THIS. Surprised I had to read so many Fertita think pieces(“Oh Tillman did something? Let me tell someone else how much I hate him…blah, blah, blah”) for someone to state the obvious. Tate is honestly worth more to Fertita in terms of asset value by picking up the option years than he is without barring some horrific injury(and even then insurance would easily cover this)- this was just him exercising his contractual right to continue to underpay Tate for two more years…but those were the terms Tate agreed to so it is what it is. Trust - Tate ain’t doing Houston any favors when he gets the opportunity to pursue his first big contract.
That’s a fair take. And you’re right about lots of teams trying to dodge the luxury tax. It’s just that Tilman doesn’t always put his money where his mouth is: he says stuff like “I’m willing to pay as much as it takes to win” but then still cuts costs whilst our window was open. He hasn’t been very likable so far, what with him shoving his family into our faces and his love for being in the limelight. However, like I said earlier—if our Rockets win a championship with him as owner, regardless of how we do it, I and many others will change our tune. For example, see how long of a leash a lot of us gave ol’ Les, even though he was NOT the perfect owner himself and some say he lucked into his championships in the first place.
no, I'm more of a give criticism where its due rather than 'anti-tilman. Tilman is naturally drawn into because he is at the very top, its like someone saying whats wrong with the rockets in 2017 and saying but don't bring up harden the guy its all run through. the trajectory changed with him, the moves were not of any incentive to morey at all. and i've said and agreed on moreys' asset thing. the business is tough, but you can do better communicating and that makes a big difference in relationships. but like i said, theres also tilman still lying, caught about mda's contract, lying about going in for harden...i don't see that as 'anti'tilman. i see that as a guy in the wrong who continues to deflect and blame and is doing no favors when the last thing any of us every turned on Rockets is for an owner.
We now have a collection of fun and exciting young players on the team. The problem I see is if they all develop well they will demand big money in a couple of years. I’m more curious if we’ll be able to retain them.
sooner or later in this league to win, you have to pay up and its not all going to be on budget with the nba market we essentialyl punted the ball to wait a few years and spend later and buy time...hopefully these developments show tilman will be more financially prepared for nbaeconomics next time come around...otherwise will say good bye to green too. I'm hopeful he'll learn and think he will bc it was a laughing stock
golden nugget is enough, plus Philippines, plus #1 jersey in the NBA - We can Sign Green, Sengun, KPJ, Garuba and let the rest play out as we finally win a NBA Championship. This my friends, will change all tides of luck, ROCKETS VS THE WORLD
??? Unwarranted sarcasm; when my whole point is that Morey's voodoo science gets you no useful insights you may want to bring up some facts to the contrary not just to resort to sarcasm... So, yeah! The eye test is as good as sham science or better.
Fair points, fair points. Well taken. The hyperbole comes from my visceral hate for charlatans. However, to your point, if I have to cool it off, I will be first to admit that as a practicing GM Daryl Morey is above average. What I think his best strength is the lack of dogmatism and the ability to quickly recognize mistakes and to try to correct them. After the Morey-ball debacle of 2017 he quickly abandoned it and brought Chris Paul with his midrange jumper, which led to a successful run in 2018. Interestingly, that's typical of charlatans, they turn and weave. If he was indeed a "mad genius" as he is branding himself he would have died at the stake of Morey-ball. Instead he went back to common-sense empirical basketball with regard to the mid-range in 2018, and in 2021 is having a team with a monster post player. Just regular old-fashioned basketball sense. Another example is the MCW/ James Ennis debacle... Whatever his voodoo algorithms spewed out to sign these players was obviously wrong, so he quickly recognized and corrected course... So good GM, but still a self-promoting charlatan with regard to his brand of voodoo science, which has not produced valuable actionable insights, and when applied dogmatically has hurt teams like the Rockets in 2017
That's fair - totally get what you are saying. I agree about taking a good idea and resisting the urge to be chained to it. I think the big difference between Morey Ball and let's say how Pops has run a system is that Pops changes the system to suit the roster and Morey was always chasing trying to change the roster to suit the system BUT the problem was Morey wouldn't overpay for the types of players he needed(this predated our current owner btw) and the fact is once the cat got out of the bag about the value of 3pters, every team was willing to pay a premium for good shooters EXCEPT Houston. Morey dug deeper into guys who the market undervalued and that led him to the MCM/Ennis' of the world who actually provided positive value on one side of the ball but who's offensive games were so atrocious that most teams didn't give them the time of day in the new "3pters are valuable" world. The irony is the thing that led him to value what everyone else initially undervalued(3pters), also led him away from the thing he was right about in the first place. I always thought the MCW/Ennis thing was a calculated risk thing - they played decent defense but they needed to bring offensive value to be playable in any game - if they could just improve their shot even marginally(perhaps by getting wide open looks from Harden's gravity), they could manage to produce more value beyond their cap holds....it didn't happen, but they cost the org so little that they were easy to get rid of when the experiment was proven not to work and let's be honest - the upside for $3mil and less contracts is generally pretty low. It's the reason we flirted with washed up Melo a few years back or washed up Bonzi Wells years before that. It's kind of like having $5 in your pocket and knowing you need about $100 more to make a difference so you spend those $5 on lotto tickets in hopes that you luck into the extra $100 that way. Yeah - you lose the $5 when you don't hit a winning lotto ticket but investing $5 in something safe with a low yield would give you positive value, but way less than what you needed and when Harden was on the team, every move became a "win now" move including those for the last man on the bench.
