Amen brings things Giddey can't. Defence and you can lob to him in the pick-and-roll. I don't care about Amen's three point shooting. He only averages 2 attempts a game. People are too hung up on if a player can hit a three. There are other ways to be successful.
If you were playing Amen at PF and surrounding him and Sengun with shooters I would be less concerned about his inability to score from anywhere outside of the paint. But he's also inadequate as a PF due to his height.
Yes, I wrote the "smartest thing the Thunder did was flip Josh Giddey into something actually useful", that being Caruso.
Rockets fans bro. It should be "don't think the Rockets would give up Tari for Mathurin" Tari is very undervalued by our own fan base. Every championship team has a Tari coming off the bench. Mathurin is just a guy
Like Tari, he is a depreciating asset. His minutes are up this year, his shots are up this year, but his PER, BPM, VORP, you name it, are all down. My analysis is based on math, yours is based on "he dunk good, me like dunk, did you see dunk?" But I watch the games too. I see him when he gets the ball back with under 10 seconds left on the shot clock - it's like watching a deer caught in headlights. He does that little shuffle like a crab then takes a fade away shot that clanks. This guy would average single digits if he didn't have Sengun feeding him at the rim. To be absolutely clear, Amen has good value as a defender, but his ceiling is a role player on a good team. I would be looking to move him before the rest of the league figures that out.
It’s pretty likely Stone won’t be offering +$100 mil this offseason to Tari which he turned down last offseason but there’s a lot of team without young promising player (Clippers, Bucks, Suns, Kings) would gamble and make Tari instant 3rd option so might be wise to trade him right now to cash in his value when it is still high
You must not value defense? You must put a great amount of value on spreadsheets though. When is Tari expected to be back?
IF they intend to trade him, the time to do it is between December 15 and the trade deadline. Otherwise, all those guys who signed contracts this year are not eligible for trades so you severely limit your options and because there really isn't anyone else you want to trade with him, they were limited to begin with - Tari's contract is only $5.675m so you are limited to bringing someone in on a contract worth ~$5-$6m. If you are trying to win a championship, I'm not sure there's a player available at that price that impacts the game as much as Tari anyway. In that case, you have the right to match in the offseason - you can leverage that into a sign and trade, so you don't lose him for nothing.
Folks, Tari is not getting a predatory RFA offer sheet from another team this summer. There's no need to worry about that anymore. It's not the oblique injury, it's that the shin is still requiring careful management / missing significant time / minutes restrictions / avoiding back to backs etc., after multiple years. Teams very very rarely extend significant RFA offer sheets at all anymore, for a variety of reasons including changes to the timeline of free agency and the new hard salary floor. It's been years since the last significant one. They definitely are not doing it for a guy who is undergoing long-term, indefinite injury management. The only real question now is whether Tari will sign whatever long term bargain, partially non-guaranteed contract we offer him this summer, or whether he'll be hardheaded and threaten to sign the qualifying offer instead.
I'm thinking this comment doesn't age well. Tari has depreciating value, but that's primarily because Jabari, DFS, and Durant (and maybe even Amen) have our forward positions covered. It's a luxury to hold on to Tari when you need a rotation-level, veteran guard. I'm not even sure they need to have a PG bag. They just need to be able to shoot at a pro-level, create a little off the dribble, and defend.
That's not the only reason he's depreciating as an asset, a guy who can't stay healthy loses value with each season they can't stay healthy.
We don’t actually know if there has been any trade talks… The problem with these threads is we have no idea what Stone has done and what talks.
It's both the oblique and shin. The Rockets already must've suspected that Tari was gonna need load management on that leg and couldn't be counted on to play more than 75% of their games. Now you add an oblique injury that cost him a month on top of that and was the result of merely bumping into another player and I don't even know if you can expect him to play more than half the season in any given year. Tari royally screwed up when he turned down that extension last offseason.
I'll be shocked if there's any player movement for the Rockets. Stone is usually at a standstill at the trade deadline. IMHO, he should be talking and suggesting offers. Tari seems like the player most likely to be dealt.
