While you are right that they should keep him as an asset to trade next season that isn't how the Fertitta Rockets work. They take the small money upfront with little to no concern about the future of the team.
He DOES strike me as the guy that will pay $6.99 a month rather than pay $50 for a year subscription.
He is doing his best to trash this team before he jumps ship and joins Morey in Philadelphia. Morey gets the last laugh. Tilman will be left with a bunch of trash on his team, no future prospects and players fighting each other and demanding trades.
While the Rockets have struggled with the Harden related deals.... they still have shown an eye for talent. The Rockets signed Tate from Australia and they drafted Martin..... both have proven to be good value. The Rockets also bought low on Porter and that may really work out well for the Rockets. The Rockets have a 52% chance of having a top 4 draft pick this season in a draft that is 5 players deep, so they could get a franchise player in the draft. Also, the Nets already are having a hard time keeping KD and Kyrie on the court and Harden is 32 years old next year. The draft swaps may prove very valuable and the Rockets may get a lottery pick or two out of those. The Rockets also have lined up a bunch of long shots with the Heat and Bucks picks, but sometimes they pay off. The Rockets also have their own 2022 pick which could be high lottery.... and the future picks to OKC have better protections so the Rockets shouldn't lose so much.
Bill Engval use to call it. "Here's your sign" Dipo wasn't worth much when we got. I don't know what people were expecting. This is what happens when you accommodate players for cudos and league rep. Won't help though because ESPN and NBA is going to sh*t on the Rockets every chance they get.
last laugh? He's got an injury prone center, a good PG that can't shoot and has reached his ceiling, and they are behind the Bucks and the Nets at least in the East
So ironically, the single best asset that the Rockets got out of trading James Harden was a result of salary dumping Prince to Cleveland, which triggered KPJ to throw the tantrum, and get traded to the Rockets for nothing. That is some 5D chess stuff. Hopefully after the rebuilding process is completed, and we're doing a retrospective on how the new Rockets were constructed, we can marvel at how the NBA works. Right now, it just hurts. I don't really fault the Rockets for taking gambles on Oladipo's value and on the picks. But right now they have obviously had their gambles not pay off multiple times in a row, and they've dug a deep hole for the future.
There is no GM that would have given the Rockets (or Pacers) a first-round pick for LeVert until he proved he was cancer free. Also, Kevin Pritchard runs the Indiana Pacers. The Pacers could have enough cap space to sign a max-salary player and the odds of them signing in Indiana are slim to none, because of the team’s market. Also, the Pacers were over the cap after signing Brogdon away from Milwaukee and giving Sabonis an extension. It was either take LeVert for Oladipo, or get a late first-round pick at best from a contender and hope to add an Oladipo replacement next season with the MLE. They felt like gambling on LeVert making a full recovery was the best option for a small market team interested in winning now. Also, what exactly is so much better about an injury/health exception than having an extra $17.5 million in cap space when the Rockets are no longer operating above the cap? If the Rockets traded LeVert for a player making similar money on a long-term contract, I’d understand the outrage. They chose cap space over LeVert. With what we now know, it looks like they would have been able to land a first-round pick for LeVert before his contract expired, and they didn’t get one for Oladipo, so the move certainly backfired. However, it certainly wasn’t an indefensible decision at the time.
Which is why it's confusing that Stone made that trade in the first place. Like you said, Dipo's value was low and, yet, he made the trade. Was it because LeVert's contract had more years? I guess that's a slant we can assume but LeVert and his contract didn't come with as many red flags (Vic's knee injury, his insistence on signing with miami, etc.). At worst, you could have moved LeVert (even with his cancer diagnosis) at the trade deadline for something more worthwhile than Olynyk and Bradley. Hell, Stone could have just set the bar real low on LeVert to be a 1st rounder 1-15 protected and a team like Boston would have given that up. I don't even think Stone had a chance to set the bar/floor that low on Vic because there were only like two teams (Miami and New York) that might have wanted him...hell Miami probably realized it was only bidding against themselves and effectively/correctly played the waiting game until Stone blinked.
I bolded that last part because it goes back as to why in the hell Stone traded for Oladipo in the first place. Was it because Tilman got hot and heavy when he saw that Vic's contract was up after this year, thereby relinquishing him from paying additional salary that would have occurred if he kept LeVert on the roster (going by the HUGE assumption that LeVert would have been a part of the Rockets' rebuilding plan)? Was it because, despite all of the smoke signals Vic and his agent sent out about wanting to go to Miami, Stone and/or Tilman really thought Vic would have wanted to re-sign with Houston? Was it because, in a desire to field a competent team after Harden's exit, Stone/Tilman thought Wood/Wall/Oladipo would have somehow guided Houston to at least a play in game in the postseason? It just made little logical sense at that time to send a perfectly good player/asset (before his cancer diagnosis) and, in return, get a player/asset that you had limited control over--either because he was an unrestricted free agent or because he really only wanted to play for one team.
It depends on whether you think he will have any value at $6,000,000. He is always hurt and hasn't been a great defender in awhile. Maybe he plays and plays well and the Rockets still have the option. You potentially buy him out because you already are paying Augustin and there are younger players you want to give minutes and roster spaces to.
