If a team declares it's tanking and it tanks, it doesn't owe the fans anything but the best possible picks and development environment. They're on hiatus for those years. You're not owed extra stuff the following year that costs assets. The whole point of the 2 years was to gather assets. It would be silly to use the assets you gathered to soothe fans who don't agree with tanking. It's like a family repaying debt for 2 years and then the kids want to take a loan the day after. Chill out. You're going to need that later. You just can't see it right now. Every little advantage you gathered matters. Team control, financial flexibility, lots of picks, cap space, developing end of bench players. I'm tired of being eternally one piece away, we've been there too many times. Let's have too many players to be able to pay until we have to pay. Take full advantage of the fact that we drafted them ourselves. We're trying to win a title and most teams don't win the title. Many teams make it to conference finals level and run out of assets. They run out of assets because they sometimes stupidly trade unknown future assets for temporary or marginal asset improvement. 2 swaps and 2 picks for Bridges is crazy. If that was a true story, we were spared from a really stupid mistake. I think if Udoka can re-inspire the locker room, we're in for a great second half.
Agreed. There was a minute there I was entertaining the idea that we could get both Bridges and Claxton for all of those picks and filler, but ultimately I came to the conclusion that neither of those guys would likely still be on the team by the time we're ready to contend so why give back the picks?
a single first round pick saved could be the determining factor in outbidding other teams when the Rockets go 'Super-Star Hunting'
I'm not a fan of Claxton because of his FT shooting and major injury issues. That's a great example though, I get what you mean. Bridges and Sharpe would have been a great haul that would round out the team. But what about minutes issues with Tari/Brooks/Bridges playing the same position and Jabari at the 4? What if Bridges is nothing but a 3pt shooter when in a very slow halfcourt offense? Don't we still have the problem of not being able to pay everyone? What if Cam can't pass or defend for a while who starts at SG? Won't we immediately have the problem of not enough playmakers in the starting lineup for a slow halfcourt offense? What if Jalen or Cam take a step up in maturity post ASB and the team needs their points more than 2 defenders on the wing (Bridges+Brooks)? Do we then bench Brooks who's having a career season? What about Tari waiting in the wings doing well seeing his minutes eaten up? Bridges and Sharpe for expiring contracts, 2 picks and 2 swaps is a fairly decent deal (and we would be happy with Bridges' plug n play capabilities) but at the same time it creates other immediate issues and questions. It just wasn't the right time to make this deal when we don't know enough about our picks and prospects. We're only kind of sure about Sengun but even there we don't know how much he can improve defensively. I think the offseason is a much better time to evaluate and our assets/opportunities will improve by then. That's the benefit of holding young assets, they increase in value over time as long as you're developing them.
https://x.com/mikeascotto/status/1755812895634452811 Chimezie Metu was just waived. I think he’d have some appeal as a waiver wire pickup for our backup 5 spot for the rest of the season. He’s an athletic 4/5 who can rim run, rebound, and hit his free throws. Not a great defender, but he’s 100% better than Uncle Jeff right now on both ends. We’d probably be his most appealing destination IMO — he’s young enough that he’d actually want to get minutes to show out for his next contract rather than prioritize being a 3rd center on a contender.
Not a bad thought. Honestly, him and Uncle Jeff are pretty close statistically on offense--both about the same TS%, volume numbers, similar splits in terms of shot distance. He's also only about an inch and a half taller than Unc--still a bit undersized for the 5, but not quite as badly. Metu is a significantly better rebounder though. I haven't watched him play enough to have a strong read on his defense.
Yeah he doesn’t have true center size, but plays above the rim well. Honestly if we just had Jeff Green from the first 20 games of this season, it’d be survivable. But now Jeff seems basically retired. I’ll take a guy in Metu who has played some OK low-usage backup minutes at the 5 for real teams the last couple years, and can do at least 1 thing on offense (unlike Biyombo).
Honestly, Morey is kind of a tech bro pretending to be a GM himself. He's historically been pretty disinterested and bad at drafting. But, and not to get to existential with it, what is a "real" GM anyway? I've actually been surprised how good Stone has been in the draft, and how bad he's been at asset management. If you could combine both of their strengths and eliminate their weaknesses you'd get a pretty fantastic exec out of it.
Dude, Morey pulled players out of the 2nd round, how easy to forget....he never had a Top 5 pick......was not allowed to. Morey was never on Presti, Buford level but he was easily a Top 7 GM when he was younger. His downside was that he was too stubborn, tweeted too much stuff....and basically disregarded some traditional stuff. He was never that good of a human being. Competent, active GM though.
Oh, I was there for Chase Budinger, Chandler Parsons, Clint Capela, etc. But I also remember the 2Pats and Terrence Joneses. Other teams manage to occasionally pull all-stars out of the mid/late first round, including probably Stone with Sengun--Morey never did. Maybe it is too harsh to call him straight-up bad at drafting, but it wasn't something that ever stood out as a positive either, in hindsight.
This brings up some distant memories......Terrence Jones a Stromile Swift....good all round game but dumb as fork. Probably a good try at 18th pick which was not great. But if you reverse the angle, and Terrence Jones was actually halfway intelligent, would have worked out..... I think he never scouted players deeply enough for the psychological issues...... Stone did the same thing with KPJ ......those are Rockets long term issues of neglecting If you really want to throw wrenches at Morey, Jordan Hill kind of trade......
Fertits always causes a drop in quality in all his businesses by either being cheap or running top talent out of the business.
When all is said and (not) done, the Rockets have a lot of potentially expiring contracts in the summer (Steven Adams, VanVleet if you consider his 3rd year is a team option, others I believe), so we're doing okay with keeping our picks for now.
I just didn’t want to run out Jeff green at Center for the 2nd half of the season. It wasn’t a lot to ask.
