CFans, I know most are not happy about Jeremy, Omer, and Chandler no longer being a part of our roster (I'm not too thrilled about that myself) because of the roles they played for our team. But I do want to know: Just what are your thoughts on all the UFA players that have been signed to the Rockets this offseason? I would also like to know what do you think these signings mean? I would like to have some more good conversation on what we think might be future moves for the team. Here are my thoughts on the signings... I do like that we signed Ariza, Adrien, Dorsey, and re-signed our "Viper Sniper" as an RFA to a new deal. The first 4 I mentioned were signed for either defense, physical size, and/or rugged toughness. I am glad to know that we have signed some players that play defense (as everybody here knows, both defense and turnovers, were our biggest problems last season). I like that we are trying to create some sort of defensive identity by adding players who don't back down and won't be viewed as pushovers. With last year's total roster, most people around the league viewed us strictly as a finesse team. In most cases (not always), finesse teams don't win the title. It's usually great big man play, true team ball, or outstanding defensive play, usually all of the above. Again ClutchFans, what are your thoughts on our signings that we have made so far???
Well, I am still sad. It's amazing that we lost Asik, Lin, Parsons for nothing. It just made me laugh. Just stop treating players as asset.
what's ironic is that the reason we lost parsons is because we did NOT treat him like an asset and let him out of his $1M contract a year early. If Morey had actually stuck to his philosophy we would have had Parsons at $1M next year, regardless of the fact that he would likely walk away for nothing. In hindsight it was a bad move, but looking at it from what we knew beforehand, it was the right move to both make him a free agent AND not to match the deal. If we had landed bosh then matched Parsons, we arguably are championship favorites, win multiple ones in the next 5 years, and will at worst, be contenders for the foreseeable future.
Ariza, Daniels, Adrian, Dorsey plus bringing over Papanikolaou & Capela. I like it, Ariza brings some nice 3&D, Daniels and Pap are sharp shooters, Adrian and Dorsey are very physical high energy bench players who can rebound and Capela is a very interesting prospect we can develop. Solid addition, I like em. Don't get it twisted though, I like the addition in our current position. I don't like that we fell into this position though, missng out on Bosh, loosing Parsons, Asik, Lin and our 2015th first all for just the Pelicans pick in return.
Ariza and a bunch of guys we're trying real hard to be optimistic about. Considering where the team was at the start of free agency, it's "Meh." Considering where the team was after Lin and Asik were traded, Melo and Bosh stayed home, and the decision was made not to match Parsons (even if it was the right decision), it's "Oh ****..." Everyone rightly reminds me that the season hasn't started yet, but "so far" I don't see how anyone can feel good about the kinds of players we're filling our roster with.
I didn't include Pap because I didn't know if he was signed or not. I also don't know much about Pap's style of game (if he was regarded as an offensive or defensive player). I hope he contributes in a big way for us, as I do with any and all current players in a Rockets (or RGV Vipers) uniform.
Asik - Was unhappy, asked to be traded and was gonna walk after this year. Morey got a great pick for him. This deal likely isnt available at the trade deadline. Lin - Too inconsistent to start. Too overpaid to be a backup. Didn't mesh with Harden. Morey essentially gave up a couple decent 2nd round picks, assuming we are in the top 10 this season, to open up cap room and unload his 15 mil balloon payment. Best deal he could find and had to pull trigger early to gamble for Bosh. Perhaps with a better coach we could have utilized him better. Unfortunate but necessary. I can't really criticize this move. Parsons - The heart of our team, 3rd best player, #1 tradeable asset leaves us with zero compensation. We didn't need to decline him to chase free agents, but he likely would have left the following year out of spite had we not let him test RFA. This one hurt but not matching his ridiculous offer was the intelligent and rational move. Ariza - Great player as a 3rd option to replace Parsons. Better defense, better 3pt shooting. The fact Morey was able to lure him in so quickly and below market value while teams were practically giving away money is nothing short of miraculous. Daniels - Re-signed deadly 3pt shooter who showed us something in playoffs. I really thought some team was gonna bite and give him 2 mil but Morey was able to bring him back cheap after declining his team option. Was a little worried about this one. Dorsey - No risk here. If he can be Greg Smith off the bench it will have been a good move. Capela - Not sure we still draft this guy in hindsight. We only got him because we thought we could stash him overseas to play the free agent game. He is by all accounts extremely raw. Better for him to develop overseas and come over later. If he develops here, we probably lose a year or two of his rookie value waiting for him to become productive. Johnson - Looked really impressive so far in summer league. Could be our next Chandler Parsons 2nd round steal. Either way, great use of a low risk pick. There's still many more short term moves pending. So although giving a grade is premature I voted neutral. We still have our 8.4mil TPE, 5.3mil MLE, ~2mil room exception to play around with. Team is looking at Papanikolaou, hopefully they can work something out and not eat into the MLE. Main concern right now is finding a starting-caliber stretch 4. If we can find something nice to fill that spot I'd say we had a C+ or B- off-season. Which, I'd say is a huge recovery from what could have easily been an F or D. I commend Daryl for almost pulling off an A+ but we know results are what matter most. Other GMs are scared to take the risks Morey does because they wouldn't have been able to recover from catastrophe. The timing of his moves and ability to coordinate trades helped us position ourselves to open up max cap room if necessary while also maintaining our exceptions. In that regard, he did a superb job. We are really lucky to have him and his team. Other owners would kill to steal him from us.
