If he really wants to leave..... I would rather take a bullet to the head rather than a whole season bleeding out I’ve never been so hyped for a rockets game the past two games. It’s refreshing and new. I don’t care if he leaves or not
I just want them to have a direction. If you are holding him to squeeze out the best offer then great. But if you are serious about convincing him to stay, then you need to make an all in move.
If you fail to acknowledge that every championship team has met a certain criteria that we never did then I guess that’s just about the end of it. Paying the tax guarantees nothing. But not paying the tax absolutely does. You as an organization have decided to not use every tool available to you to improve your chances to win it all.
Spending money for the sake of saying you spent money does not improve your team no matter how many times you try to suggest otherwise. You've failed to make an actual argument, so this has gone nowhere.
The idea that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take applies here. I am not saying that spending money guarantees anything. You keep forcing that opinion on to my argument. I am saying spending money increases your chances. Based 100% on championship results. If you had to place your money year to year on who will win the championship I guarantee that time after time you are going to be picking teams paying the tax. Because they are deciding to spend on more bullets to fire with. No guarantee the bullets connect, but the opportunity is there. We routinely made moves to dodge the gamble.
Spending money does nothing but spend money unless they're is something to spend money on that makes a difference..... that's why I keep asking you to make a valid arguement by saying who they should have spent money on that they could've spent money on that would have made a difference. Keeping roster flexibility is why the team was always in a position to improve till Harden forced the Westbrook trade... and they even managed to bounce back from that pretty well. I just don't see what difference maker you thought was available.
This is pure speculation, but I take it by now that some sort of agreement has been reached in which James has agreed to be a good soldier up through a certain point and time and during that time the team will explore trade options and do their best to trade him by an agreed upon date. My guess is that date is the trade deadline, and that he's basically acquiesced to this and will do his part as a player until the trade occurs. As I said, it's all speculation, but it's hard to see a scenario where he absolutely wants out of Houston and is acting out off the court to one where he completely changes his mind. If you think about it like a job that you really want to leave, I think that's basically what's happening here. He's going to work, doing his best, but in the back of his mind hoping for a new job and scouring job boards during his off-hours so that he can resign and start somewhere new.
Jimmy Butler Lamarcus Aldridge Kevin Durant Paul George Brook Lopez Just off the top of my head. All UFAs when Harden was here, regardless of whether or not we had CP or Dwight in and out of the lineup. Everyone was interested in all of these players, we were not lined up for any one of them because our owner has put a very short leash on our GM. Yes, we weren't going to get all of them because we can't afford all of them. But can we make some space and then also go over the cap to accommodate a bad-ass superteam roster? The answer is absolutely, and I think you know this. The question is why you stay on the other side of the fence trying to protect Tillman? I mean he's a successful businessman, so there's a level of commendation to be shown there, I wouldn't treat him like trash if I ever saw him in person. But is it wrong for Tilman to think he knows better than Morey on playing the GM game? Absolutely. There should be absolutely 0 doubt about Tillman and his unwillingness to spend into the luxury tax being problematic at trying to win a championship. To frown at Harden after Tillman was clearly unwilling to budge on the cap situation, to me, is clearly not the right approach. Harden isn't Lebron, but on the best night, he can be the most valuable player on any court he steps onto. He's not the problem here. The dude just plays basketball at the end of the day.
With the possible exception of Lopez, the Rockets tried for all of those guys.... they just chose to go elsewhere. That wasn't refusal to spend, that was free agents picking other teams.
