[ClutchFans] Podcast: Victor Oladipo trade a big disappointment in Houston

If you're going to be stealing away RFAs from other teams, you need to be able to make the offer sheets as painful to match as possible. That's going to mean preserving the use of the entire non-taxpayer MLE for a single player.

Another big benefit of getting firsts over second rounders is the ability to "roll" them over fairly easily if you don't have any players remaining with a draftable grade, or if you're in the situation that the Rockets are in the coming years, where they will have too many picks in the same 20-30 range. Second round picks become essentially worthless (acquirable for cash only) around #40 or so. So when you trade a high second rounder for a future second rounder, there's a better than average chance you're not going to get a pick worth anything back. When you trade a first for a future first, you know there is a floor for how much the asset can be devalued in the worst case scenario, and you probably have a decent chance of improving the pick over time.

I'm a pretty big believer that there is an upper limit to how many young players you can develop at one time, especially if most of them project to be role players. I think that having some kind of structure, and having vets who know how to play in the NBA and can make the game slower and easier for the young kids as they develop is key, and having a bunch of young guys all going for their first big contract at once is a recipe for disaster.

 

Because okc and miami although difficult to trade with I doubt has traded damaged goods to get assets.
When we traded Mcgrady to the knicks they literally thought they got a disgruntled star from Houston who was going to light up MSG. Instead they got injured goods. Then there was Aaron Brooks. He was never the same after that injury and we traded him to Phoenix for Dragic I believe. Houston Loved Morey for his moves. The other guys did not. Morey was absolutely shameless as his first few years as GM.

 

Somehow, this trade reminds me of...
... dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, 1 second left on the shot clock, throw up an contested off balance long 3, clank!

 

I was talking the exact opposite of what you are describing.

Stealing 1st year players coming off of 2-way contracts, who are RFA, is about attacking teams who are concerned about dipping into the MLE for their inexpensive (but young) guys, because they are going after guys in the $8-9m range. We might find teams who won't go much over minimum contracts for them, so we bump it up a little over minimum (say, $2m), to see if they blink, because they need to preserve their MLE for a more expensive veteran.

And if they match, move on to the next one.

This works, because ...

... the best use of the MLE this summer is to use it on many "Hinkie Specials" to see how many Tate's and Kenyon's we can spawn.

Therefore, for this summer, take the FRP swap, buy a 2RP, and do Hinkies on the 2RP, undrafted players and 1st yrs coming off 2-way contracts. All that's possible, so the issue of having problems dipping into the MLE is a non-problem, unlike for contenders.​

 

Adding another perspective to lessen the pain...Victor Oladipo to Heat is our poison pill to Miami. Vic's inefficiency will cause Miami to lose more games and we may get better pick if we lose out on top 4

 

I hope that Oladipo will start clunking shots and keep that up in order to get a big contract.

 

Everybody on Clutchfans: Vic Oladipo sucks.

Also everybody on Clutchfans: How could Stone get so little for Vic Oladipo?

 

That's a good one.

 

fair point. But I’m like: why did we get Dipo in the first place if we are rebuilding and if he couldn’t be flipped for value at the deadline?

 

That’s also a fair point. I assume the thinking was Stone was taking a chance on him playing a lot better than he did and was just wrong.

 

Looking at the 2017 draft to see who is around still:

21 out of the 30 first round draft picks still play in the league and average decent minutes enough to be considered a contributor. Not studs, but 21 of them actually still play at least 10 minutes per game now.

11 out of the 30 second round draft picks still play in the league and average at least 10 minutes per game. None of them are big time players.

The move into the first round via the PJ Tucker trade moves up our rebuild 1 year and gives us a better shot at landing a contributor in the draft significantly. The end of the first round always has a few gems and we have a shot at landing one. My point is that these small moves up the ladder aren't nothing like it's being said on repeat around here. It's better than 2 second round picks. Generally speaking, very few second round picks are with the team that drafted them 4 years later. Sterling Brown is an example. Good players, but they might not be your good players.

 

Oladipo was part of that 6 game win streak. People act like when we traded for Oladipo that we had some vision of tanking. We had zero ideas about tanking when Dipo arrived. The captain hindsight stuff around here seems a bit overboard. Like just mad at the world and not remembering clearly. We got Dipo to win this year and be competitive. He did give us that and the 6 game win streak proves that to me. Injury changed everything and it changed his trade value to other teams later as well.

