Could we extend him after exercising his option? How soon after? Exercising his option for 45 mill, with an agreement to do something like a 3 year 70 million declining extension feels like a nice way to structure his contract that leaves us safe in his older years and (hopefully) him happy with the total money.
You don't need bird rights for someone that ain't worth more than 20m. Idiotic! Who's worth more FVV or Dillon?
FVV and Brooks are probably worth a similar amount. Both are key to the defense for the starting lineup. FVV's ball handling probably makes him slightly more valuable than Brooks. As much as it annoys you, the Rockets are 23-12 this season and 41-24 over their last 65 games with FVV logging a lot of minutes. I get that FVV has fallen off a lot from last year, but the Rockets are winning because they have a lot of good players, including FVV. Love the ad hominem logic fallacy, too.
We’re going to run into tax flexibility issues down the road once / if we pay Eason, Smith in 26-27 and especially Amen in 27-28. Fred on a 4 year lasts until 28-29. If we execute some trade where we swap our large expirings (Jeff, Tate, Landale, Adams) for permanent long term salary it really starts to turn up. We signed Fred for 45 mill per, of course an overpay, but it’s not like he’s going to re-sign for dirt cheap because of it. He’s still going to ask for market value. He’s over 30, he’s having a down year, so hopefully he’s no longer in the 30+ million range. Caruso at 30 just signed for 20 million per over 4 years. Let’s say Freds market will be between 20-29 mill over 4 years. Structuring that with us opting him in for a 1 year 45 mill lump sum, to be followed with a lower dollar extension would give us more flexibility down the road compared to declining and resigning him this off-season. Even if one was very low on Fred, and said a 4/60 MLE offer is his market, I’d still prefer to opt him in at 45 mill for 25-26 and give him a 3/15 extension. It only stops making sense once his AAV is below 4/50, and short of a catastrophic injury I’d say that’s highly unlikely. I understand some are upset with Fred over the shooting slump, but I ask, do you guys really think, deep down, we’re just going to let Fred walk this off-season when our coach, who the FO is 10 toes down with, plays him 40 mpg? When the FO loved Fred so much to pay him 2/90 in first place. When we’re having success as a team after being awful for years. When Reed is in the G-League, and when Jalen and Amen both average less than 3 assists per 36?
I would only extend if he accepts a mentor role that involves running the bench unit while making way for Amen to take over. He should be ready by next year to go nuclear.
we just want him gone. appreciate the mentoring he’s provided to younger players(guards) , not that it’s showing. and of course his late game 3 against the worriers in the cup. but that’s it. oh and ripping james’ inbound pass last night too.
Yes. He went from wrecking the offense to staying out of it. FVV being extremely mediocre is a giant improvement from where he has been most of this season. Just like last year, it took an injury for Ime to get his best player in the starting line-up. Hopefully, Stone saves him from making the same mistake next year and gets rid of FVV
I came in here looking for the FVV thread bump after watching all those headless possessions ... and *nobody* did it? We're way too dependent on this guy. So many arms and legs, but we need more brains.
To be absolutely fair, our young guys are still developing. They will learn. Trial by fire. FVV does serve a purpose on our team though which is why we either start thinking about extending him beyond this year, or we grab another capable guy. Amen still way more reps to be ready to take over if that's the current plan. It's too bad that Reed Sheppard is not ready for the physicality of the NBA.
Ya I expected worse. This was a second night of a back to back where the previous game was played in mile high altitude and they had to travel overnight. The fact that this was a game without Fred and with red help for the Kings shows some progress without Fred. There were definitely some shaky ugly offensive possessions without a true PG on the court last night but I see a light at the end of the tunnel in terms of weening away from reliance on Fred.
This past month or so, Ime has slowly gotten FVV to have the ball less, so we are definitely trending in the right direction. The fact that we had a chance last night and competed well lets us know our team is growing. Excited for the future of this team.
Is there a scenario where team option is declined and FVV signs longer term, like 3-4 years at 20-23M a year?
Honestly the PG issue has been a pet peeve of mine since beginning of the rebuild. Always annoyed that Stone didn't get at least a placeholder low-end PG and just allowed KPJ/Jalen to run the offense into the muck. I was hard rooting for Scoot to drop precisely because I thought even if he didn't become a star, at least he supposedly had all the PG intangibles. I was also for giving FVV the max in large part because of this. The issue now though isn't that FVV is somehow super duper awesome, just that the difference between him and everyone else at running an offense is too steep. Amen/Reed have not developed enough as heavy duty ball handlers. Holiday/Jalen are both more SGs. I give it a pass for now because FVV's drop off came a bit sudden and the Rockets weren't suppose to be this good this quickly. But this is an area that definitely need to addressed at latest this offseason. If not at the trade deadline.
