While JA has been good, I didn't mind that trade. Paying him $100 million just didn't make sense, so getting a first round pick and clearing Prince wasn't too bad. Paying Jarrett Allen $100 million before you get the other pieces in place is how you end up on a mediocrity treadmill. The Dipo trade is the one that hurts -- that turned out to be horrendous asset mismanagement. Gave up an extra 2nd rounder to get him, and then will end up getting no value for the pieces you got -- Olynyk and Bradley walked and the pick swap won't convey. Meanwhile, Levert was flipped for a first and a high 2nd -- basically a net loss of two 1sts in a 1 year time frame. What's maddening is we appear to be going down the same path with Dennis Schroeder. I thought getting any expiring for Theis was a steal. Schroeder apparently had at least the value of a 2nd round pick (or two, if you believe the reports). I could've better understood keeping him if we swapped out Gordon, but now we have two potential malcontent vet guards taking minutes away from guys like Christopher. There's an outside chance we can work a sign and trade swap with Schroeder this offseason, but there are far better odds that he walks for nothing. It's just poor asset management.
Did you honestly expect good asset management from a GM who has 40m sat on the bench all season? I seriously wonder why y'all are surprised by this.
The Dipo trade turned out poorly but I can see solid logic behind the decision. Let's assume the value difference between Oladipo and LeVert was a second at the time. You have a couple of options. 1. Trade LeVert for whatever pick value you can get and keep your second. 2. Keep LeVert. Hope his value increases and trade him at the deadline. 3. Keep LeVert long term. 4. Trade LeVert and a second for Dipo I think option 1 is a good choice. Take your pick and move on. I think option 2 is a meh choice. There is no real reason to believe LeVert's value could increase greatly over 3 months. I don't like option 3. LeVert isn't on a great value contract, isn't all that young, and wouldn't be great for the tank. I didn't like option 4 at the time but the more I thought it the more it made sense. If you get Dipo and he sucks/injured the tank is going strong but you lose some value. If you get Dipo and he plays similar you can probably get similar value back for him at the deadline. If Dipo plays great you can trade him for greater value. Unfortunately it turned out the worst of the 3 scenarios but in that scenario the tank is going strong so that's a win. The Dipo trade couldn't really hurt the Rockets long term and had the possibility of high upside at the deadline. Looking at the options I don't think choosing option 4 was a bad call at the time. With hindsight it's not the best one though.
At the time of the trade I don't think LeVert was worth more. And why not just go with option 1? Why would LeVert be worth much more 2 months later? With option 2 you risk injury or bad play and it actually played out that way for LeVert.
I can't comment on what you think is minimal or a big deal but mid late FRP is much better than a mid SRP. Just because you are not going to lose much sleep does not detract from my point at all we did not get the most out of the assets we had, point blank and IMO its more marginal. We got Alpi in that range last year and Josh Christopher are they throwaway type assets?
We didn't get the most based on what Allen could get now and what the Cavs got for LeVert. But it's not a for sure thing that their values are the same if we keep them. We could have ended up getting less.
Token extension? They offered him the max, and you can't just hand wave it away just because he rejected it. Just because it was unknown at the time does not make one bit of difference, since we are in for a long rebuild, and it's the job of Stone to know these things. What do you think is a solid young core? Nobody has proven to even be a strong rotational piece on a contender, unlike 2 other guys who were drafted after Green.
Option 1 was not in play because LeVert was discovered to have cancer, but it was caught early and treatable. Dipo's injuries were obviously much worse. Option 4 was stupid then, proven criminally incompetent now.
How was option 2 in play if 1 isn't? It was 2 months apart and LeVert didn't play a game before the deadline.
JA had more value than Olidipo then and now and it's not really debatable considering injury history and then you throw in Levert who is a comparable player and those 2 were hands down more valuable. So there is no need to debate if JA's value would have increased it was already higher and a lot of us said at the time of the trade. Just like they did with Wall, they could have sat the players if they were going full tank.
If a nobody like me could see the value and ascendency of JA over a obviously struggling Dipo, then Stone is in the wrong line of work. And both LeVert and Prince also had value, which is more than obvious now. At the very least they were both long young players that Rockets lacked at time and sorely needed.
But the Rockets weren't in a normal long rebuild situation. They could lose their pick last year and only have their first under control this year and next. If they had all their picks I would have been all aboard to keep Allen and LeVert and trade them later. The Rockets didn't have that luxury. I think Green, Sengun, and Christopher have all shown good potential. It's a solid draft class to build off of. We also should get another top 10 pick and 20 pick this year. I like the situation so far.
I'm not comparing JA's value to Dipo. They traded JA for a pick not for Dipo. You can't sit young players like that unless they agree to it. The NBA would step in if the Rockets just shut down to healthy young players against their will. And in a contract year there is no way JA would want to do that.
I know the details but they didn't have to trade both and they didn't trade JA for Dipo. I'm not really sure how he factors in to trading LeVert for Dpio minus it being one big deal instead of separate ones.
You keep saying this as if he has gotten so much better or that he did not have the same value which he did. What has raised the value of either of these guys? No it's not a sure thing, and we maybe could have gotten even more, but I knew we were not going to get much for oladipo, and we could not have gotten less for those guys than we got for oladipo. And let's not forget, we offered Oladipo the max, which should be frightening to everybody.
Rockets would have still have had similar record if they kept JA and Prince. Cavs picked top 3 and had both players plus a more talented roster than Rockets, isn't this what all the Mobley haters keep insisting? And LeVert would not have helped Rockets win either as he was being treated for cancer and barely contributed. The tanking would not have been affected and this excuse is just nonsense to justify a huge mistake made by Stone.
We are talking about the value of the overall packages we could have had, not really each individual player. You can sit anybody you want, what are you talking about, especially when they know they are not signing here long term.
