I rather you not. Tilman could have spent double the LT. If Harden didn't want to be here, Tillman can't change that. Guess what? Harden is not here. It's not because Rockets won't spend money. They will when needed. Harden couldn't get any help here, and ran off the help he did have. He had no choice but to join else where. Even if Tilman spent over the LT you have to get players to accept the money. I have no doubt Tilman is cheap. To say a business man is unwilling to invest in his business is silly. No need to waste money when the dude is going to leave anyway. It good we didn't load up on more old vets to help Harden. We would be in more trouble had we signed PJ to a big extension like he wanted. Cheap? Maybe, but for a reason. I'm sure Rockets learned their lesson about letting player run the organization during key title contentions and also about not moving fast to get help for their star. They can only do so much. Harden was only able to lure Westbrook, LOL.
I am really wondering what all of the Morey haters think now. We have been absolutely fleeced. Many players have demanded out, and teams were able to get a whole lot more for them. Pelicans send out AD who is often injured and had a much better return. There are numerous other deals with far less of a player than Harden being involved that would net a team much more. You know if this team had it together Harden could have come back at the end of his contract like Lebron did for Cleveland, but the way this org looks we will not have a Kyrie + #1 overall pick to trade for a prime Kevin Love type player. This type of return guarantees Harden will not return.
5 first round picks, 4 swaps, and 21 million in cap space after the journeymen roll off is a good start. We have 3 picks this year, and a core or young players on good contracts moving forward. Get on the banana boat to rebuild.
Sadly it will continue to happen, its been happening for a while now but it keeps getting more and more blatant. As of right now, most of the teams in the league are only there for LA and Brooklyn to have someone to beat every other night. I know some fans are excited for their little moves today in Miami and Philly and whoever improved.... But for what? Yeah, we are soon going to be the first team out of playoff contention but those other teams will follow weeks later via elimination. And eventually as time goes on, the greats in the small market teams will eventually pick a new super team and the cycle will continue. I am hoping that by the time Houston is great again this trend is no longer a thing. I hope players actually decide they want to beat each other in order to earn those rings vs beat each other off in order to easily say you accomplished it all no matter how cheap it was.
Pat Riley is the biggest loser. Not Rafael Stone, far from it. How do you go from Not giving Tyler Herro, Duncan Robinson and Picks for James Harden To Victor Oladipo, a shell of himself.
Harden had a lot of confidence in Morey being able to get him players and get out of a tough situation so if he were here maybe he doesn't even demand the trade in that manner and we don't lose that much leverage, he respected Morey for all of his efforts and for believing in him from the beginning, at least based on the more recent reports which detailed his exit and Morey's influence, but even hypothetically Morey's deals would involve several teams and it felt like he was playing 4D chess, the front office are a bunch of simpletons that reek of desperation. If you trade Harden when guys he respected (Morey/MDA) were still around, he would not have tanked his value.
Exactly, no one is fooling anyone. These negotiations are within to professionals who know exactly what is on the table and for what. The expectations some have of Morey is ridiculous. I'm sure many here think Morey would have traded Oladipo for Tatum or Durant....It just does not work like that, we also have no clue what Oladipo told Stone this morning. Maybe he asked to go now...
I heard Lakers offered Riley a bottle of Grecian Formula, some Euro hair gel, a Laker Girl, and a six pack of Viagara for Olynyk, ...and Riley accepted, but the offer came in too late as he had already traded Olynyk to the Rockets for an injured Oladipo. NBA said no you can not undo that Oladipo trade.
Once again, I'm getting tired of having to teach people about how the cap works. We don't get 21 M of cap space. We have -30M right now. If we lose the 21 we're at -9M. There is no cap space. That's not how the cap works. Wood, Wall, Gordon, Augstine is almost the whole cap space.
That's a meme you decided to believe, Morey stepped down by the way. He was the first to go, assuming Harden would still be here is the things that hurt ex's do when they feel like they could have done something to change that other person's heart or feelings. Morey never played 4D chess... He lucked out on Harden and then proceeded to put around him a bunch of ex injury prone stars and or role players. Name one great move Morey did that involved a great young player in his prime that actually helped Harden carry the load. A good young player with tons of usage and that could take over at times.
Yeah we lost it but some here are spinning it around to "We lost 21M so now we have 21 M to spend on new players". Well the truth is we have to drop 30M MORE before we have 21M to spend. The only way we can sign a max contract with Wall and Gordon on the roster is if those are the ONLY guys on the roster. There is no cap space so it doesn't matter. I'm happy to have him gone but cap space isn't one of the reasons for that.
The assumption was not that Harden would still be here, but that if Morey / MDA were here then Harden would not have tanked his value and thrown the whole team under the bus and forcing a trade for scraps the next day, so the whole hurt ex thing which many people here repeat makes no sense. People seem to really forget what Morey was able to pull off, he was able to steal players away from Kobe/Lakers in Dwight, I mean they literally had billboards begging him to stay. It didn't work, but in reality that was the most in demand FA and we got him. He got Chris Paul here and that was a great fit, that is on harden and CP for not making it work. He pulled off a bad trade as a last ditch effort to appease Harden in getting him Westbrook, so given he did all of this there was a level of respect. If you read the articles on Harden's exit he mentions Morey. Morey stepped down because he was being treated poorly, Tilman was siding with China from the beginning in that tweet situation, and he was pushing for savings when he could have upgraded the roster. MDA also "stepped down" as well, but we know the reason was because Tilman absolutely disrespected him and made no contact after the season ended. If either of those guys were still here, Harden would have been more patient, but there is no one left in this org that deserves any respect. If we are using your relationship analogy, then you are essentially making excuses for the abusive person (Tilman) in the relationship and then wondering why no one wants to stay around. You let a talented GM walk and then you replace the coach with a guy Harden did not think was right for the job, and he has proven he is not the right guy for any head coaching job.
