westbrook's contract runs longer than CP3's did. In order to avoid the repeater tax penalties, they probably need to be under the tax one of the next three years, right? @BimaThug