It wasn't Ennis that was the problem. It was Melo. The Rockets sat around for months waiting for him to be dealt and/or bought out because they knew he was coming here. I know hindsight's 20/20, but had Morey never wasted time on him and pursued a different replacement for Ariza(and Luc), maybe things would've worked out differently. Especially had Bzdelik presumably not opted for (temporary)early retirement due to his aversion to Melo's game. The funny thing is Morey managed to salvage the hole at that position with House and Clark, but now he's created a new problem for himself and the team with the standoff with House.
they could have gotten harden help during the season via trade as well but are just unwilling to take on salary. instead the only trades have been lux tax savers like mcw and nanu
Right, Ennis wasn't the problem, I used his salary to make the point that I'm not even asking them to have spent the MLE. The problem was CHOOSING Melo and MCW as additions to the roster. MCW had zero upside. It just baffles me.
Agreed. Melo was a gamble that I was ok with at the time because I figured if he didn't work out, the Rockets would just cut him(which is exactly what happened). The curveball none of us were expecting was Bzdelik quitting out of protest on the eve of the season. That completely derailed the team and helped lead to that 1-5 start. You erase that crappy beginning to the year and we're fighting for the top seed right now even with all of these injuries. MCW never made any sense to me. The guy can't shoot. And we're a team that's built entirely around jacking up threes.
I doubt that. Seeing as 28 of the other 29 teams are over the cap too the salary matching rules in trades means we wouldn't even be allowed to take on too much extra money through trades. And most of the trades that have been thrown around are pretty uninspiring, do guys like Otto Porter and Kent Bazemore move the needle much? Don't forget we now have 5 guards which on paper is more than enough help for Harden. Ok maybe Knight was never gonna be anything, but that's still 4 and good luck trying to find a good player who would be happy entering our rotation as the 5th guard. Does anybody in the league have a deeper guard rotation than Harden, CP3, Rivers and Gordon? This gets to the main reason this thread is dumb. We got injuries.
1) rivers has been here 2 weeks. your post does not apply to the bulk of the season so far when we were drowning in losses while CP3 was out suspended and injured on 2 different stints. 2) in a trade we can take on i believe 25% more salary, as well as more longterm salary. obviously tilman/morey are not interested in that even if it gets us wins 3) yesterday, the day before, and today morey could have acquired a big to fill in for capela. instead we are starting a 6'8" undrafted rookie who's played probably less than 50 minutes in the past month, backed up by a 36 year old with a 15min and b2b restriction AND marquese fuking chriss. perhaps you should stop defending this front office?
Zero upside is much. He showed some talent early in his career and had potential. Again, if he would have bought into being a good defender he might have found a fit here. MCW also cost us little in terms of dollars and cents. You could argue he stole a roster spot and playing time from emerging players, but I think you're being a little hyperbolic on the whole. I think the same could have been said about Melo. But do you remember, after the game 7 loss how people were clamoring on how we didn't do enough to get Melo, even saying we should have traded away EG to get him? I think Melo was also a valuable risk worth taking too. It doesn't mean it didn't fail, it means I don't blame the FO for trying.
Unless there was a better guard available than Rivers at any point in the season than my point stands. And again, which longer term salary can we take on? Because we were after Jimmy Butler, so we sure as **** were ready to take on a LOT more salary for future years. What we aren't about to take on from the looks of things is overpay contracts like Porter, Bazemore or Kevin Love, or whatever else. And please tell me what big man we could have gotten in the few days it's been since Capela was injured. As soon as we get a player injured people expect us to be able to just go out and get a replacement straight away. Paul goes down? Get a guard. Gordon goes down? Get another guard. Capela gets injured? Go out and get a rim-rolling center to replace him. Y'all want us to have a 20-man roster full of mythical NBA players who are good enough to play for a winning team but will also accept being the backup to the backup.
