[ClutchFans] What we learned from the Asik trade that wasn't

You're severely overestimating the Rockets ability to make additions last offseason given the CBA. The year you can truly add talent around a big FA acquisition is the year after the signing. This is because once you're over the cap, you don't have to worry about clearing enough cap room for your star. The Rockets salary structure, 2 max, 2 $8mil/yr players with backloaded deals, and rookie/minimum salaries make for horrible salary matching ability. Next year they can use their 1st rounder, their MLE, bi-annual exception to add talent. Of course, there's still the question of whether or not Morey's going for Love/Aldridge/Rondo in 2015 FA. If he doesn't, you're going to see Morey stacking tons of role players on this team next year.

 

We don't want to get into a bidding war if we don't extend him and he becomes an unrestricted free agent in 2015 (is it?).

And how long will he play motivated knowing Rockets had to chance to pay him bigger money but still opted to pay him cheap? Pay him in 2014

 

So, the Rockets thought Asik's trade value would be higher now as opposed to right after or right before they signed Howard? Even knowing that Asik only signed with them knowing he would be a starter? The CBA didn't allow them to trade Asik until this past week?

 

The only way Asik would've thought that is if he had no access to American TV nor American internet. Rockets pursuing Howard in the 2012 offseason was only the biggest story of their entire summer.

Are you honestly going to believe that Morey told Asik straight up that he'd be the starting center. While at the same time doing interviews about how the Rockets are trying to get Dwight?

 

Ideally this is the year he at least has to develop 2-3 core role players.
Next year would be another year wasted not contending. But ok have patience.

The Reggie Williams, Brewer signing was a head scratcher
They lost Camby because they thought he would be recovered from injury.

They intended to trade Greg Smith but couldn't.
They banked on Covington but I think it takes more than one year to develop him. He occupies one rotation spot

I can live with Garcia and Brooks. Those were also low risk but not ideal players.
Couple of questionable moves that are a time wasting matter.

Canaan's defensive potential and BBIQ are in question as well

 

If we had better veterans, we would not even dissect Terrence Jones and DMo's game so much. The veterans would help win couple of games.

Delfino and Toney Douglas were more effective.

 

Nice try. I guess in your world, Asik has no reason to be upset, and his sulking is totally out of left field. No one could ever have seen this coming. He signed with the Rockets ready and willing to be a back up.

 

I have never said that ever. Not even once since the moment Dwight was coming. I thought Asik for Josh Smith trade was going to happen when we signed Howard.

But I do believe that Asik and his agent has the intelligence to understand, when he signed a contract with Morey aka "GM that is involved in every superstar trade talk", that there was a chance the Rockets would have Dwight Howard.

However, I do believe that like most people here including myself, Asik and his agents thought Morey would never land a star and therefore his starting job was surely secure. But that's entirely different from Morey stating upfront that Asik was secure in his job for the next 3 years. Think about that. Which GM would ever guarantee that to a non-star player?

 

No. But it was a small surprise that only a couple of teams are really interested in him and he was so hard to move. Getting little value in return.

 

I still can't understand Asik's thinking. I think he knows he is a limited player. There are things he does elite and he is going to be paid for that.
I can't really understand what is so bad about being a backup to the best big man in the league?

It is not helping that he does no interviews at all. He is not telling other than that he wants to get traded.
He is a frustrating guy to talk to for sure.

Yao and Hayes were much more fun to play with.
Hayes at least mentioned he wanted to be near his home in Modesto.

 

Not an expert.

Depends on the timing. If neither Asik or Lin are traded, and we resign Parsons in 2014, then we will never be able to clear enough space for a max contract.

If both Asik and Lin are traded, and Parsons is willing to wait for us in FA, then yes, we can sign a 3rd max deal (assuming this will be that players 2nd non-rookie max contract...ie Love/Aldridge yes, Lebron no). Then we can resign any player that we have Bird rights on to almost any contract.

Assuming we can't find a trade partner, then I expect us to sign a max FA in 2015, and then reup Parsons to a big contract (4 years, $50+ million).

 

It's unfortunate, but there are still many teams that look at traditional stats when it comes to FA. As evident by his lack of trade value, there are still a lack of GMs that can go beyond raw numbers when judging a player. So I can understand why Asik would want to start. This is something I've believed in the moment we signed Howard.

I think Asik really overestimated his ability to be able to pout his way out. I guess it may work with most GMs. But in this case, Morey's business background really worked against Asik. Morey's unwillingness to sell an asset at his lowest value just to dump it was likely unexpected from Asik's camp.

