Perhaps You are missing the point. a. There is an owner unwilling to pay the tax, no matter what he says. b. You have a full max superstar at the PG position in Harden, who needs a legitimate 2nd star who can play alongside him c. You can't go into the luxury tax to contend (see point a). Building a contender with those restrictions is exceptionally hard. You can't have the luxury of putting the cash into a second PG, especially not when it will mean trimming costs on the supporting cast. If we had an owner willing to pay to win, sure, no issue at all with Paul's contract. But see point (a) above. It is very hard to contend with those restrictions in place (see Harden leaving - he loves Houston, but got sick of the antics) So, what does emotionally irrational owner do with the $40mill contract? He ditches it for a "former MVP" - because "at least Russ can rebound". Oh dear. Are you starting to grasp the logic behind why the $40mill contract to the second PG is the problem? It manifested itself into an "untradeable" contract (because Paul was off the ball most possessions when sharing the floor with Harden, therefore looked ineffective. Surprise surprise, he could still deliver results when in OKC as the primary PG, and again in PHX. But to give him that role in Houston would have been to move the best PG in the NBA [[Harden]] off the ball to a role he isn't comfortable in - why on earth do that?). That "untradeable" contract should have just been given away for free in return for whatever pieces possible (ie, break it down into smaller chunks). Not because it couldn't work, but because the owner isn't willing to pay to have it work. The only way to spend that money on a 2nd star, and avoid the tax, was to have that star in a complementary position (a large wing - think Paul George for example). With that position unavailable, it is either pay the tax by bringing in a big wing and adding salary, or ditch the contract. Unfortunately the irrational owner wants to contend no matter what, and sees a "former MVP yo!" available, he makes Morey go all in and pull the trigger. Yikes. As I say, it is the contract that was the issue. Yes, sure, there was most likely a promise to sign it when the trade was made - perhaps at that stage Tilman had Morey fooled that he may pay tax? Who knows. But it has nothing to do with the player themselves, it is more to do with allocation of resources because of the issues in ownership Side note: Eric Gordon had a higher usage rate than Paul in his first season here - Paul was off the ball most possessions when sharing the floor with Harden. I'm not sure this is up for grabs? Harden was the primary playmaker, and led the team in usage. This is fact, not opinion.
Yea I think at the time we were new to Fertitta and his answers of do anything to win and given how close we were threw people off. We still had Tillman Disciples saying hes just waiting for Lebron or jimmy butler to come, then we'll pay. Or hes playing some special 4d chess not wanting to spend the repeaters. And the nba is a tough business with a small window of opportunity, and just like that it was gone. That said, winning the way you said especially the way this league is headed takes a lot of blind luck and some lucky homeruns, those are few and far between. Instead of paul, we didn't have the options of other stars. When you get talent, you really try to make it work. Both of them were formidable at plying both guard positons let alone that we could stagger and put pressure on another team for the entire 48 minutes. We were successful with the most wins ever and one game from the finals, thats where things began to fall apart. Look at past winners, be it cavs overpaying Jr,Kevin Love, Tristan or Raptors swinging for no guarantees and overpaying Gasol. There are no guaranteed 'finals' as tillman suggested, even this year we have Lakers, Clippers, Jazz, Nuggets, Traiblazers and Nets, Sixers, Milwaulkee swinging for the fences, none of them are guaranteed wins basically you put all hands on deck and the margins can be close in the playoffs. Getting rid of our associate head coach who was apart of our best defense doesn't hurt our cap, it only helped tillman. Getting rid of role players and replacing them with nothing mid season while you say 'you went all in" only makes the culture cheapend. What you are describing is the Pacers or some sort of perpetual good enough mediocrity. It works for tillman, works for his restaurants, but for the nba to win a title you'd have to be extremely lucky and it will become more and more rare as the new owners and buy ins as well as revenues suggest the money in this league and invested in the roster and staff will only go up and we're just hoping we get lucky while staying afloat. So basketball wise you have to pay the role players, you have to get the 2nd star. Somtimes you over pay but think about it rather than paying 15 million one time for Ariza, we are paying 15 million to run it back, compete again, keep the glue and increase our chances ever so much of competing for a title along with getting Ariza because when you're at the cap you have to do it. And in your mentality, to assume that tillman continues to lie and will never pay