Rockets, James Harden won’t blow it up in 2020/2021

I read that Tilman wants deeper playoffs runs than before.

NBA Finals?

 

-We are not trading Chris
-Morey is the best GM in the league, he is not going anywhere
-We love Mike, we want him back

I can see them trying one more year, but at what point do we believe a word that comes out of this organization anymore.

 

The Rockets need Julius Randle. Hes undersized but the perfect smallball center that Morey wasn't smart enough to get. Hes physical, athletic & finishes at the rim. If we trade WB then this is who needs to get. Playing PJ 40 minutes at center every night was a dumb idea

 

We don't even have a coach. We don't even know what type of offense we will be running.

 

Every idea you have to improve team is really horrible man.

 

So Julius Randall is not a upgrade as a smallball center over PJ Tucker? Explain it

 

Hardens not going anywhere, so we'll be playing similar to highlight his scoring. Its been this way since McHale. The Rockets will want to spread the court & still play fast

 

Waste of time.

DD

 

lol

 

Howard and Capela are really same as Randle

 

I look for the Rockets to make a move to excite the fans and hopefully bring them back to the arena. It won't be enough to win a chip, but I think Tillman's fine with that.

 

Blowing up coaching bench and GM position is enough for now.

 

PJ Tucker is a defensive player first and foremost and Randle an offensive threat and talented, versatile player.

Different player types.

Randle plus PJ would be better but that's a pipe dream.

Randle isn't better than WB though.

 

What about the team that eliminated us in 5?

Honestly the West is scary as ****. Even teams like the Nuggets full of young core players are going to come back with more experience under the belt from this year's playoffs run. They'll probably be a higher seed than the Rockets also next season.

 

Blow it up? It was more a recipe for success when you could reliably get a top 3 pick by just losing games.
It might take us another 20 years to get a Harden.

 

Brian Windhorst, Tim MacMahon, Kirk Goldsberry

BW: Tilman Fertitta, who I appreciate, goes on the record every single week on CNBC to mostly talk about his restaurants. Every week he's saying open up. But he answers Rockets questions on the record, on TV and I'm appreciative. He said this week they're not blowing it up.

TM: They feel like Harden is the best player in the league and as long as they have Harden as a MVP candidate, they need to do everything they can to win a championship. We can debate whether they've actually done that, given the ducking & dodging of the luxury tax but there's no intention to take a step back as long as they have Harden playing at a MVP level and on board. They understand there's a window here closing in the not too distant future & there will be difficult decisions to make. That's not this offseason. We'll see about next offseason. It's not their intention then and honestly, those decisions might be made for them. Harden might be the one telling the Rockets it's time to go in a different direction. That's not right now. They don't intend it to be next season. They're looking at least a 2-year window, trying to win with those 2 guys. Having said that, they've used up a whole lot of chips already to get Russ & Covington.

BW: Their future is already mapped out for them. They don't have this year's first round pick. Next year's pick is swappable. Then their 2022/2023 picks they still have. 2024/2025/2026 have been traded or swapped to the Thunder.

TM: With top-4 protections.

BW: They've set themselves up for a rebuild in 22/23. Westbrook & Harden are 31. Morey aligned it that way. They have 5 guys under contract for $120M. Westbrook isn't tradeable for value at his salary. You can trade him for something but don't think you'd get better. With Gordon starting a 4-year...

TM: It's 4 years, $76M but it's really a 3 year deal.

BW: But I don't think you can trade him for value either. They're locked in. What are they going to do to bolster this roster? If I was on CNBC, I'd be asking Tilman are you gonna spend your MLE & BAE exceptions?

TM: Because of luxury tax/salary cap nerd reasons, their MLE is really $5.7M, not the full.

BW: They haven't even spent the $5.7M the past few years.

KG: They have a problem a lot of teams would love to have. They have James Harden at the center of the roster. They don't have a lot of money to spend, not a lot of flexibility. They do have the longest playoff streak in the NBA & Harden is the main reason. He's unstoppable. Nobody can guard this dude. NBA history is pretty simple: if you have one of those guys, you're going to the playoffs. They might not win it all but I'd feel pretty comfortable picking the Rockets to make the playoffs, regardless of who is coaching them because of the best scorer in the NBA. James Harden is a great starting point. Westbrook comes with his quirks and contract. Eric Gordon is a real wild card. When he's playing well, the Rockets look ferocious. When he's unable to play, they look mortal. Then you have Covington. I like their core. I don't like their long term horizon. Harden is 31. He is a player that might not age into that body very well. You look at the long term horizon, they're in win-now not by choice but because of circumstance. They have to build around James. I think D'Antoni & Morey left them a good blue print. If you can put a competent defense out there & decorate the edges of the court with good shooting, Harden will take care of most of the offense himself. It comes down to can they stay healthy, mostly Gordon and can the surrounding pieces perform on both ends of the floor? Making threes and playing sound defense. If they can, I'm putting this team in the playoffs 100 times out of 100. Whoever replaces the head coach and whoever starts making trade decisions has some choices to make with the MLE and some of these other tools. They have a great start here. James Harden is going to the playoffs. He's proven it 8 years in a row. Tell me why he's not? That said, this is not a championship team. They're a mid-level Western Conference team and that's fine, that's competitive.