 

I think he gets enough support from his teammates.

His unwillingness to communicate or comment on certain things will be his downfall.
You have to be a smart media person as a modern athlete and be professional about it.

I have not heard much about Asik before he came to the Rockets. I guess he played even more limited minutes behind Noah.
He has no right to do what he is doing after one good season.
He is damaging his reputation and that of the Rockets.

Changing agents won't do it.
Maybe it's the best to move on or strictly limit his playing time until something comes up.

 

I do see Kevin Love in a Rockets uniform.

Offer Parsons 50 over 5.


Profit

 

We have to get a Max player in 2014 first, then we could resign chandler parsons for 9 mill + and go into the lux tax

 

I don't agree that not making the Boston trade means that Morey is not going all in with the current team.

First, look at the calendar. It's December. Morey has two more months to trade Asik for help at positions other than C if he thinks this is the best "going all in" direction. The only significance for this "self-imposed deadline" has to do with being able to flip the guys you received by February 20th real trade deadline. If Lee and Bass are the guys you "go all in" with, why do you worry about flipping them again by February? So, the real deadline for making a Asik for guys you "go all in with" deal is in February, not December.

Second, Lee and Bass have some skills, but they have been just ordinary players over the course of their careers. From an RAPM (regularized adjusted plus minus) point of view, Lee's RAPM over the last 3 full seasons were -1.6, -0.7 and -1.6 while Bass' RAPM were -1.1, -1.2, and -2.6 (his defensive rating were significantly stronger than his offensive ratings each year). In comparison, Garcia's were -1.3, -1.6 and -1.7. Lin's were -1.6, +2.2, +0.4. Casspi's were -0.6, -2.4, -1.3. For Omer Asik, they were +1.7, +2.8 and +4.5-- and these were the ONLY 3 season of his NBA career.

If you translate the RAPM to wins over replacement level players, as is done here by Kevin Ferrigan (http://nbacouchside.com/2013/08/13/projecting-the-nba-using-xwarp-houston-rockets/), a +4.5 RAPM player like Asik, even at around 1100 minutes per season would have an impact on winning (xWARP in the table) comparable to that of a slightly above average player (like Lin and Parsons were last season) playing full time starters minutes, and a higher xWARP than the likes of Bass and Lee playing full time starters minutes (which they most likely won't on this team) over 82 games.

Lee and Bass are somewhat useful guys to have in term of having some depth and a diversity of skill sets among the guys on your roster, but on any given day, it's just as likely for guys like Garcia, Lin, Smith, Jones and Casspi to better options than these guys than it is for each of those guys to be better options than guys Houston already have at SG and PF.

Asik, on the other hand, is a guy who does something that no one but Dwight Howard does on the roster and who makes a bigger impact in 13-15 mpg than most players do in 20-30 mpg because rim protection just makes that much of a difference in today's NBA and Asik is just that good at it.

There will be plenty of Lees and Basses on the trade market in February (including, most likely, Lee and Bass themselves). Some of them you can probably get for a better deal than the rumored Celtics trade-- for example, my guess is that Toronto would gladly take DMo+Brewer for upcoming free agent Patrick Patterson and if the Lakers fall out of playoff contention by then (which they most likely will), they would not mind saving some tax money on their 1-year deal guys. Not getting these Lee and Bass in December doesn't mean you are not looking for "going all in" reinforcements for a playoff run.

 

I agree with most of your article.

While I don't disagree with your premise that the Rockets should look to trade Asik for a "borderline All-Star talent" I believe that it's in the realm of Not Going to Happen! in the same way that we are not trading for Lebron. I think it's more likely that Morey trades his way to that kind of talent than rather for Asik straight up.

I think we learnt that it's still about flexibility as you mentioned so Morey can continue to be opportunistic.

I think the first option here for Morey is liquefy assets. Trade Asik and Lin (if possible) for 1 or 2 year expiring contracts that will provide 'some' level of help to competing for a title and draft picks.

Option 1A:
By getting the expiring contracts and draft picks will help using them to bring in Love once Minnesota decide that they HAVE to trade him because he will leave. I think at this point (barring any Blazers like explosion) the T-Wolves will have to trade Love, they are not going to let him go for nothing and Morey knows this. More can't wait until 2015 to nab Love in free agency because it's likely that he would already have been traded to a team he would be willing to sign with (e.g. Wolves management ask Love, you going to resign? No? Ok, which team will you sign with if we trade you there - Houston, Clippers, Lakers?, any other teams?. Then the T-Wolves management go to these teams and start a bidding war, take the best offer and move on thus avoiding him leaving for nothing).

