All at the demand of the player who came in out of shape, demanding his own trade and destination which gave us zero leverage....
Christian Wood was essentially a free agent, so I actually wouldn't include him in the equation. That's both depressing and encouraging. Depressing because it makes your equation seem even more lopsided. Encouraging because... Christian Wood. If we're going with intangibles in the equation, you could also add to the right side, "The reputation of the Rockets amongst the league's agents." Every notable player that has left the Rockets has landed in a good situation. Whether it was justified or not, we all know that Morey had a reputation that didn't go over well with a lot of players... apparently jocks just hate nerds... who'd have thunk-it? Stone seems to be making a very sincere attempt to shake that. I'm also thoroughly impressed with Stone's ability to seal the deal with Wood. Morey struck out over and over again with free agents, and Stone hit one out of the park practically before he got the sign printed for his office door.
Put this in the left side of the equation... "Broken down, beaten up, completely demoralized group of basketball players."
Uh, we traded away the best offensive player of all time and a guaranteed championship. That's worth 4 top 3 picks by itself. Most of those first rounders are going to be in the very late first round.
Look at what the sixers had in assets when Sam Hinkie came on board... The best asset a team has during a rebuild is their own draft pick after they tank. Having KPH and Wood already is a pretty good start to the rebuild. They might not be as good a prospect as Embiid was but the lottery pick we get either this summer or next could be. And adding that level of talent to some other young talents would be a great rebound from losing our stars.
I appreciate the optimism, but this is a debacle. We are going to suck, for a VERY long time, and it's entirely because of the new ownership. It's entirely not up for discussion at this point, and hasn't been for some time. Tilman and family have turned Houston into a laughing stock. The best case scenario is that market fears are realized, the economy tanks, **** businesses relying on cheap credit (Tilman) die off early, and a real businessman buys the Rockets.
Another spin: We went for a championship. We went for a championship again. We went for another. That cost us something to go for it. We had no shot at the championship this year. Now we have immediate rebuild opportunity assets like our own 1st this year if 52% chances ring true, and like 90 potential first round picks until 2027 with a lot of swap chances that could be good if things work out. At worst we have a bunch of firsts coming our way even though we might send a few out if we're good at basketball during that time.
Yeah reality caught up with the way they were knowingly mortgaging part of the future by trying to squeeze out what they could of Harden's years. That's on ownership, sure, but it's also on Morey, who bailed. I get that people are upset with the situation at hand, but what did they expect? Harden demanded a trade so the return was never going to be that great. Oladipo was a risk and a bad fit. Ideally they would've gotten more out of him, but now it's about developing for the future. When viewed through the lens of Porter + the possibility of keeping a top-4 pick, then honestly that's not too bad. Not ideal, but that can expedite the rebuild. ____ The more I think about Harden the more I'm perturbed: Les, Tillman, Daryl and Mike groveled at his feet. He was given a larger contract -- while already under contract. He was offered $50 million per year. But he was upset that the team didn't have talent? Morey tried and tried and tried. The talent WAS there (in 2018). The window could've been extended had the Paul trade not happened. So let's look at that some more: why did the Westbrook trade happen? Because Harden wanted it to happen. Lots of people want to point blame solely on Fertitta, but that's BS to me. The team coddled and consulted Harden on every major move. If he didn't want Chris Paul traded then Chris Paul would still be a Rocket. Fast forward to this season and you've got Durant successfully recruiting Harden to force a trade. We keep hearing about players having what's effectively their own shadow free agency and deciding to team up (James + Davis; Leonard + George; Durant + Irving). All I wonder is why couldn't Harden recruit stars to come to Houston? That's not on Morey or Stone or Fertitta. Some things are out of management and ownership's hands. The fact is Harden quit when the going got tough and bailed. The team sucks today largely because Harden's forced decisions, and/or his lack of recruitment. Yet most everyone wants to blame Fertitta because he didn't want to pay...Trevor Ariza?! That's dumb (for the record Fertitta is an *******, so blame him for that; I just think he gambled, poorly, on Westbrook and now we're seeing the results. However no one will convince me that Harden isn't the one that set that trade in motion).