the tax(I agree) then we mine as well just not compete at all because if we don't sign paul, we're not getting comparable talent ,in fact paul had all the leverage just like Jrue Holiday did as well. Thats why its a billionaires game and we're not running it like we're running a mom and pop business. Then harden or any other star will leave. Remember Lebron left miami partially disgusted knowing Micky was making huge bucks and brand building with them, but then cheaped out and cut Mike miller another glue guy type and that lessened the trust and culture they believed in. Kobe demanded a trade bc it takes that talent to win, Duncan almost left to play with stars in Orlando, MJ didn't win for the first 7 years, vocal about needing help until he got the right HOF cast, Lebron as well left to miami. Harden wouldn't just left earlier as would any nba star bc the par to win has risen. Its not the 90s nba economics anymore
Your problem is that you are arguing in hindsight. We learned later on that Tilman refuses to pay the LT. Anything trying to make the argument that they knew it would be like that the time is a dirty, filthy liar. Also, that has nothing to do with the contract CP3 signed, which AGAIN was part of the initial opt-in agreement we already had in place. Regardless of what Tilman is willing or not wiling to pay however, the contract for CP3 is NOT a bad one. He continues to earn every penny of it by continuing to be one of the premier PGs in the league. The only reason it became untradeable was because CP3 vastly underperformed the following season due to trying to recover or re-adjust. In fact, if we KEPT CP3 and got the one that played for OKC the following year, his contract would have been far from untradeable again. The problem with trying to argue in hindsight, is that it is all hypothetical. As for your remaining argument, it just become even more ludicrous. Harden had a higher usage rate because 1) he was the superior scorer (not a PG trait) and 2) he was vastly inferior to CP3 off the ball. When our team needed a basket in season 1 though or when we needed to slow down the game, what happened? Oh, CP3 took over PG duties? CP3 was NOT a backup PG, at least not when he was healthy. He was very much the co-PG of the team and the one we turned to when we needed discipline. CP3 may have been playing 2nd fiddle in the superstar duo, but he was definitely not a backup PG.
Time of possession 17/18 season Harden : 8.8 minutes (2nd overall) Paul : 6.8 minutes (9th overall) Gordon : 2.0 minutes (tied for 147th overall) Hard to argue that Paul was in some traditional secondary playmaker role when only 8 other players in the league had the ball more than him from game to game. Looking back at that duos on/off numbers..... https://www.nba.com/stats/vs/#!?PlayerID=101108&VsPlayerID=201935&Season=2017-18&SeasonType=Regular Season&sort=TOV&dir=1 Paul was a more efficient and higher volume scorer when Harden was ON vs off. He also had more assists when Harden was ON vs off. And he played less minutes per game WITH Harden than without. Again hard to argue based on those facts that Paul was sitting around not doing much when he shared the floor with Harden. I think you may be misremembering how we fully utilized both of those guys. There is a good argument to be made that the pairing wasn’t the most ideal for the minutes they shared, but the way we worked their minutes it was extremely ideal for our team over the entire 48 minutes. Paul’s numbers were at its best WITH Harden, but the team did perform slightly better(net rating wise) when either guy was alone on the floor.
No I don’t regret the 65 win season because it happen all I’m saying all the asset the Rockets gave up for Cp3 was a bad move to me and a few other die hard fans I know feel the same ,Morey took a gamble because they wanted to win and I get it but it effected the Rockets future. went from a 65 win team into a 15 win team within 3 years
I never would have predicted a 300+ post thread about Tad Brown - during the NBA season. We need help, CF. We need help.
assets? those guys not gonna get another star same caliber as cp3 that 65 win team was 1 healthy hammy away from a chip if anything not having a backup pg hurt. if we had Rivers that year we would have won a chip
bad take, what's your alternative, keep running it back with Beverley and Eric Gordon and get smashed in the second round again. If we didn't trade for Paul, Harden would have requested a trade. What exactly did we give up that you think affected our future. I say we didn't give up any pieces I regret. Beverley, Lou and Harrell at the end of the day didn't do much for the Clippers. They blew a 3-1 lead against the Denver and two of them are gone. CP3 brought us closer to the championship than any other player other than Harden in the last 2 decades.
We gave up Harrell, Beverley, LouWill and the 30th pick in the 2018 draft (Omari Spellman - who's out of professional basketball and last played for the Erie Bayhawks...) That's a high price for a HOF'er, who's still playing at a high level 4 seasons past the trade???
like after trading our best defender Covington and getting a rookie coach? can you blame wb and harden for wanting out?