So analytics is voodoo science now? I just put you on ignore, there is no arguing with anti-science sheeple. FYI - earth is not flat.
Agree with everything. The Tilman hate is funny too but that's just fans enjoying their fandom. You don't hate something you don't even care about
And you know how Tate improves that quick release? By training, and where does a basketball player train? In a state of the art multi court training facility. Imagine how much better Tate could be with one of those...
He Looks slimmer in his frame. This guy been in the lab. This the type of stuff I like to see. That’s gets me excited for the season
He signed those out of no option though. We had bird rights worth 15 million in Ariza. Basically you can believe ariza is not worth that, but its a one year risk and the most important thing is keeping the contract alive for at least some flexiblity to take a shot, otehrwise when you're at the cap you only have minimums....we chose the minimums, chris paul even called him the missing piece that year, but even if you don't belive that one year run back is worth it we could've signed and traded like he was done with suns for kelly oubre.....Kelly oubre was packaged with rubio for Paul...basically you just keep your options open if you keep rights Instead we signed all minimums Do you remember we got House from the Gleague and he was a big minute guy for us and was sent home in january for tax reasons, mid season. Then a month later we traded the other guy who was also in our rotation at the minimum for ...top 55 protected pick.? why would morey do this? he has no incentive to just cheapen depth, but coincidentally all those moves got us under the tax. And the tax doesn't give us more flexibility as an option, the benefits arne't seen by us fans, or players or coaches...its just one mans pockets... We even traded a first round pick that year for savings...there aren't serious contenders doing any of this Morey has his flaws, but in this case its not hard to see why him, brown, harden all left money on the table and a long term home bc in one job here you have tilman lying about going all in, blaming morey, and then basically having morey dismantle assets he accumulated in their window and then also making him answer to a kid right ouf college and then another offer from philly who just says this is your pay, its your responsiblity go try to win, you don't have to train my child. https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/10/16/21519593/daryl-morey-houston-rockets-luxury-tax-resign " This refusal to spend money became farcical once Alexander sold the team to Tilman Fertitta in 2017. Fertitta spent so much money ($2.2 billion) to purchase the Rockets that he may not have had the liquidity to go into the red to build a title contender. Houston was a laughingstock around the league for the amount of juggling it had to do to stay under the tax. The best example came at the trade deadline last season, when Morey used a future first-round pick to shed the salaries of Brandon Knight and Marquese Chriss. There was no basketball reason for the move. It was just done to cut costs. It’s not that Knight and Chriss would have helped the Rockets. But there were certainly a lot of better things that Morey could have used that pick for. Houston also spent that season in a bizarre staring contest with Danuel House Jr. House is the kind of diamond in the rough that Morey routinely uncovered in Houston, an undrafted free agent on a two-way contract who would become a starting-caliber wing. The problem was that players on those deals can spend only 45 days with the NBA team during the season before their contracts have to be converted. Money in Houston was so tight that Morey had to send House back to the G League when he wouldn’t sign a below-market long-term deal. He replaced House with two players he signed off the street (Gerald Green and Kenneth Faried) before bringing him back right before the playoffs. It’s not like House was asking for the world. He signed a three-year, $11 million contract in the offseason. But even that was more than Morey could offer at the time. Houston’s limited financial flexibility became an even bigger issue last season after the trade for Westbrook. With the team’s two best players costing a combined $76.7 million, it became almost impossible for Morey to fill out the roster while staying under the luxury tax. Morey and head coach Mike D’Antoni had to conjure up production from players other teams didn’t want. Jeff Green went from being cut by the Jazz to being a crucial piece of the Rockets’ small-ball attack in the playoffs. It was the same story with Austin Rivers, who had been on three teams in five seasons before landing in Houston, and Ben McLemore, who had one foot out of the NBA before the Rockets turned him into a 3-point sniper. All were more valuable in Houston than anywhere else in the league because Morey identified what they could do well and put them in roles that didn’t ask them to do much else."
