a ton of players go off for career nights vs the rockets. nothing new. They have the worst defense for a reason
I don’t think all of the teams will win out. The rockets are essentially tied (only 10ish games left though) I said 6 or 7th pick. Because one or two teams could actually lose out. The Thunder are currently on a 11 bender.
okc probably wins tonight despite folks thinking they're going to lose out, especially with orlando playing last night and pulling off a win vs GS
??? Pistons are just as bad as the Rockets and are just 1 game behind. Orlando's just 2 losses behind. Not sure why you think the Rox can't end up with the 3rd worst record with less than 10 games left given these 3 are neck and neck.
John Wall's contract dictates the future of this franchise. When it expires, so does the tank. Did you know that the Rockets currently have Zero dollars guaranteed to the 2023/24cap. Every single contract is either a club option or non-guaranteed. Houston Rockets 2023-24 Salary Cap Table | Spotrac
I’m sorry but I trust Clutch’s basketball knowledge far more than your weird rants clutch > yolo who’s with me?
Clutch has always been someone to worry about the rockets best interests at hand. so what. He's worried about the rockets not losing enough. I'm not. They're the worst team in the league. They suck. Simple as that. This has nothing to do with actual basketball knowledge. Especially when it doesn't involve just the rockets. He noted Luka was out. And yet the mavs are still 10 point favs. Is that basketball knowledge? Nah that's just him being cautious about the rockets best interest someone who just joined 3 months ago is pretty funny, unless you're another one of those losers that has to make another alternate. you haven't been around nearly long know to even know who clutch is. Oh no, we have another one *Alternate alert*
All I know is that if I am the owner of the team, I am going to my GM and telling him I want the best lottery odds to get the highest draft pick possible with only ten meaningless games less..... and I would be extremely pissed if my team won a 2-3 more games and was pushed out of the #1 seed. wrapping up the worst record guarantees a top 5 pick and there is a coin flip chance at a top 4 pick.... At worst I want to know I get the top selection after the first cluster of prospects are gone. I also like knowing there is a 40% chance I am going to get one of: Holmgren/Ivey/Smith
having that much cap space means what exactly tho ... outside of flexibility . that means we are getting rid of wood , kpj , Gordon ,and Tate and not taking back any players sportrac also isn’t counting our likely top 5 pick this year plus another first .. plus our cap hold for a top pick the next year . id Argue your point of cap space opening up is a good reason NOT to tank next year . Who is gonna want to come to a team that was just openly tanking ? I’m agaisnt tanking next year unless you are sure your teams talent level going into next season is ~25 wins ... then maybe you try to lose a few extra . but if we are down to the last 10 and trying to lose games again I will question what has gone wrong . the best way for you to utilize wall coming off the books is if Guys want to come here . Superstars and talent and winning attract winning and talent and stars . If green and co only show they are capable of 20-25 wins then that’s the type of player we will attract . we had harden and had a mediocre season and had a max coming off the books in Dwight . We had to pay Ryan anderson and take a gamble on Gordon . Good thing Morey is a genius and Gordon worked out and Ryan wasn’t awful (ownership decision to make us trade future assets to get rid of him was) You are right as long as we have wall we shouldn’t be using future value to improve the team currently ... using 40 million of players that will play should do a lot ... But depending on where we are we may not even be able to spend that full 40 million . For all I know we could be over the cap prior to that and him coming off only gets us 35 million space . Imo Fa 2023 can’t be our goal . We have to be getting better internally and what we do with some other contracts like wood and Gordon and kpj . Hell , wall could play next year . Is he going to retire ? He will want to step on the court to try and get more than 1 year minimum . if our plan going in next year is to be in the bottom 3 again we are a trash organization and unfortunately I predict will not make it back to round 2 in a decade 6 firsts over these 2 drafts plus another top 10 with all of our BKN future value is enough.
You could have just said we need to be a .400 team and not a .250 team to be able to use cap space. There wouldn’t be any way to communicate and contextualize what the plan was seasons 2020-2023 to potential free agents.
Has the plan always been to go after 2 max players after next season? If so, I wouldn’t get too invested in our young players that will be used in sign and trades to facilitate the return to relevance
I really don't know .... but that had to be something they considered in setting the deck chairs up the way they have. Stone has set himself up for success cap wise, we'll just have to hope he executes the plan to the best outcome.
It seems like a good plan, sign 2 all stars to lead our two top 5 picks. Use our other young players to facilitate those moves if necessary. Seems better than perennially chasing the number one pick while praying the next Hakeem or Duncan falls from the clouds.
I think what it says to me, at least right now is that Stone & Co understand that there's three ways to acquire talent - Draft, FA & Trade and that they will use all of those tools and that they will remain flexible in the mean time. I'm really happy with Stone so far - aside from not moving EG and Wood but they still have the option to move both .... so its hard to complain about.
Agreed. I think people hate "flexibility" but the Rockets are setting themselves to try and succeed using all the avenues. Clearing out the cap space coincides with the OKC trade that will see our lightly protected FRP go out. As for EG, I really think the Rockets were looking for a future pick. In my opinion, 7 FRP in two seasons is just too much and I don't think consolidating picks/players to make a trade or move up is as easy as it seems.
That is exactly what i think. Happy while not understanding not moving those players. So many draft picks and have Garuba and Christopher combining for not very many minutes this year. Perhaps they have a grand plan that we're not privy to.
The scary thing for us when it comes to free agency is that the agents are, well, free. They don't just get absorbed into any available cap space that can accommodate them, they have to make an active, conscious choice. And as long as Tilman owns the team, it's going to need a major culture change before anyone of note will want to come here. He needs to prove that he can let the smart people do the work while he watches from the sidelines.
