Rockets deal for Dillon Brooks (4 yrs/$86 million + incentives)

If you go to that used(or new) car lot with 60$ mill to splurge you probably wouldn't really care about the 20k overpay, but I get where you coming from with your analogy

 

You're assuming he didnt have any choices. What if I assume that Ime Udoka told Stone that he wanted Brooks on this team at any cost given the available options? If you do a "teams interested in Dillon Brooks" search it would show you that there was interest by teams and plenty of rumors and the end result is that of a free and fair market. Social media develops these hype trains about "playing in China" but the reality is that Brooks is a legitimate NBA starter and thinking he's a discount player or doesnt belong in the association because he had to eat crow in the playoffs was just fan fiction.

Among the other options I can only think of were guys like Bruce Brown and Grant Williams as similar archetypes to what Udoka would want. Maybe Bruce Brown didnt want to play here? He nailed his own 20M per season contract and I think Brooks is a better defender than him. With all honesty I would have preferred trading for Grant Williams, but again now you're dealing with Boston and the whole Udoka scandal and they could have been like "nah we're good" so you have to keep it moving. We all just expect every FA out there is going to be sprinting towards Houston and that aint happening without showing them the money. The Raptors signed Jakob Poeltl for the same exact thing 4/80. These types of deals are going to be standard very soon some of these teams are just getting out in front of that and to me it shows a competent handle on things. New TV deal will make this contract look average. Dont worry about saving face today because these guys are thinking down the line.

 

Poeltl is worth a 4/80. Brooks is not.

Poeltl 2 years ago : 6.9 win shares
Poeltl Last year : 6.0 win shares

Brooks entire career : 6.9 win shares

 

Good post thanks. The amount of hand wringing over a 20m contract is laughable.

 

It's not unrealistic to think that the conversations went something along the lines of Brooks telling the Rockets that he had other offers from conenders but they were short. 1+1 or something like that. Something he would've likely taken unless he could get a guarantee from the Rockets for more years. If you look at the deal pragmatically, it makes sense. How many other 2nd Team All Defense players were trying to come here? Who else was available that was going to be a culture setter? Beverly? Caruso? Even Lopez was more of a lead by example kinda guy and not an in your face communicator.

The Rockets were not out bidding other teams for Brooks on a 1+1 deal. That just wasn't happening. Why would he come be a baby sitter here when he could go compete for rings? I wish the last year was a team option, that's my only real gripe with it.

 

I don't think any contender had that much cap space left.

 

People are greatly underestimating how damaging he is on offense, we are talking about probably the single most damaging offensive player in the entire sport. A guy who can’t shoot at all, can’t create or pass, yet acts like a star. He’s basically russ if russ also couldn’t pass. I don’t know how much we’ll have to add to dump his contract in a year or 2, but it’s gonna suck.

 

We will know we have arrived when the Toyota Center gets a moniker similar to the Grind House.

 

I am probably underestimating this - because I am actually not that worried. The Grizzlies were a team that didn't seem to have much accountability. I would really hope, that Ime can keep him in check - he definetly believes he can.

Over his career Brooks is a 34.4% 3pt shooter. Not great but also not horrible. He takes step back threes and highly contested threes he has no business of taking. If Ime can either get him more open shots or make him cut out those bad shots, he should be fine. Of course thats a pretty big if, but the organization seems to have all the trust in the world in our new headcoach and so I will give him a chance to show that.

 

He also doesn’t get guarded (because he’s so bad) so that hurts your spacing. The damage is much more then just his missing. If you are not guarded, it doesn’t REALLY matter if you shoot 32 or 36%, it still crushes your offense

 

I wouldn’t want Brooks on this team if he didn’t count towards our cap. I wouldn’t want him if he didn’t count towards our cap AND we got some sort of cap credit for employing him.

 

Ya I pretty much don’t think he’s worth giving a minimum contract to because of the damage he will cause on offense. I would have been annoyed if the rockets gave him something like 2/8, 4/86 is truly wild.

 

if he actually shoots 36% he will get guarded

 

I am not assuming. it's the opinion of the trusted "semi-insiders" such as Nook, Clutch, and Bima that it was unnecessary to give Brooks such as large contract. And there was no report that talked about any team being interested in signing Brooks.

Again, you can like the player without liking the contract. I like getting FVV. (I know you don't because he takes your boy's starting job, but that's another story.) But I didn't like the deal until it was revealed that the third year was team option. In general, overpaying someone short term is okay. Overpaying someone long term is asking for trouble down the road. People never learn from history.

 

Memphis had a 102 offensive rating with brooks on the court in his memphis career. Numbers that low are unheard of, and no wing defender can justify crushing your offense to that degree and being able to make up for it on defense. Someone like peak hakeem or peak dwight, maybe, but no wing guy.

 

Brooks has plenty of game he's not just a spot up shooter. He can take his man to the basket and finish with both hands. To think that after his comments of teaching and helping our guys on defense that he would come here to be a volume chucker is unrealistic. He will lead the defensive identity of this team and pick and choose his spots. He is not a scrub, but I think he could stand to benefit in trimming down and looking like the bubble playoff player from a few seasons ago. He's not the efficiency darling of the stat clique, but he will play hard all game and show these guys how to scrap and fight (literally at times lol).

 

FVV was not a good contract either. He better play up to that contract thats for damn sure its twice as much as Brooks so he better bring twice the impact.

3 years = short term
4 years = long term

LOL

Both of these guys are placeholders in the same way Stephen Silas was.

 

I'd have to look at the numbers again (I shared them...somewhere), but IIRC Brooks is actually fairly decent on catch and shoot 3s as well as corner 3s. I want to say he would have been the 2nd best shooter (or around that) on the team last year (after KPJ). Maybe that says more about the lack of shooting on this team than Brooks' (in)ability to shoot, but just wanting to be clear that Brooks has decent shooting splits (especially in prior years as last year was a bit of an off year...and think he was still good compared to the rest of our team).

The fact his TS% and other stuff is so bad despite having decent C&S numbers tells you *why* you should be concerned about Brooks on offense, and arguably that might be worse than if he was just a bad shooter. Maybe his game will be a bit different in HOU (Udoka and his staff already working miracles with Jabari I guess?), but I wouldn't hold out much hope for that. Minus the antics, his defense and overall game are still highly valuable (think Hollinger had him around 17-18M per year), but Rockets still overpaid him and gave too many years. Not sure why, but I won't beat a dead horse with that line of thinking. It is what it is.

At this point, I'm just hoping he does a good job mentoring the other guys on the team, and any terrible offense he displays on the court will be offset by the value he brings otherwise (and that value might continue even after he's gone). I *do* like the idea of him having primary defensive responsibilities on every team's best scorer, allowing the other 4 guys to worry about general team defense. That's my super optimistic take on things anyway.

 

Did you read the part "I didn't like the deal until it was revealed that the third year was team option"?

2 years = short term
4 years = long term