TM: I agree with what you're saying but Harden makes them an elite offense. To have any legitimate championship hopes, Westbrook has to be playing at an All-NBA, MVP-type level. When you talk about staying healthy, Westbrook is the biggest point of emphasis there. Kinda ironic because on the list of reasons they felt OK about the Russ/CP3 trade was CP3 had durability issues and Russ would play 80+ games a year. That went the other direction last year. As much as Russ flaming out in the playoffs & Coronavirus/quad, that's what people remember. It's easy to forget once they got him healthy & comfortable, made adjustments, opened up the floor, for 2 1/2 months he was putting up 32/8/8 in the most efficient basketball he ever played in the NBA.

KG: I'm so glad you said that. There was a period of time they aligned his talent to his shot selection which no one ever did before. Pre-pandemic, Westbrook in the first 2 months of 2020 was the leading scorer in the NBA in the paint. They got him to be that attack dog. He's at his best when he's straight line to the rim, not messing with threes or pull-ups. Whoever comes in and coaches this team can get that guy and he can stay healthy, then you have 2 legit guards and have a legit chance to get to the Conference Finals. He is the biggest x-factor in Houston's season.

BW: One of the things Daryl did so well when there, despite having huge salaries, they did so well finding players on the margin. The question is can the new front office, led by Rafael Stone, can they find those types of players? For example, will they spend a little to go get, I don't know is it Wes Matthews? Is it Mo Harkless? Are they going out & spending? Or is he trying to find guys basically sitting on the fringe of the league?

KG: Daryl was ahead of the curve finding these off-ball 3&D players who can sit next to James and make corner 3 after corner 3. The league is smarter. The league is looking for those guys too. There's not that many. Daryl to his credit was ahead of the curve. Rafael has to figure out how to find those players amongst a group of teams now looking for those players because of Daryl's influence.

TM: Two things I've been told: they do plan to spend the $5.7 MLE. I was told last year they plan on spending the MLE and year before so believe it when you see but that's what they're saying. The other thing, they would like to have a Capela-lite on the roster. Not necessarily in the starting lineup but want the ability to play different styles and not all small all the time. When they made the Covington trade, they thought they could back fill that spot. The name brought up to me was Nerlens Noel. They thought they could get a deal done with OKC. That didn't happen. They had some other discussions that also fell through. Noel ain't getting 4 years, $70M he left on the table. He's been a productive player in OKC on the minimum. He can catch lobs, switch defensively and give them a different look coming off the bench.

BW: What about a guy like Paul Millsap?

TM: At what price?

BW: I don't know what Millsap's market will be. Denver is bumping their own head against the LT. Millsap will be a guy interesting for teams playing with the exception. Are you willing to spend the full MLE?

TM: They're not spending the full.

BW: I understand but even the taxpayer MLE. I guess we'll see.

 

James Harden is on the downside of his career, the rockets may wish to keep him, but anyone thinking that he or the rockets are one piece away are fooling themselves.
Daryl Morey left the rockets not because he's a good guy and wants to stand down. It's because he knows that he's run the rockets into the ground and they can't do anything else, they have no draft capital, no up and coming players and simple harden on the downside of his career.
It's terrible but true.

 

20 years? Not that they are winning it again but 1 or 2 Finals appearances are possible, the Heat were better this year.



You got to act faster than this franchise is clearly moving forward or not moving at all.

 

[QUOTE="what, post: 13186352, member: 15560"downside of his career[/QUOTE]

you base this solely on a player's age?

 

I think we have one more year before we have to blow it up. You can't sell on Harden this year. He can float his value another year. We haven't had a star like Harden since Hakeem. We hadn't had a star like Hakeem in franchise history. You have to find a way to make this work. Some of that will just be health and continuity, even if that feels like wishful thinking. If we can somehow trade Gordon for a big, that would be a huge coup. Gordon isn't necessary, but I think last year showed that a big is absolutely necessary to avoid PJ Tucker fatiguing. Shawn Marion said the same thing - small ball works really well, but it takes a huge toll on the players (7- and 8-man rotations don't help). You could see that visibly with Houston and Phoenix under D'Antoni. It looks explosive and unbeatable, but an adjustment or two, and you've caught up, and then the team that goes small just runs into the ground.