Harden is a cornerstone franchise player. He is locked up for 6 more years and has not even hit his peak as a player at the age of 23. This means that we have several years to find the right kind of players next to him. Also, Miami and LA's peak is probably the next 2 years and if we play it right, we can gather valuable experience during those years so that we can naturally progress to being contenders when the old regime is declining. Morey (is) needs to be extremely picky in choosing the next cornerstone. A wrong move like Josh Smith will bring the Rox back to where we started, fighting for playoffs but no realistic chance of contending. Other GM's have made this mistake many times, wasting their golden opportunity (see Minn/Garnet, Clev/James, the list goes on...). Adding someone like J Smith or Al Jeff may make our team better but it hurts our chances at becoming a title contender which is the only goal for management. Ideally, that piece would be someone established like Kevin Love or someone with potential like Cousins. We are all looking for a PF to come and fill the void because it is the weak link in our team. However, if a PF of the elite or potential to be elite status is not available, then we need to be open to the idea of exploring other options, and that includes Lin/Asik/Parsons. Conventional championship teams have a top 5 and top 20 player. Once we get those, we've seen over the years that Morey is a master at finding pieces to complement the stars. Thus, Everyone on our team sans Harden is still expendable. If that means taking steps back to improve the long term outlook, then we need to be able to keep that in mind. So, personnel decisions like letting Livingston go over the less qualified Douglas for CAP flexibility reasons or not giving the rookies "a look" is all part of the game plan. In essence, all I'm trying to say is that we finally have the first and most difficult part of building a championship contender. It may take 2-3 years to get there, but we should be patient because the last thing we want to do is squander what we've all been waiting so long for, and that is the hope that we are moving toward a championship. My purpose for writing this is to temper the knee-jerk reaction threads and responses that have been flooding the GARM lately, more so that before it seems. On a sidenote, would someone pls outline the max cap space numbers and the free agents that would be available in the next couple of years?
Repped! I have been saying this since the acquisition of Harden. Only Love, Cousins (or even Aldridge) who are on their upswing of the career will be good enough to contend for a title in a few years. In the mean time....be patient and keep accumulating assets!
I would not mind signing big al or j smith.. To 2-3 year terms. That's when Aldridge/love will be available
Kevin Love would be perfect for this team! He can shoot the three and can open up the lane for Harden and Lin.
We either trade for Love, but we do not have enough assets to trade, or wait until his free agency, but that is a couple of years from now. Hopefully Patterson and Morris steps up to become great trade values.
Westbrook >>>>> Lin in terms of talent, but as a backcourt partner, Lin is much better because he has good basketball IQ. I still believe that Presti should have made the Rondo/Westbrook trade, which is a wash on talent but Rondo is a much better fit for Durant and co. Plus his friendly contract lets you keep both Harden and Ibaka. Lin/Asik/Parsons all have great basketball IQ. That should be a deal breaker for any other star we bring in. If Morey has learned anything over the past few years, it's that you can't teach basketball IQ to some (see Twil, JDorsey, etc)
I am not convinced that the PF position is what we need next. I say this because we are already deep in that position with PPat, Morris, Jones, Motie, White. Sure none of these guys are all-stars (yet) but there is a lot of potential there. How about going for a SF or quality backup PG instead?
I agree - what we need is another star at any position. An elite big man would be the traditional way, but a LeBron/Wade kind of pairing would be nice as well, or a Paul/Harden... That being said besids our number of players at PF, that still seems to be our weakest position ( although we have lots of talent here). Backup PG, sure, get that somewhere along the way. But I believe you can get one pretty easy...
I wouldn't be too surprised if Morey traded for Josh Smith (for example) this season to give him a tryout before deciding on what to do in free agency, or sign him to a shorter deal until guys like Aldridge and Love become available. I think it's safe to say that a couple of the young guys will be traded in the not too distant future. Morey seems to be hoarding cap room for THIS SEASON and the trade value of the glut of young PFs riding the bench will only go down.
He just doesn't have high basketball IQ. Yesterday, in the beginning of the game, he made that outside jumper and I was like "YES!" because that meant that it gave him the confidence to keep shooting from out there instead of punishing our forwards down low. Also, if you notice at the end of the game when he's about to pass the ball inside, but is disgruntled and calls a timeout instead. Look at his body language in the huddle and how he treats his teammates. I am not an expert but compare the Hawk's huddle to ours where we see Chandler w his arms around Lin/Harden and all of the engaged and focused.
I haven't been a Rockets fan long enough to know how Morey thinks but I like his style from what I see. I am kind of a "Nerd quarterback GM" myself so I trust that he will crunch all of his numbers, put it through his efficiency analysis tests before choosing the next star player It seemed to have worked with Harding, Lin and Asik so far.
As a logistical question, why wasn't this just in the other thread about acquiring power forwards? This is just [I agree with this list of power forward acquisitions] but not [this other list of power forward acquisitions] all over again. You will be mightily surprised when Morey's next move is for a gifted wing player who can help spread the floor, rendering all this "NOT JOSH SMITH!" clenching spectacularly moot.
Demarcus Cousins in the guy we should swing to get. It may cost us Parsons, but another move for a guy like Wilson Chandler who could likely be gotten for cents on the dollar could fill that void. Lin Harden Chandler Cousins Asik Team on the rise :grin:
The move that makes the most sense is to let these kids develop and then trade away some of them for potential lottery picks in 13 and 14. Cody Zeller has to be at the top of Morey's list right now. We may be able to get there by trading some of these young guys for draft picks or acquiring a first rounder by taking on salary and then trading some of our youngsters for draft pick swap rights. Morey may trade somebody like Aldrich to Atlanta to get our pick back and then trade one or two of our young bigs to a team wanting to dump some salary in exchange for the right to swap picks. That kind of deal is not likely to happen until after the season. We're going to have to wait and see what pops up next.
