I like the deal in conjunction with Sengun's for the Rocket's. Gives the team flexibility (CF's favorite word) as we sort things out with the greater team of the next couple of seasons.
So Detroit is allowed to be bad while the Rockets isnt allowed to be bad? Makes zero sense tbh. Jalen's deal is 3 yrs vs Cade's 5 yrs and less than half what Cade signed. Jalen isnt exactly an unknown at this point we know what he can do. He is far from an albatross even if he doesnt pan out his defense and creation is already decent.
Boston just won last year with a bunch of really good players and also dominated NYK in their first game with like 4 players going off. Our lead dog is Sengun if it isnt obvious by now lol.
Actually it is also a good deal for the Rox since I believe he only gets 25% max instead of 30%. So even in the best case he plays like Jordan his max still be cheaper than everybody else. Win win signing.
If they waited till next season he would cost a lot more to keep. Sengun is the only guy in the 2021 class I am ok giving the max too a max for Jalen even if he plays well for just 1 yr is too high of a risk so that would screw the Rockets potentially. He is making far less than what max players make almost 10M less than others in his class only a Jater will keep hating on this deal. You get 3 more years to check if Jalen is worth the max not sure why all these belly aching and risk talk. You realize Hartenstein got paid 25M a year? 25M a year for a backup center scoring 8 ppg 8 rbs and people really crying about 35M a year for Jalen? Cmon man.
I don't think we have a lead dog now, at least not one that we are sure is gonna be our lead dog going forward. Sengun is our best player right now, but he would need to keep improving to be the first option on a championship contender. Actually I would call our next phase The Search for the Houston Rockets superstar. We have 7 young players, each of them could be a star, some of them could turn into a superstar. Will it be Amen? Green? Reed? Sengun? None? We don't know yet. But if we can't find one, and also can't trade for one, this team won't be winning a championship in the future and we'd have to restart the cycle...
If he plays out the full duration of the contract, including the option year, he'll be a 7-year vet and eligible for the 30% max. If he earns All NBA he'll be able to earn the 30% max. If he plays the first two years out, declines the option and asks for a 1+ player option, he can get a max after that first year. Lots of ways this could play out .... either way, I like the deal. The team gets to make sure he improves before committing long term. He's such a young player I'd find it difficult to give up on him and think it's worth Tilman's millions to buy some time to see if he improves. The team really loses nothing but money if he busts and they retain his bird rights if he breaks out,
They do not lack superstar and star, it is just that those role players are super role players. Lol Tatum is arguably the 5th best player. Brown is underrated, a Top 15 player. Both established. Porzingis if healthy is a Top 35 guy and he is not even needed for a Championship. A luxury. Both White and Holiday are still Top 50-60 players and All Defensive Team......and Big Al is one of the best remaining old heads. And the Bench is Top 3 in depth.....all can go off on any night.
You also have to remember their ages though Tatum 26, Brown 27. Who considered those guys superstars at age 23? Celtics themselves brought in Kyrie and that white dude to be the stars on that team so even they werent sure yet. Nobody expects the Rockets to win a ring this year or even go toe to toe with Celtics so why is everyone questioning if the rockets have that guy? Celtics didnt know Tatum and Brown were that guy at age 23. In 4 yrs we can have this discussion but right now Sengun and Amen are on track for superstardom at the very least. Sengun gonna be a 24 yr old All star how much clearer is it that he is the star of this team? If he becomes a starter Amen should also be an all star candidate a year from now. A lot of people keep acting like we dont know Jalen, Amen and Sengun when we've seen them grow up before our eyes. If you watched Rocket games you'd know what they can do and it wouldnt be a question if these extensions are good ones.