I will state my Pros, Cons & TBD of the offseason: Pros: Ariza signing Adrien signing Lin gone Pelicans pick Cons: Asik gone Parsons gone Bosh & Melo wiff TBD: Try Daniels Nick Johnson Dorsey Alonzo Gee Overseas players I stand very neutral, but just because I stand neutral doesn't mean I'm not disappointed. I didn't expect a neutral off season. Then again it might not be over.
jeff adrien and joey dorsey? at least he's doing something about the horrid defense. kostas and ariza are nice adds gonna be tough being in the west to make up for the 3rd scorer. we can at least get a role player who can score. nelson and brooks or sessions can fit that role. thats all we need really for offensive changes, another scoring pg. we got a bunch of unproven talent eager to get on the court.
On both your points, I agree, when Lin and Asik were traded and Parsons signed the offer sheet with Mavs, I felt like I got kicked in the nuts. It felt like going from bad to worse. I really weren't surprised though, that Bosh and Melo took the money either. They are not leaders and don't think either of them would have elevated us to front of the line title favorites. On your second point, I also HATED that Morey wanted to wait and add another max player when I felt we really needed to sure up our bench because, as you stated, the decent-to-good FAs have already been signed to other teams, pretty much leaving us with what appears to be scraps.
Totally meh about Capela, Dorsey, Adrien. Glad to have Troy back at a fair price but doesn't bring me much happiness because I fully expected it. I hated Ariza last time he was here, but his current skillset is a great complement to Harden's and he should be more efficient when asked to do less. I can't say I'm ecstatic about downgrading Parsons to Ariza, but once all that went down Ariza was the best possible balance between making a playoff run now and still being able to improve the team later. Overall though, meh.
Nice post. Agreed we may not draft Capella if we could see the future. Dorsey and Daniels for a million each is a can't miss proposition. The 4-yr Ariza deal makes me nervous but it was clearly below market value. If we can sign the Greek kid for $2 that seems to make sense. Adriens for camp fodder is logical. So not bad. Still won't ever get over losing our best asset for nothing though.
We had 17m in cap space to sign an impace player. There were players to be had that could come in and compliment Dwight and Harden. We signed Ariza, that was good. Then proceeded to sign a bunch of nobodies. I still havent figured out why we havent made an offer at Stephenson, but there were other players we could have used that could provide impact and spark off the bench. Bayless, Barbosa, Xavier Henry. Hell, Wesley Johnson and Beasly could have been had for cheap and may have made a jump in their game playing in an offense as potent as ours. Not only that, there are all around 'good' guys still there who can do a little of everything. Darius Miller comes to mind. He was the glue guy at UK on a championship team. Doesn't do anything well, but does everything well enough. He averaged 11pts, 3rebs, 2stls, and 2asts in his last 5 games of the season when he was getting 30mins per game. Sign him up for 3 or 4 years (hes only been in the league two), let him develop his game, and he can provide offense and defense off the bench. Doron Lamb (another UK product) is a 39% 3pt shooter. He only averaged 4ppg in 12 mins, but hes only 22 and could be a spark our bench needs. Aminu averaged 7 and 6 in 20 minutes off the bench for the Pelicans. He's another guy that could be had for $2-3 million per, and at 23, he could still see a rise in his game. There are several young free agents we could have taken a stab at, all who have their own particular set of skills that could be handy and all that could thrive in the type of offense we have. Some can step in and play defense. Instead we sign Joey Dorsey to $2 million per year, a 6'9" center who hasn't played in the NBA in three years. Just a little upset that we didn't sign impact players, that's all. Maybe they'll work out, but it looks like Houston is punting this season and going all in for cap space to chase Durant, like nobody else in the league will be after him.
Swapping Ariza for Parsons at half the price I am OK with. I think it is a slight upgrade. Asik for Dorsey at backup center is a downgrade. Asik didn't play most of last year so as long as Dorsey is available every night, I have no problem with it, though I still call it a downgrade. Lin for Canaan as backup PG is a downgrade. Canaan could perform at a level that makes me reconsider this (much as Lin did in New York) but until that happens, this is a step back. All of this other garbage about whether Adrien is better than Casspi is inconsequential. If you are depending on those guys to contribute, you are in trouble. I do like the Daniels signing and think he will be beneficial to the team. I also expect Jones to be a bigger part of the offense in Parsons' absence, and I think a lot of people will be surprised as what he could do. My biggest problem is that the team got rid of two $15M dollar players (and basically let another $15M worth go by letting Parsons exit) and for the most part they are expecting to get upgrades from within. Today's signings, while not as bad as overspending for sub-par players, is almost just as bad because they did nothing to improve any starting position. How can you let go of $45M worth of players and not improve one starting position? I think the activities of this past weekend broke Morey's brain.
