If trade demands never leaked out... I'd like this off-season a lot.

I think we still need a point guard and a 3rd string C.

 

Losing Covington makes it an F. Having people in charge who would analyze this team and then immediately look to trade Covington means we can never hope for better than an F.

 

Like most have said, Covington trade sucks for us. It single handedly marks a downward trend thats almost impossible to reverse.

I think trading PJ or Ego wouldve been more acceptable. Even Russ, if it gets us cap space or a budding star for Harden to stay somewhat interested, wouldve kept this conversation open.

The math based approach exhibited looks good, but Stone is but just one guy in this cluster****.

 

The all on Harden part...

Harden skipped out on signing an extension which wouldve made him the highest paid NBA player.

There was no way this wasn't getting leaked. Also, this already assures us that Harden is probably leaving. Its just a matter of when.

I think that makes this off season pretty devastating. People still just don't know how special Harden is.

 

Maybe Harden wants to take less to win more and have more talent around him. People talking about this extension and painting such exact pictures of what's happening drives me crazy. Unless I hear it from Harden or someone VERY close to Harden, I have no need to believe the hype.

Not signing the extension gives Harden more leverage for a lot of things. That's how I see this.

 

Losing Covington sucks in many ways I agree with that but to me he is still overrated. I liked him most for guarding the Lebron's, Durant's and Kawhi's of the league. He is easier to replace than a Christian Wood though.

 

I was underwhelmed by Covington. I preferred Luc in the season he was here. Thought he got burned a lot in thr Lakers series.

 

I like the trade that ultimately brought in Christian Wood. But let's not kid ourselves - it's unlikely Christian Wood makes too much more of an overall impact than Robert Covington.

You had to do that trade because it allowed us to get younger, bring in a guy with higher upside and added a pick to our assets, but Christian Wood isn't a significant upgrade and, who knows, may even regress from his breakout season. It's up in the air.

DeMarcus Cousins hasn't had a full healthy season in years and has been waived by the last few teams he's played for as a result.

We lost our GM, our coach, our system, and both Austin Rivers and Jeff Green so we are less deep than we were last season. Even if Sterling Brown is good he can't replace them both. PJ Tucker is a year older and he was old to begin with and he's disgruntled on top of it.

Meanwhile, the Lakers got better.

Again, I think the Wood move was one you have to make. I'm happy with it. But I think our best case scenario with this team is another 5 game series with the Lakers next year.

 

Covington’s stint with the Rockets is being vastly overrated by people here. He was okay but not great.

He could not stay in front of people on the perimeter. His shooting was not great. And even the stats don’t back him up. The only thing he did really well was block shots.

 

House can play the 4, he did it last year.

Wood can play the 4.

 

I dont know about you. If my company offers me a raise because I'm good, I never reject it. They can figure out the rest, and I can help them to that, but thats more their problem than mine.

There is no way in hell Harden is sacrificing to help the Rockets, not with Tilman. I think that much is crystal clear.

 

Covington's disruptive plays went beyond blocked shots, he was top 3 in steals AND deflections.

RoCo was also 50% from 3 in playoffs.

Not sure who you were watching but it couldn't have been Robert Covington. He was more than just an undersized blocking machine and defensive force, he made end of game plays to salvage wins as well.

 

He just got hot from 3 in the playoffs. He shot 33% from 3 for the year. 31% in Houston.

He is a solid player, but people here seem to be vastly overrating him because he got hot from 3 in the playoffs and had some nice memorable blocks.

People seem to forget he was not at all a lockdown defender on the perimeter and would get blown by.

Again, he was a mixed bag. Some good and some bad on both sides of the ball.

 

Don’t like House at the 4 for anything longer than spot minutes. PJs backup will probably need to give us 15+ per game.

Don’t think they brought in Wood to play the 4, and Cousins isn’t more than a lotto ticket IMO. If DMC gives us 15 quality backup center minutes, I’d call that a great signing.

 

I mean, when it comes to role players I thought we were all on the same page that the bar is super low on the Rockets. We gave most of the good role players away on the trade for CP, which we did replace. But then they all left this place and we struggled to find role players ever since.

We are constantly on this board praising Austin Rivers, etc. Cov is def one of the best role players we've had in a long time.

 

No one who follows basketball expected RoCo to be a lockdown perimeter defender, he is elite as a help defender.

As for getting hot in the playoffs, that is what a clutch player is supposed to do.

You are really going to try and use that against him?

RoCo was the 2nd best player on the Rockets in the postseason.

And it wasn't even close, even the blind and ignorant could see that.

 

He didn’t get hot because he’s clutch, he was hot because he is streaky. He might be 50% from 3 for a few weeks and 20% for the next few weeks.

It’s not difficult to be the second best player on the floor when Westbrook was playing injured and getting over Covid, Eric Gordon still trying to come back from knee surgery, House being horny, and everyone else just being role players.

 

Stay calm. If you're gonna get really high now you're gonna get really low when this team inevitably struggles to meet expectations.

 

LOL

That's a lot of "if's" and "maybe's".