I don't care who laughs at us, Stoner is doing the best he can. Moving up a few spots in next years draft? Well... it's better than accepting second round lottery tickets. Those almost never pan out. There's only one alpha to ever come out in the second round and that's Jokic. Everyone else were just good complimentary pieces like Manu Ginobli. As good as Manu is, you're not building your team around him and we need that foundational changing piece. Moving up gives us a slightly better shot at that. I'll take that over nothing! (which is my guess about what was going to become available to us if we told Miami "no")

 

Yeah, pretty sure they didn't expect him to be this bad and thought they would be able to get more from trading him.

 

Dang bro, I hope you were totally safety conscious before you entered the Delta Center! Some things you can’t wash off!!


Thanks for the podcast @Clutch & @BimaThug! Didn’t like what I was hearing about the whole trade fiasco but y’all were informative as usual!

#KeepTankAlive
Go Rockets!!!
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WIthout morey's blueprint to follow, stone seams over his head

 

This will probably be unpopular, but I am totally rooting for the Jazz this year.

They are a small market team leading the NBA. I will always pull for that.

I didn’t come of age during the true rivalry years, maybe that has something to do with it. Whatever. Go small markets!!

 

Obviously we're arguing hypotheticals here, so there's no way either of us can be proven correct, but I just don't think that any decent rookie or someone signed to a 2-way is going to be able to be poached for a small offer sheet like you're saying. Teams are going to convert guys with any kind of potential to multi-year NBA deals, or make the difficult choice to keep their MLE available for offer-sheet matching. We've already been through this multiple times with pretty much the exact scenario you're describing with Carl Landry, KJ McDaniels, and Danuel House. While I and many other fans expected them to be getting max-MLE deals, all three ended up back in Houston either after signing a very reasonable offer sheet or taking a smaller than expected portion of the MLE.

I personally favor trying to overpay for a young player with a clearly defined weakness that might be addressed with lots of minutes. If we sign a guy and we as fans think the offer sheet is fair, then it's probably going to get matched. The Rockets can and should be getting stupid with their offer sheets; they're firmly in talent acquisition mode and should be willing to eat the cost if the player can't develop. In 2010, fresh off of being deserted by LeBron, the Cavaliers out of desperation signed a backup point guard with shooting splits of 39/27 to a full MLE offer sheet. Fortunately for them, the original team matched that plainly ludicrous contract. Unfortunately for them, that player was Kyle Lowry, who broke out the next year when handed the starting job through injury.

My ideal guy is someone who has the physical tools and instincts, but has clear weaknesses shooting the ball. If the Rockets are going to be bad for awhile, it really doesn't matter whether the shots such a guy is taking are going in at critical times, just that the guy who is developing grows the confidence to take those shots in game. I always like to point out to people that the two most loved and admired 3-D guys, Trevor Ariza and Robert Covington, did not just come into the league ready to snipe from 3. Ariza put up around 1000 3s, never shooting better than 33% over about 4 years, before finally developing the shot into a reliable weapon. Covington got about 6000 minutes on terrible Process teams where he shot below 40% from the field in three consecutive years. The Thunder are doing something similar with Lu Dort right now; time will tell if it pays off.

 

Alex English, Tiny Archibald, Willis Reed, Calvin Murphy

But seriously, add Gilbert Arenas to Jokic.

 

My apologies, I should have stated that I meant the modern NBA Draft that has capped off the number of rounds since 1988. I have to think scouting pre-1988 wasn't the same either. With tapes and such becoming a regular thing. Airplane travel being more common, hs sports being more organized. Lots contributed to Willis Reed slipping down in the draft back then. So again my apologies for not stating modern or post 1988.

I liked Gilbert Arenas, but he was no foundation piece for a championship. He was drafted by the Golden State Warriors and then went to Washington for his best years. He actually kind of proves my point. Second rounders may make it in the NBA, but not with the team that drafted them. Here's looking at you Chandler Parsons !

 

In fairness on Arenas, the only reason he wasn't retained by the Warriors was because the then-current CBA rules had a huge loophole that prohibited the Warriors from being able to keep him. That was addressed in the subsequent CBA with a rule that became commonly known as...the Arenas Rule!