This may well be on Morey, rather that Fertita. Morey can drive a hard bargain, but I believe he cut off his nose to spite his face. The team needs continuity and the skillset only House has brought to the team since Ariza and Luc were let go.
If you look at actual TRANSACTIONS rather than statements this season, it's clear that Morey had these restraints: 1) Only sign minimum players. 2) In trades, only acquire expiring contracts and/or rookie contracts except in the rare circumstance a top 15 player becomes available. Everyone always cites Butler as the one indication that Tilman is willing to spend. The truth is whoever you think the cheapest owner in the league is, they would go by this strategy too. They would be "willing" to acquire Butler too. That's not a willingness to spend, it is a no brainer. Even if you are cheap, you can dump other costs after acquiring Butler. Yes we have more salary than most, but we also allegedly have championship aspirations so that's a wash. Considering the fact that Morey was playing under these rules, I'm not mad at him. He did as good a job as any GM could possibly do under these restrictions and with the assets at his disposal at that time. Tilman imposed this harsh set of guidelines on Morey and Morey did great for those circumstances. He took a chance on Ennis, MCW, Melo, Rivers, Faried. I would say he hit on 2.5 out of those 5 signings, which is an excellent return for guys willing to sign for the absolute minimum. Then he dumped Knight and Chriss for Shumpert at the cost of a 1st and a 2nd - this is the only place I question the move because unless he was under pressure to dump Knight at any cost, it is probably an overpay. But again, I think there is a high likelihood that he was forced to dump Knight and at least he got a serviceable player attached to that expiring contract. It's 100% on Tilman. A list of all the transactions and rumors this season will show Butler is the one outlier, and an outlier that any cheap owner in title contention would agree to. What has Tilman actually done to show he is willing to take a risk with money in the way Dan Gilbert did when he spent so much that he was going to lose money even if he won it all? I keep saying, if we were going to half-ass this season to share focus on saving money, then we should have traded both Gordon and Tucker and unprotected picks to the Wolves. Then next season your core is Capela/Butler/Harden/Paul. You can put 11 minimum signings around that, and 5 of thm will pan out. The price tag on that? About $142m, roughly what the Warriors are spending right now. If he's not willing to match the Warriors spending without a title guarantee, we are wasting our time. That's like asking for a guaranteed profit on a stock. He's not willing to risk a thing.
Markieff Morris, more likely used in the regular season, Mike loves small ball. Faried will play most bench minutes in the playoffs, Markieff maybe against bigger bruisers in Nurkic, Kanter on the Blazers
That’s a cheap shot. That’s the crap we don’t need. He’s always been a loose cannon. That kind of play can cost us a playoff game or series. He just needs to play tough, hard defense if he signs here. Not this cheap stuff.
He can play the Ryan Anderson role, stretching the floor by hitting 3s and playing defense in the paint against bigger Centers. I am surprised by how much weight he has lost, he is a lot quicker now on defense, very impressive.
Markieff Morris must have told the Rockets he doesn't like James Ennis, for him to want to sign, I don't want to play together with James Ennis. It makes too much sense, a lot whiners are complaining about the trade. I know Ennis is not a good fit for the Rockets. Just move on people.
Not sure Jeff Green is much better. B-R.com https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2019_per_poss.html Player............................................18/19 DRtg Markieff Morris..................................114.........................................17/18 DRtg .. (108 DRtg) Jame Ennis.......................................114 Joe Harris..........................................114 Kevin Love.........................................114 Robin Lopez.......................................114 Bradley Beal.......................................114 Ariza...................................................114 Tristan Thompson..............................114 Satoransky.........................................115 (did anyone with Washington play defense?) L MaM................................................115 D House.............................................115 Avery Bradley.....................................115 (did any of the Bradley’s play defense?) Jeff Green.........................................116 Gerald Green.....................................116 Eric Gordon.......................................117 (does anyone with Houston play defense?) Austin Rivers.....................................117 (does anyone that plays for both Wash/Hous play defense?) R Hood...............................................118 Frye....................................................118 Ryan Anderson..................................119 Looked up when M Morris started having neck pain: Dec 16th vs Lakers......re-aggravated around Dec 21st. So he played some of Dec with the neck issue. Nov was a really bad DRtg for Morris (I’m guessing he hated the team back then and wanted off. Washington has been having team strife all season.
