Is this a crazy good roster and potentially fun team? Or am I just crazy?

Agreed. Best case scenario could get a decent young player and a pick for Tucker from a contending team. He's old but effective and on an expiring contract. No way would it cost us a pick to offload Tucker.

 

If someone brings back that old Phoenix suns training staff that would bring players back to life, and then get the Miami ppl that were giving Bron and Wade whatever they were getting in 2012-2013, we have a shot.

 

It. Could. Work.

 

My thoughts concisely after the last 24 hour:

 

I mean if you consider Brown and Nwaba as proven depth then yeah, we just won’t ever be on the same page

 

Nwaba is definitely proven depth if he is healthy... he will get 25-30 minutes a night.

 

I want Cousins to fill a Dmo role for us

 

Have a drink or too.

Away with that craziness.

 

No. He’s not proven.
Also, “if” and “proven” don’t go well together

 

I'm cautiously optimistic that this works - Assuming Harden stays.

I don't particularly think Wall was the right guy to replace Westbrook , I'd have rather they got a 3/4 in return that a point. What you need at point with Harden is a guy who can play lock down defense and hit his 3's at a solid clip .... Not a guy who needs the ball in his hands. - PatBev is the first guy that comes to mind.

My biggest complaint is that they have tried this twice before , pairing Harden with a star PG - with CP3 and Westbrook and while year one with CP3 was very successful , year two was a disaster and Westbrook was also hit or miss , more miss when it counted.
Seems to me that they would realize they need to go another direction - particularly with Lebron in LA. Put a stud 3/4 on the court with Harden.
Too bad they couldn't find a way to put a player like Siakam next to Harden .... with a point like PatBev. Who knows , maybe they tried to get a player like that this offseason but had no takers for Westbrook. (Jimmy Buckets would have been a great pairing but he flew off to Miami)

Best case scenario this year ? They play like the 65 win team in CP3's first season and make a deep run .... Worst case Wood , Wall & Cousins are flops and Harden is out by the deadline.

They still need to find a way to upgrade the 3 spot.

 

Yeah he is proven, he is one of the best defensive wings in the NBA.

 

Hahaha

 

HAHAHA!

 

Good. You saw the hilarious part of your statement.

You didn’t even use “if” which is the theme of our off-season. Nope. “Nwaba IS one of the best defensive wings in the league.” Haha.

 

Hm. I was optimistic until I looked at the Vegas lines. 35.5 wins and 10th in the West.

I figured "Houston is always underrated in total wins" but that doesn't appear to be true. It looks like we're 3 over and 3 under in total wins for the last 6 years (I'm not counting this past year as teams did not play a full slate of games and that was not figured into win totals).

This scares me as it looks like Vegas is saying - HARDEN will be traded (there's no way we're 35.5 wins if Harden stays, that's 49% or 40.4 wins in an 82 game season). And I trust Vegas (I don't trust the idiots at ESPN). With no Harden this could be a long rebuild.

Look, I get mad when I see stories about "Harden wants to leave" and I think they're all crap. But Vegas appears to believe he's out.

(Could we win more than 35.5 games if he leaves? Depends on who we get. It would be a bit of a leap to pick on that line without knowing who would be on our team if you believe Harden is leaving).

 

We were predicated to win 53.5 games last year (65.24%). That would have been about 47 wins in a 72 game season. If Harden leaves will we be 11.5 wins worse? Yeah, that could be true.

 

Yeah , we would probably be at least 11.5 worse and potentially much more than that .... even if you got back an allstar. They could easily be in contention for the worst record in the league minus Harden.

 

All things considered, if Harden has calmed down and is no longer demanding a trade, then Stone has had a helluva offseason.

 

Nwaba IS one of the best wing defenders in the NBA. Whether or not he bounces back is another question....... but if he is healthy and ready to go, he will be playing 25 minutes a night.

 

I wouldn't touch the Rockets on a Vegas gamble.

The trade request of Harden is genuine, and even if he says all is forgiven, he could change his mind tomorrow.

The Rockets have a higher ceiling than in the past because of the depth, BUT the injury concern is a real one.