Wall opting out of the season is the best news I've heard regarding the Rockets since we landed the #2 pick! Men have an awful tendency to sink to the lowest common denominator, especially when young and impressionable. Considering how awful Wall was last year (Negative Win Shares!!!!!), giving Green and KPJ all his minutes is a massive improvement already in terms of winning. It does raise a new question, while these men are grown adults for the most part, when should we invest in veteran leadership? We saw how Chris Paul elevates every team he plays on, especially young ones like OKC and the Suns. Jimmy Butler did the same with Minny. What is your win total that triggers going all in with the young core?
Honestly, as early as next year. If our youngins show out, then getting vet leadership in sooner rather than later would be a great move. Let them develop a bit more around those vets for another year or two and let it explode from there.
After we have capspace which coincides with the rockets having to start giving their picks to the Thunder. It’s almost like they planned it out that way…!
this is one of the things that make me going when things look desperate that we benched johnny the ballhog and benched him forever!(my goodness!) this makes Tilman and Stone hall of famers in my eyes... this is the stuff the dreams are made of! even more hilarious is Silas stabbing wall in the back after being his favorite ...my oh my!!! i forgive silas all his sins, from now on he can do whatever he wants and will have my support
I'm not so sure there's a particular win total that triggers "going all in" with such a young team , especially considering all the draft picks they have over the next several years. I think its more a maturation process for the young guys which is a couple years away which also coincides with the team having a large amount of cap space ... but even then , unless two of these young players start looking like allstars , I can't see blowing all your assets unless you are getting a truly transformative player. Gotta have something in reserve. I look back at the Harden years where they spent every asset (both cap space & draft assets) looking for a Robin to Hardens Batman or finding a way to duck the tax .... but never really had the pieces around any of those pairings to get over the hump. With some internal improvement , this team is in a much better position than the team Harden first joined - There's more potential talent & more assets. I think you have to see where the current group is in terms of development in the 2023/24 offseason when Wall & EG come off the books while KPJ , Wood & Tate are all free agents who's cap holds are minimal , allowing significant FA acquisitions IF the core has realized much of its potential - If they haven't , you reset the clock and push cap space & assets into future years. What Stone did in setting all this up was absolutely brilliant .... everything coincides - young players maturing while cap space opens up and having a wealth of draft assets to boot.
If they keep botching top 5 picks like they did by taking green, then they should fold and trade all the rockets and nets picks for vets like Simmons and CJmcallum cuz I have no faith they will pick the right player in the top 5 Now middle to late of the round they draft brilliantly Forget tanking, forget drafting 19 yr olds again..to risky.. last years terrible season was for nothing .we got nothing out of it..same thing will happen in 2022 draft. They will blow it again I am normally against the "trade for vets" strategy but when your scouting Dept is clueless then we have no other choice Yes...I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning
It really depends on the player and the type of acquisition, but the team could use a veteran presence right now. Using Chris Paul as an example, adding him to this team does not make them a contender, so a player at his advanced age is not going to be signing with us. And we should not be giving up assets for someone like him when he is not going to be around by the time the team is contending. So, while there isn’t really a win total that sets off a green light for us to start adding free agents, there has to be something they see in this team that makes the want to sign here. This is why some people (like myself) who were never even fans of Simmons were advocating taking a chance on him. He is already an accomplished player who is signed long enough to see us into the playoffs. And he is young enough that if we wanted to resign him, we could do that and he would still be in his prime. It’s just such a rare opportunity, it seemed crazy to be so dismissive of it. That said this team could use veteran insight on the bench, in practice and during games. The problem is that this team is going to have a hard time getting anyone of consequence to sign here, or to have anyone who gets traded here not to seek a buyout. They can run through the season with the roster as is this year, but they really need to start focusing on wins next year.
Am I the only one that believes John Wall could be playing for us late in the season. I can see a scenario where Wall comes back and reminds everyone that he’s a valuable asset and helps the team get close to or into the play in games after they mysteriously “shut down” KPJ. The Rockets are hoping KPJ looks like a perennial All Star but they probably also have a contingency plan where they break the glass and see if Wall can build his value up right before the off-season.
I really don't want Simmons on the team, but at the right price sure. If that price includes Wood and FRP's do not want.
yep i wake up late at night and start crying because this is a possibility somewhere in the billions of the alternate universes
Simmons advances the rebuilding process by two maybe three years. Sengun and him pair well and both can run the offense through the high post opening up the court to the strength of ALL our current rookies. Simmons definitely makes an amazing difference on the defensive side, too. I truly believe Simmons would find happiness here because we would high light his the strength of his skill set on both end of the court. He would have an opportunity for multiple all star and all NBA teams because of his usage will load stat sheets. Versus Wood who’s going to get signed to the maximum salary when he becomes an unrestricted free agent & draft picks that will take multiple years to mature and what we have now will be gone or overpaid. Now is the time to add the “all star” if we can and mold our team to fit around him. Wood, Gordon, House & 2 FRP(lightly protected) For Simmons & small fill if needed.
Nothing is as important as the assets you accumulate during tanking and before going way above the cap. That’s the source material your championship window is going to be based on. Tank until you have a basket of players from which at least 3 future All stars are likely to emerge. Shed bad contracts that don’t cost picks. Rent out your cap space for picks. Go all in on FA/Trade the moment you’ve secured someone who can lead you to a title (by trade or draft). It’s practically impossible to grab a first tier superstar in the open market for us, we must get that person by draft or trade before committing resources to role players later. Stay flexible and keep accumulating picks, an extra year of tanking could be the difference between a championship and a dynasty.
How many title teams over the last decade had three all-stars? Not the Bucks. Not the Lakers. Not Toronto. Not GS unless you want to include draymond as an 'all-star'. Not the Cleveland LeBron's. Not the Spurs. No offense, but 'waiting for three all-stars' seems like a terrible idea, and we'd likely never get to that point.
Having all stars on your team is great, but keep in mind that the different between the best all star player (Durant/Giannis) is VAST compared to the worst all star player (Ben Simmons). The key to winning championships is to have the very best all star on your team. Furthermore, the greatest salary cap savings is when you pay the max out an ultra-elite all star player, like a Harden, Durant, Lebron. In those cases, the max salary is an artificially low value for that kind of talent.
but why? simmons is that dude for us right now, we also have sengun and wood... dont tell me these 3 arent all star level players....because they are why wait for years when we can have that right now..is that a disease of procrastination and perfectionism? we have no clue how nba landscape will look 2 years from now let alone several years in the future as you suggest... and just wait until dr lucas fixes his shot.... its game over for the league
It’s just we don’t agree on the rockets ceiling with Ben Simmons. Just so it’s clear, my post is based on my own assessment of Simmons, which is that he does not fall under the definition of someone who can lead a team to a title. I understand your assessment is very different.
Simmons is the last piece of "Veteran Leadership" you could want on a team, what's he going to show the youngins? That you can coast off talent to multiple all-star teams? That you don't need to expand your game? That dating Kardashians is more important than winning rings? Even if he comes later, we've seen with Westbrook what a non-shooting ballhandler does to the offense. He was surrounded with shooters in Philly and that STILL wasn't enough. Unless you're the second coming of Shaq in Giannis, you need to shoot to be championship-viable.