So, I believe that the most likely way we get Love is to trade for him this season or next. Having the ability to sign him in free agency will be more of a useful threat rather than something that may actually happen.

So the question REALLY is when does Minnesota decide to trade Love? This season at the deadline? At the draft? or next season's deadline? This is the biggest question is when does Love become available? This will determine how Morey makes his moves. Guess wrong and you may miss out.

The path I'd take would be:
- Milsap for Asik and Llull (or equivalent talent/pick - perhaps the NYK 2nd rounder in 2014 we own)
or
- Asik for expiring + Draft picks (Humphries + 1st round + 2nd round pick)

+ trade Lin for expiring + picks (Butler + 1st round + 2nd round pick

then use expirings and picks to get Love.

Biggest obstacle? The Clippers. As Bill Simmons has suggested recently, Love for Griffin swap. Who says no? Griffin is locked in for 4 years, Love wants to compete, and can do that with the best PG in the league, guaranteed he resigns. Not only that but Love next to DeAndre Jordan works HEAPS better than next to Griffin....If I were either team I'd do that trade.

Option 1B:
LaMarcus Aldridge. Keeping the 2015 salary open may pave the way for the Aldridge possibility. Yes, the Blazers are playing great, yes, Lillard is a STUD! (is there a better scoring point guard in the league? Westbrook perhaps? I still think I'd take Lillard) but if they fizzle in the playoffs 2 years in a row and the opportunity presents itself to play with the best 2 guard and best 5 in the league + a good surrounding cast, he may just choose to move, perhaps...

So, any moves you make from Option 1A will still set you up to go after Aldridge as well down the track if Love doesn't happen for whatever reason.


So, yes, it's still about getting an all-star level talent but probably with more steps required.

The good news is that as situated, we have draft picks, we have expiring contracts for 2015, so we're already situated ready to move for the 2015 options - Morey really is a whiz!

Oh, 1 more point of note a little related - Pekovic is owed 12 million for the next 5 seasons (including this one). Why the hell did they give him a 5 year contract? Makes no sense!

 

Del3no yes. Toney Douglas, sorry.

 

The real reason a trade did not go down for Asik is because a lot of teams in the East can't decide which direction they want to go, to the lottery or to the playoffs, and a couple teams (Nets,Knicks) who have every incentive to get to the playoffs and no incentives to be in the lottery suck. As we sit here today, the Knicks are 3 games out of the playoffs and the 4th seed and the Nets are only 2 games out of the 4th seed after playing like total dog poo all year and the Celtics are the 4 seed but basically one loss away from being out of the playoffs and Toronto is the 8th seed and one win away from being the 4 seed or one loss from being in the lottery.

Some of these teams don't know what they want to do. And some of these teams really want to go to the lottery (Charlotte) but they'd like to snag a really good player for nothing on the way down so they are feigning that they want to go to the playoffs. Atlanta's watching the Nets flounder. They're not about to give up any of those Nets pick swaps.

Besides that both Atlanta and Boston are watching the Kevin Love situation in hopes of possibly using those pick swaps and some of their expirings and good young players to acquire him at the deadline, just like we are trying to get in a position to do the same thing.

Boston's holding on to their picks like they're gold. They could easily give the Wolves 5 picks for Love without blinking an eye. I'd say if Love were on the market today I don't see a team that could offer Minny a better rebuilding trade than the Celts. Sullinger an KHump's large expiring plus 4 or 5 picks for Love and whatever trash the Wolves want the Celts to take out. Celts have Bogans deal sitting there too to even increase the garbage dump. So you can really forget about the Celts giving up anything of value for Asik. Just isn't going to happen.

Same thing with Atlanta. Millsap and those 2 Nets pick swaps are a pretty attractive trade base for Love.

Charlotte is a team in a quandry. Because they traded their 2014 pick top-10 protected they need to be either really, really bad to increase their odds of keeping that pick in the top 10 in this upcoming draft or they need to go ahead and go to the playoffs and get the draft pick debt obligation over with. They would really like to dump MKG for a pick in this draft. That way they could get Asik for Portland's pick, and the lesser of the MKG pick/Detroit/their own pick. But no market to move MKG for a pick right now either.

It's going to get interesting.