You want Twin. He fits perfectly for what we need. His shot is improved. His defense is solid. He's Ron Ron's attitude about Team Over Everything and #FOE. You should have had 2 Grizzlies and a Fireshooter. But, you got a great defensive 3-d guy with championship experience. (win) ' Bring in Twin and you have another weapon to go along with Austin, Faried and Shump to replace the inconsistency of JEnnis, Big sCrub and the MAJOR MAJOR loss of Trev. AND, if you play your cards right, you'll have House at the last second. That's a deeper team than last year's going into the post-season. When Clint returns and Manimal is feeling great, that's a deadly combo for James/CP to launch passes to... Shump, when he feels better (he's a bit under the weather btw) becomes your close-out defender with PJ. PJ gets to guard more strategically and Shump becomes the angle killer. And, the most underrated part of all of this is the return of CP3. He is getting his swag back each game. When he's finally READY, the Rockets are going to be SCARY. Last night's loss was bad, but we don't play Minny well for whatever reason. But, had Clint guarded that overrated KAT, we take that game. They made some uncommon shots, too. Don't be worried. Be excited. The Rockets don't need the #1 seed to win this. They need to be 1-4. Actually, if they were 8th and the Nuggets won the conference, I'd still bet on the Rockets for the upset. What team can beat the Rockets in a 7 game series? I only know of ONE in the West. And, they're vulnerable this year. Just wait. It's honeymoon season with Boogie. KD is the distracting snake. Poor Klay (I like Klay as a person) has an injury to the most important part of his game (albeit wrong hand) and Steph can be stopped when the Rockets force him to play defense every time down. I feel good about this team. I didn't feel good about them until Morey committed to House and then Rivers. His signing of Faried showed that he was willing to reel in these FreeBirds to put the puzzle together. If you get Twin, James has more talent around him than any other year here. *The only crappy part is that I wish we still had SweetLou. That would be amazing.
The Memphis deal would have been sweet. Getting a consistent shooter in Ellington would have been the icing. He could have been our poor mans Sweet Lou but oh well. Your optimism gives me hope. Shumpert ‘s shooting scares me. He hasn’t been close on most of his looks. Hopefully that will improve after the all star break. I hope you are right about Markieff being the right fit. Most people on this board tend to agree with that, but I remain skeptical for multiple reasons. Thanks again for a positive post and a great outlook. I kind of gave up on a championship this year after the Memphis/Miami fell threw. I thought that was THE deal. Hopefully Shumpert and Kieff will prove me wrong.
He cheap shoted a cheap shot player. Need a guy willing to be enforcer. Ron Artest comes to mind. When D.Green GSW starts all his grey area stuff we have an answer.
Wonder who the fireshooter was? Jaylen Brown? But I'm hoping after the break they can start to come together and play a full game of consistent defense. Really underestimated Capela. Have always liked him but honestly believe he is the second part of the team after Harden. He didn't do great against Warriors last year but them having Cousins makes them more traditional for Capela to make an impact. This team is still staying afloat. 3 seed is where we need to be.
Thanks for continuing to post and great optimism. That said... Well, they were 8-1 against them last year!?!?! This year, not so much. The issues are this year. Certainly Clint helps! I mean, I'm neither, and I think that's the only rationale position to take. 1-4... ok. 8th seed?? Obviously Clint's return is paramount, and where CP3 ends up is paramount, but there's a reason so few seeds that are that low in NBA history have made long playoff runs. And as important... there's the question of running in place. Is the plan to just lose in the WCF every year? To put a point on it, if you give CP3 $140 million, at his age, the plan HAS to be to try and win a ring, EVERY YEAR. The unfortunate reason this won't be true is because of age and injury. On paper... yes. In reality, even though Clint is getting better, CP3 and Gordon have declined. I think Tucker has declined - or at least become less valuable without Ariza next to him. Nene is a year older. Gerald Green has declined - and only his recent play has picked that up to only a bit of a decline from what was a pretty bad season to date. ... But I can be optimistic, too! The upside is that everyone gets healthy, Twin comes in and gives a legit 20+ mpg a night, and instead of going 0-27 in the most important games, they all have great play for a month at the exact right time.
I think Capela is the 2nd "part of the team" but CP3 becomes more valuable in the playoffs, where things like turnovers matter more, and having a second ballhandler matter more. As for GSW and Cousins, the upside to me would be the fact that with Cousins you have a second guy you can pick on to isolate. Last year, GSW was happy to throw Looney, Bell out there, because those guys actually switch on the perimeter really good for bigs. And then on offense its them having to figure out how to spread the same # of possessions. Cousins is only getting 23 mpg so far, and not playing great - inefficient offense, not amazing defense. We'll see what happens, but the 5 all-star lineup isn't blowing people out yet. Boogie might still improve, or Kerr might play him even less in the playoffs - despite Boogie being Boogie, hard to see him making a big deal about it chemistry wise...
