Clint Capela: I'm thinking about dominating the paint

I generally liked Morey's moves, but when the brainiacs started dissecting Capela's weaknesses, without giving credit to his strength, the writing was on the wall. Capella was as instrumental as anyone in the 65 win team. But, too many people just claimed that Capela was solely a product of Harden. Sure Harden is an MVP, but the Rockets had an amazing center, that they didn't value accordingly.

I'm still a huge Capella fan. The guy is an amazing talent, that is still getting better.

 

I was surprised and I'm scared too, Clint.

 

Not missing Clint at all, tbh.

Hasn't improved a lick. Odd to see a thread massively overrating him. Y'all should know more than anyone what Clint can do, and what he can't do...

 

Yes. All of those 3 guys can't create their own offense. Also Battier is one of the most overrated players ever in Rockets history. Rudy Gay is much better.

 

Battier is a 2 time all nba defensive team. Remind us what accolades Rudy Gay has again that say hes much better? Actually, I'll make it simple for you. His NBA accolades are blank. you just stay posting dumb

 

Taking Clint away from Harden really cramped his abilities and limited him to 1 on 1 and step backs as his primary weapon... which was harder to do if you take away the threat of the P&R lob. That disservice to Harden just to cater to Russ was IMO the 2nd worst decision of the Harden era. First being trading for Russ in the first place given the drastic amount of assets it took to make that deal.

Always like Clint, and thought he had a great personality. I wish him the best of luck, and happy to see him doing well in ATL.

 

I always liked Clint - trading him was stupid...

so sick of all the apologists justifying that small clusterf**k as "well Tilman forced DMs and MDAs hand into small ball by insisting we trade for WB..." When in reality MDA had been pushing that crap forever... and DM's raw data may have supported it - but lacked an appreciation for the nuances and adjustments that would be made as a counter...
...and yes, ultimately Tilman decided to pull the trigger (blinked first - and overpaid) - but I believe the whole brain trust was onboard - they just differed on how much they were willing to spend...

Tilman, DM, MDA and Harden were ALL part of that mess... they all deserve blame...

it was a dumb move - that was never gonna work given our lack of shooters and general dysfunction...

its a pity that thats the parting legacy... smh...

 

Still doesn't look like a good trade in hindsight. Agree on the other players not being one-dimensional.

 

MDA has never had a problem with Capela, in fact he is the one that made him useful in his system in 2016-2017.

There were several reasons why Capela was traded, it sure as hell wasn't MDA's small ball.
1. we were simply not winning games, if I remember correctly we were under performing pretty badly in 2020 before Capela went down, we hovered around the 6th seed.
2. WB and spacing, no need for explanation there.
3. Capela was out for the season, we had to make some kind of playoff push/gamble
4. We were just in general desperate for change because nothing was going that well, and we were looking at another second round exit. That was just a last ditch swing for the fences.

It didn't help that Capela's performance against GSW the previous year, especially getting out played by Looney and Green leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

 

Russell Westbrook's introductory press conference

 

You do realize that we attached that extra first rounder because this trade got us under the luxury tax line right? The FRPs since Tillman have taken over have all been used to duck the tax.

The trade saved us like 13 million dollars and we had to pay to get other teams to take those contracts.

Morey just got more clever in how he hid the luxury tax savings trades as the years went by.

 

Cash Considerations was not available.

 

well the league is not going to adjust to him

Clint needs to either learn how to have a solid post/back to the basket game or consistently make jumpers

 

I'll say he hasn't expanded his skillset, but to say he hasn't improved in any way is untrue. His stats don't look much different, but his game to game consistency and defensive awareness have definitely improved.

Atlanta basically just inserted him into last years starting lineup and they went from last in opponent PPG to 14th. They've improved in pretty much every meaningful defensive metric. It's kind of impressive that a team that has Trae Young, Danilo Gallinari, and Lou Williams in the rotation is somehow average defensively. Also take into account their best perimeter defenders, Hunter and Reddish, were injured all season.

 

Westbrook made Clint Capela obsolete on this team. It was either trade Broadie or trade Clint. The easier one to get rid off was Clint. I wasn't super happy about the trade, but I also knew that something needed to be done because Westbrook's style just did not mesh with Capela, which also made it easy to double team Harden last season.

What a cluster**** that Westbrook trade was. The majority of us knew it was a bad trade!!

 

if westbrook doesnt get injured the outcome could have been different... he wasnt the same player in the playoffs

 

It's not like you're being forcibly Capeled to read & reply jeez!!!111!!!!!!

 

With foot issues.

I wish him the best though.

 

I feel like this was one of the final dominos to fall from what has been (probably) the worst trades in franchise history.

CP3 and too many first rounders/swaps for Russell Westbrook

It pretty much forced everyones hand, whether on the court or in the front office, on what path we would have to take with the team's style of play and structure. I would put that more on Fertita and crew versus Morey and clan.

 

Imagine calling Robert Covington, Shane Battier, and PJ Tucker ONE DIMENSIONAL. What the **** do you think one dimensional means??