Always a recurring theme with cheapman's shithole rockets. Dating back to when he had us starting james ennis and no backup pg for broken down chris paul Just big moves to sell tickets and nothing else
I am not totally punting on this season, but I think the Rockets brass decided to take their lumps and not screw with the next 5-10 years just to increase their odds this year. I am okay with Sheppard and Amen taking their lumps as the point guard and looking towards the future. With FVV and Adams out for the the year and DFS looking like a wasted year, the cost to compete this year is too high in my opinion. I am sure they tried to trade DFS and junk for a point guard, but didn't want to include draft compensation. The strategy from last summer failed with FVV and Adams out, so I am okay with not throwing good money after bad to just maybe make the WCF in the playoffs. I was never on the Sengun for Giannis bandwagon, so I am not going down that rabbit hole - obviously the rest of the league wasn't willing to meet the Bucks price either. The only trade that I really want to see - and it can't be completed until the summer is to trade Jabari + draft compensation for someone like Trey Murphy. Jabari has stalled out and I think he is who he is as a player. The Rockets will need another 3/4 who can put the ball on the floor and shoot the 3. Jabari and Tari can both shoot the 3, but neither is efficient offensively otherwise. Also, Jabari can't defend a wing who can drive to save his life. Depending on how Reed Sheppard and FVV look early next year, you might trade for a real starting PG by next trade deadline.
Absurd that the first time the Fertittas are paying the luxury tax is for this roster construction. We have the 4th highest payroll in the NBA during a gap / developmental year. Would love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation between Stone and Fertitta. And we're doing it to carry DFS's salary into next year... inviting RFA offer sheets on Tari bc we'll be over the tax this offseason before re-signing Tari. And why would Tari want to re-sign here if we value DFS so much, who plays Tari's exact position? Just really poor cap management.
I agree. But getting beat down the night before the trade deadline to that shorthanded Celtics team? And still not even bringing in anyone? That is just dumb.
It's obvious to me that the entire team tried to tank yesterday to force a trade of Sengun for Giannis. No other explanation
It definitely makes it feel worse. This is the year I am the most disappointed that they didn’t do anything. This team isn’t going to contend with scraps thrown away by other teams. They needed to do more than that. It feels like getting Durant was a waste now, but hopefully they prove us all wrong.
Whenever I hear the "short-handed" saying i straight away think they were missing more than Brown from this season's playing group. We missed Adams going against Queta. That was a huge loss. The Celtics play to their system no matter who is there. Pritchard and White hit 11 threes between them. That was the difference.
Don't we have to trade some players to create roster space for buyout candidates??? I think our roster is at full capacity, correct?
it is all about what they could do. There were not a lot of options due to salary. We are already contenders. It all depends on health.
There was no good trade to be had to make meaningful difference. What we really need next is for Ime to be more creative with offense and change his philosophy on that end to get the most out of this current roster even if it means that we don’t get the highest seed this year.
i woulda liked to have seen something - anything.... maybe a couple 2nds and expirings for a lil help this year... we've lost both FVV and Steven since this team was constructed... nothing to try to mitigate these losses in the short term? i guess Stone is content to just kick the can this year... my patience is wearing thin...
Our guys are NOT ready to compete yet. Out of all of our young guys. Tari is ready Bari is a couple years away from peaking Amen is a couple years away from peaking Sengun is a year away from his peak Reed is 2-3 years away from his peak KD is declining - and will never be THE GUY again in his career - still great at scoring but not all around any longer. So, we traded for KD - still a good move, but we should still be playing for the future with KD as a piece of the puzzle not THE CENTERPIECE of it. KD as the main dude, pushes everyone else's peak back further - he needs to take a backseat to others. DD