Harden deal lacks of a proven young star Chris Paul deal lack of a proven young star too. Rockets are the bottom team. When giving away 4 top-4 protected first round picks and take John Wall additional $47 million salary, another proven young star should be in the package. Stone is supposed to land 2 proven young stars.
The issue is not so much what they got for Harden, that was forced by Harden. The real problem was the Paul for Westbrook trade. If Harden was demanding they move Paul, and that was the best deal available, they would have been better off shopping Harden when he is not forcing his way out and has multiple years left on his deal. You don't throw in multiple 1st round picks to swap Paul for Westbrook. The Rockets got fleeced by the Thunder and the rest of it is trying to make the best of a bad situation, IMO.
The Harden deal is somewhat irrelevant. When a superstar leaves you clean the deck and hope for the best. If even 1 of those BKN picks falls in the lottery, then that is about the best return you could hope for. The real killer was signing Paul. Then realising he didn't work in midget ball and flipping him for a worse midget ball fit, AND THEN going the full midget by ditching Capela. (Closely followed by the free picks for LTS) You gotta make some moves to try and win. But paying the backup PG 40mill was a bad idea - to repeat it two more times...yikes
Come on, in no world would this ever have been realistic. Houston would get rightly trashed even more than they are now had they traded and gave up on Harden, the best offensive player in the game. They did go all-in, more or less, in trying to compete and appease Harden.
No doubt it’s a completely different situation if Les still owned the team. The CP3 trade for Russ was the single greatest reason this team isn’t still competing for a title this and at least another year. That’s on more than Bubba Gump shrimp boy but I just don’t see Les pulling the lever on that trade because Morey would never get overruled on a deal like that. But yeah Harden certainly had a heavy hand in it too obviously. We also suck because he just couldn’t get along with CP when he was clearly one of the best players he’s ever played with and usually just staggered minutes to give him longer breaks anyways. So it’s hard to not point at Harden first and foremost. But in the end Tillman did the dead and it sounds like he didn’t do everything he could not to. Also Morey should have resigned before the Westbrook trade in protest. I mention the Hinkie sixers analogy but honestly I don’t think Tillman will have the stomach to do that next season even though it’s clearly the best way to rebuild this team. The most important asset the Rockets have is their own 2022 draft pick after they tank next season... but will Tillman allow Stone to even have access to it??? That’s the biggest question moving forward.
I've been reliably told that Tilman actually is not cheap. He just went "all-out" with the Westbrook trade.
You're right, the key is not going for the championship again in 2020 by making insane moves repeatedly throughout 2019 to burn assets to shed salary... and then Westbrook.
I agree with a lot of this post, and I think it points to an underlying problem: Star players increasingly control the league, and because they can force their way out of some teams and into certain others, the future assets involved in trades (draft picks) don't necessarily affect them. The picks we dealt for Westbrook weren't Harden's problem, because if the Harden-Westbrook Rockets didn't work out, Harden could force his way out, contract or no. That's a systematic accountability problem. The league needs to find a way to link power to accountability. Either make the stars more accountable, or give the owners more power.
Harden getting out squeaky clean when he caused a lot of our current issues... that sucks. He's about to do that to Brooklyn when his contract runs out. This move over there is a 100% short term competition only. They better win the chip or they just mortgaged their future for 'being in the conversation'. Harden also built up the value of Houston and at least he got us the biggest return in NBA history in terms of draft picks: 4 first rounders and 4 first round swaps. No one, absolutely no one (correct me if I'm wrong) could have gotten us that many assets in a trade. No single player in the NBA is worth what we got for Harden in that trade in terms of picks. Give me one name worth 4 firsts and 4 swaps (aka the max picks you can trade)? Giannis maybe? Probably not. There are better teams in the NBA, but there is no better player in the NBA in terms of draft pick worth. This is the Herschel Walker trade in NBA terms. Let's see how those draft picks end up being! We are who we draft now.
