As Carmelo Anthony leans toward leaving New York, Chicago and Houston emerge as frontrunners

The possibility would've been great considering the Rockets' habitual 9th "seedness", but now we know Harden's flaws. Even with his poor Finals, most assumed he'd be a clutch postseason performer due to his play against the Spurs. Since '12, he's been unclutch twice in the playoffs, his defense has been exposed severely, and his leadership is in serious question. Melo exacerbates the latter 2 flaws of Harden. James is still young, so his epitaph hasn't been written, but he has plenty to prove.

 

And those complaints about defense....

Bev- defensive (junkyard dog 2.0)
Harden-offesive spark
CP25-defensive wing (welcome your new 3/D wing)
Melo- offensive anchor
Howard- defensive anchor


3 players that can focus on defense ,2 that could carry an offeense by themselves

you have to be one meth to not want this for Houston.

 

I wonder...

Could the rockets pull off a SNT for melo while staying above the cap.

Resign parsons ...

Then sign Lowry for full MLE for one year, then resign Lowry for long term deal the next year

That would be magic

 

Question is, does Milk Hair really have the cubes to tell (more like make, or force) Parsons to focus on and play, defense? This would be a nice test to see how quality of a coach McHale is, if he can really motivate and teach Parsons to become a defensive minded player, he would have my respect.

 

Oh, I knew that before I posted. He said 2015 for KD; he's not an FA. Nothing more to my previous post.

 

I still don't see how McHale makes the offense work. I'd be elated if we get Melo but we need a hall of fame level coach to make it work. Harden and Melo just don't compliment each other and I think you need an extremely creative and respected coach to make it work with those personalities. I don't even have a suggestion who the Rockets should hire to make it work unless we can somehow trade for Pop.

We are basically punting defense if we go after Melo and we need an obscene offense if we do that. I hope we get Melo and somehow it works out.

 

I believe MLE deals are a minimum of three years. You cannot sign Lowry to a one year deal and lock him up to a large long term deal the next season.

 

Our defense would be a wash compared to this year. Melo is no worse than tjones, maybe even better.

 

I have said it previously and I say it again. I don't think that Melo is the player that the Rockets need. However, would Melo decide he wants the Rockets, the best solution is S/T moving Asik, Lin, DMo and TJones + a pick to NY for Melo. This would probably fit NY requirement (they can have all of those players off the books by next year). Would Melo take it. I think he would. I think he would choose Chicago only if LeBron moves there as well.

 

I'm all for getting Melo if we can, but let's be realistic. It's more like this.

Bev- defensive anchor/ offensive liability
Harden-huge offesive spark/ huge defensive liability
CP25-defensive liability
Melo- offensive anchor/ defensive liability although better than Jones
Howard- offensive and defensive anchor

How does this improve our defense, which has been our main problem for the last 2 years? Granted Melo is a slight defensive upgrade over Jones, he won't make much of an impact on that end.

Morey realizes his biggest challenge is to improve our defense and not our offense. With that said, he obviously isn't gonna pass up the opportunity to sign a player like Melo, so that's where his primary focus will and should be. However, Morey's secondary focus should be on getting good defensive role players and vets and deepening our bench, especially if we are able to sign Melo.

We can always hope that Harden and Parsons can somehow become great defenders over the summer, but this is unlikely.
We can also hope that the acquisition of Melo will somehow magically transform Harden into a great defensive player because Harden will not have to carry this team offensively. Well, IMO, this is also unlikely. The acquisition of D12, who is a great offensive player, did nothing for Harden's subpar defense last year. One can argue that his defense was the same or even worse than his 1st year with this team.

It's seems like some of you think that if we sign Melo, we instantly become a legit contender. This is simply not the case. The secondary focus will be the true deciding factor on our future legitimacy as a contender.

 

It's nearly impossible for Chicago to clear enough cap space to get LeBron + Melo with Rose + Noah on the roster.

 

Darren Collision might be a solid pickup for MLE (or possibly cheaper), he and Beverley would be a nice offense/defense punch at the point. He's only 26, can score and is a decent 3pt shooter (.365 career), he also has decent passing skills. On defense he's not much, he's small, but can get you a steal a game.

 

Despite Beverley missing a third of the season, we were ranked 8th defensively until Howard went out (and it's not like Asik played much of the season up to that point either) and that was with some awful growing pains in the first month, people are acting like our defense was this bottom 10 porous sieve when it really wasn't anything close. We're not going to be #1, but #5-7 is certainly achievable, and the #1 offense is literally there asking to happen with that roster.

Added to that, people have no idea what they want anyway, they b**** he's not trying on defense in the regular season and then a month later complain because only the playoffs matter when he goes ice cold for a few games on his shooting.

 

It is impossible, unless they either take major (14 mill a year max or something like that) pay cuts, or they do sign and trades.

 

McHale is my biggest concern. I don't care how talented this team is, he is a HUGE liability as the coach. The team as is would be on a completely different level with even just an above average coach

 

The Rockets with Anthony, the MLE and BLE are probably better than LAC and OKC and have a fighters shot against SA. It is a major upgrade.

 

Quoted, worth reading again.

 

I don't see the fascination of hating Mchale. Mchale is a great championship contending coach, who thrives in a roster with multiple all-stars. Not to mention his experience in winning back to back titles, he's a great players coach. He might not be so good at developing players, but ya'll have to remember that THIS TEAM IS BUILD TO CONTENT NOW. Furthermore, he tends to put a lot of trust into his assistant coaches to interact and develop players. More than anything, Kevin Mchale needs more experienced and advocated assistance. Kelvin Sampson was a big hit to us through the mid-season, although not a lot of people knew. Mchale is the glue guy behind the scenes, our open door to the league. That's why players respect him. The reason Mchale doesn't play much of his bench, is because outside of Howard, the starters are young, and need time to develop into they're role rapidly and proficient.

 

Why would guys root for the a Bulls or Melo over the Rockets on a Rockets forum?

Classless.

 

I'd rather have Kevin Love than Melo.

I feel like Melo and Harden will have issues. Love is the perfect fit to me. Although his defense is bad, he still dominates on the offensive end and is a great rebounder. ALSO, he spaces the floor.