My goal wouldn’t be to try to model after Detroit. They don’t have a single other prospect who matters. If cade busts they’re just tanking again anyway, there’s nowhere else for that money to go. Cade is also better than jalen and more likely to be really good
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5864628/2024/10/23/nba-contract-extension-deadline-deals/ Hollinger: As for Green, it’s probably the right approach with one of the league’s most Jekyll-and-Hyde players. The Rockets lose the upside of a long deal if he blows up, but also didn’t unnecessarily tie their hands by committing to a long-term max or near-max. Meanwhile, the flight risk in this deal seems largely theoretical. Green has an opt-out in 2027, but he would be eligible to make more money in free agency if he waited until summer 2028. Additionally, the way the league is trending now, Houston would almost certainly extend him in 2026 if he explodes into a star. In that scenario, Houston could replace his player option year at $36 million with a raise to $50 million, and add three years at a combined $175 million on top. We’re getting ahead of ourselves now, but humor me: Green could then hit free agency in 2031 with 10 years of service, newly eligible for 35 percent of the cap at a moment when the cap could be nearly double what it is now (1.95 times, to be exact). The shorter deal also limits the downside of going long with a mercurial player like Green. That matters more in Houston than some other places, where the Rockets will have a succession of similar decisions facing them in coming seasons. The opportunity cost of a half-decade bad deal is larger than in some other markets. Finally, a lot of the concern about Green’s deal seems to be “What if he’s really bad?” or “What if he’s amazing?” That’s relevant given his seemingly high variance; he looks either awful or awesome, often within a span of a few plays. But what if that all averages out to him ending up as, say, the ninth-best shooting guard in the league or something? That deal seems pretty fair then, right? Speaking of which … you’ll notice that this package looks a lot better in the aggregate than individually. The Rockets avoided maxing either player and will have a combined cap hit for the two of $65 million in 2025-26. Thus, Houston projects to be just under next year’s luxury tax line. Houston also avoided putting incentives in either deal that would have pushed it further toward the tax aprons in future seasons. (Cap nerds take note: Incentives basically vanished as a tool for extensions this year, as teams become increasingly weary of their impact on first-apron calculations. The new CBA counts them even if they are unlikely to trigger. The only exception was Gordon, whose deal had to have the incentives carry over in his extension). Houston being under the tax in 2025-26 is important because the roster projects to get expensive in a few years once all the young talent moves on to second contracts. It could get phenomenally expensive if everything goes right. They are going to be paying the repeater penalty, almost certainly, once you get to the out years for all their kids. Holding the clock on that is important for more than just Tilman Fertitta’s wallet. ____________________ Too long to post but Sam loves the Sengun extension, not so much Jalen Green https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5862754/2024/10/22/jalen-green-extension-rockets-sengun/ Let’s start with the good news: Extending Alperen Şengün for five years, $185 million is an undeniable victory for the Rockets organization — even if it does have a player option in the fifth year. Şengün has proved himself to be the steal of the 2021 draft, a creative big man selected outside of the lottery with serious skill. He has, to this point, been inarguably the most productive offensive player from the class. With all due respect to Scottie Barnes, Franz Wagner and other top selections, Şengün’s 21-point, nine-rebound, five-assist campaign last year is the best season in terms of offensive production that any player has achieved within that class. … Now the bad news: Houston’s decision to extend Jalen Green earlier in the day was among the more befuddling contracts I’ve seen in a while. I think this deal has very few routes toward being a positive value for the Rockets. I informally polled four front-office executives regarding the deal just to see if they were on the same page, and there was a general sense of confusion regarding why the Rockets chose to do this deal now. Two of those executives simply didn’t rate Green all that highly as a player and wouldn’t have been interested in extending his contract right now. That’s fair enough given his play thus far. Those executives may turn out right, or they may turn out wrong. But even the other two who were willing to think more deeply about Houston’s plan still came away questioning the structure of the contract.
I have to figure getting Jalen to sign contributed to Sengun’s willingness to take same starting salary.
Cades eFG, 3ptFG, TS, are lower. Jalen has less turnovers, more win shares (do these still count? I remember Jalen being knocked for this while we were tanking) while Cade displays the shot diet of a center and most importantly Jalen has shown the ability to stay healthy - he's already played 100 more games than Cade. Player rankings did have Cade at 67 and Jalen at 69, but I think its just subjective preference to make a definitive "better and more likely to be really good" statement.
This is still a great deal, but I am honestly a bit shocked that Jalen and his agents accepted it? Why not play out the year and go to RFA - where teams will be eager to steal him for nothing but a max contract? It is smart though, he got 100m guaranteed so if anything happened injury wise he is set up for life regardless.....you just don't see players making that choice often. Super happy he did same for Alpi, but just so strange. DD
The situations with Green/Sengun is not the same as Cunningham and Barnes. There is a lot lot more talent on the rockets. I truly believe these guys want to play together and win. They can’t continue to play with Eason and Jabari if they didn’t do this. They know it won’t last forever but they can at least give it 5-6 years before some of them move on.
Would have much preferred a team or mutual option for year 3 with a "prove it" deal. Unless his agents are malicious (Freddie Freeman), he's opting in to year 3.
Metrics like cade more, stuff like BPM and vorp. Cade also missed his 2nd season and was in probably the worst situation ever last season with zero shooting around him and a coach who didn't want to be there and didn't care or try. I think giving cade a max is pretty insane considering what he's done so far and if he had done this for the rockets i would have lost my mind over it. What do you mean cade has the shot diet of a center though? He took 6 3s per 36.
That excuse for Cade sounds eerily familiar. Cade doesnt get to the rim much. He enjoys a mid range diet and he's not really good at shooting 3's. He's a big point with limited athleticism and slightly above average skill. He's a nice passer and see's the floor ok.