MCW came here and did exactly what he has always done. There was no upside. His shot is completely broken and his defensive potential has been overrated for years. Team after team has tried to do something with him and failed. @malakas laughed at us for signing him. There was no upside, and yes, the problem was that he stole a roster spot. We lost two contributors from the playoff team and a third from the regular season team. We needed to add players. We didn't. It was a bust. You are right that some people shared Morey's irrational obsession with Melo.+ Edit: Just to be clear, I don't agree with the thread title. The front office is great they just had a bad offseason. Like I said, the first one I put on them. Everything they did was a miss.
We have 5 guards and just 1 playable 5, one playable 4, and if you include EG as a guard maybe 1 playable 3 (GG) come playoff time now that House is out. I don’t think MDA would trust Clark, JN, or Ennis in the playoffs. Front court depth, and rebounding was an issue even with Clint healthy and with House in the rotation. We don’t need the most “inspiring “ names on the market. But we do need help while Clint is out. If Morey can say “Blame Me”, for his offseason moves or lack there of, then why is it dumb for fans to want to hold him/them accountable as well? Some fans want to go go for it now. Makes sense considering that Harden is now being mentioned in the same breath as MJ, Kobe, and Wilt freaking Chamberlain. Some fans want to tank. I’m sure that at least a few on this board were happy when they found out Clint would be out for 4-6 weeks. I’m sure the tank threads will re-surface if we lose another game or two. Some fans are just seem happy with the same ole same ole. Maybe make the playoffs, maybe not. Get bounced in the 1st or 2nd round who cares. Pick rookies with the 12th pick or beyond and hope for the best. In other words the same thing we had grown accustomed to before last year happened. Hard for me to call anyone dumb who wants to win now, and expect our front office to do whatever it takes to make that happen.
It is truly baffling the sentiment that Morey had no other options. And if those other options sign elsewhere...whatever. That happens. It's the fact that he locked in MCW so early and then held out for Melo so late. We passed up the opportunity at plenty of others. Like you...I'm not saying Morey needs to go or anything. He is great. I just am baffled at his strategy this offseason.
Get off the gas dude...we are hurt... everything will be beautiful once everyone is healthy and the playoffs come around. We are all in.... big trade coming.
Good post man, can't say I disagree with much of it. I was happy with the balance of the roster just.a week ago cause I think we need 4 guards because we can no longer just say "well CP is injured", it's up to the FO to expect that to happen and have more than just Gordon as backup. But until a few days ago I was confident in our depth for a potential GSW series. It would be exactly the same as last year but instead of having just Gordon and Green off the bench we'd also have Rivers, House and Ennis available who could all play minutes. If we have Ennis as our 10th guy, Im not complaining too much, that's a much better bench than the Warriors. We just gotta find a way to get House back and as long as Capela is back for the playoffs then we are still there.
1) there would not be a 20man roster if tilman/morey were willing to just dump the deadweight like melo/chriss/etc, but instead they are waiting till the deadline to try and trade them out like with mcw, solely in order to save as many lux tax pennies as possible 2) butler is an expiring contract, and morey's 5star offer was our toxic contracts such as knight attached to 4 first rounders. again, salary reduction 3) there were plenty of backup PGs before rivers of course. instead he stuck with mcw because $1.2M was already guaranteed on his contract 4) to replace capela could have picked up willie reed, could have traded for dedmon or o'quinn, etc. i mean there are more than a dozen options out there but problem is they all involve taking on more salary 5) again most of the mle is still there, but even part of it wasn't used on house b/c his salary would then apply to the lux tax. so they sign nunnally to a 10day instead b/c that transaction has no lux tax implication
I mean I would trade those 1st round picks that we have because I wouldn' want to waste Hardens prime. But realistically who the hell is out there for them to get? I doubt they will trade the picks . We have no cap room and I haven't really figured out yet if the owner is cheap or not I'm more inclined to think he isn't cheap and he wants to win but there is just nothing out there right now .I think the only real choice the Rockets have is just pray everybody gets healthy come playoff time and that harden isn't worn down and go from there .
It's beyond a problem at this point. Morey has been one of the worst GMs this year without exaggeration. I have to believe that his hands are tied by a cheap-ass owner, because that is the only reasonable explanation that I can come up with regarding utter braindead decisions made by Morey one after the other.
