Would you trade John Wall & 3 - 4 1st rounders for Ben Simmons?

I have no obsession with 10th seed. I have an obsession for the Rockets to be sucfessful.

Period.

Just because you keep saying something over and over does not make it true.

Victim mentality.

Do trades exist or not, very simple question.

 

Something is happening soon.

Philly is radioactive right now and every day it will get more toxic.

 

Sexton is out there on a platter too.

Opportunities for Ra-fell abound.

 

But you’re only interested in short term success, you have no interest in setting us up for something sustainable. You basically want to follow the pelicans AD model.

 

Good question. Phila is pretty damn close with Joel and Ben.

Ben with Jalen Green and Alpy Sengun is pretty intriguing.

 

There are rumors about Sexton being a pain in the ass to deal with and they would prefer to build around Garland. Puts up solid numbers but I wouldn't want to inherit any drama queen if I can help it.

 

Have to disagree with this random kid on Twitter. Bold take, I know, but it must be said.

 

I respect what Lucas has done with players over decades of being involved in the NBA (and with what he's recently done with KPJ) but his reputation has started to drift into mythical status and the reality is that he can't salvage every player and/or every situation.

 

I do think it’s possible to win a championship with him as your second best player, no doubt. As the best player, it’s possible with the right teammates and chemistry. The 2004 Pistons weren’t stacked with franchise players. But they had a lot of really good players. Don’t think anyone would say any of their roster was a clear cut #1 type player.

 

That Pistons team was an outlier. They were great but there were many factors that helped them win that championship. If we only look at the past 20 years and the teams that won it all, that's the only team that didn't have a clear cut #1 guy.

edited for clarity

 

at this point John Lucas is a mentor, world renowned psychiatrist, jump shot guru, and he could probably fix your transmission, do your taxes, and flies the team plane for road games

 

What about having one clear cut guy? Maybe kpj or green becomes that. Hakeem was the only star in the first championship. Obviously neither kpj or green will become as great as Hakeem, but the two of them together could produce as much. And we have a lot of good players, not great, but good players. Ego, Wood, and Wall are no slouches.

the Rockets were incredibly good for many years under harden and still couldn’t get to the finals. Why poor all of your energy rooting for a team if you’re just going to give up when they’re not favorites? Seems like it takes all the fun away from watching the game. I want to watch my teak compete every single game. That’s what makes me watch. Not the thought of them maybe in the future being really good. I’m interested in today. I don’t know that I’ll live to see next season. I want to enjoy what we’ve got today and I can’t do that when we are purposefully sucking.

that said, I get “total reset” like when star players age out or after many years of not getting it done. But in that case, trade away everyone. Don’t hold on to pieces that could help the team so that you purposefully lose takes — which is basically what we are doing if we hold Wall out most or all the season.

 

You're right; as a fan you want to see your favorite team compete every night because that, more or less, validates why you supported them in the first place. It's human nature to gravitate towards something/someone that is achieving success because it's exciting to "win". As for what this team is doing...I have no idea and I don't act like I do, however, Stone and the Rockets can't simply "trade away everyone" because you need a team/GM to want what you have. Another team might want Wall but they aren't going to want him at $40+ million. Another team might want Gordon but they aren't going to want him at $18+ million. On the flip side, teams might be okay with trading for Wood at his current salary but they might not have what Stone is asking for (picks? young players? combination of both?). The NBA can't operate like MLB teams when they go through a fire sale because the salary cap is very real and there's no farm system that can supplement missing major league talent in a trade/transaction.

If Stone could trade Wall right now for a 1st and non-guaranteed contracts I'm sure he would have pulled the trigger by now. So now comes a question of--well if you can't trade these players or make them go away, why not play them? That's a valid question because they did just that last year but the difference between last year and this year is that we have four 1st rounders who need playing time. They represent our future / long term path. A team building for a future can't afford to give Wall 25-30 minutes a night because then you are now taking away minutes from Porter, from Green, from JC, etc.

 

And yet I wouldn't trust him enough to fix whatever is going on between the ears of Ben Simmons.

 

Don't agree but if you believe this then I at least understand why you want to trade for him.

 

Rather look into Ayton the Simmons.

 

I stopped reading after “you’re right.” jk

I agree Walls contract makes it incredibly hard to find something worth taking back. Which is why a temporary hold is acceptable to me. Not a whole year. You don’t have to play him 30 min a game. I also don’t think that you need to play rookies 30 min a game for them to develop. I don’t know that it helps development to just be thrown into the fire. I’m of the mentality that you ease players into the role. They earn it in practice, they get a taste on the floor, they don’t get more minutes until they start showing improvements — and that doesn’t mean scoring 20 or something. If just means they have to show they’re learning and not making the same mistakes.

i disagree that egos contract is difficult to move. 18m for ego seems like an incredible deal for a contending team that needs a 6th man or solid starter. We undervalue ego here, imo.

 

Rockets need to stay far away from Ben Simmons

Lucas already dealing with KPJr, and people want to toss Ben Simmons and all his problems his way too? Is Lucas gonna get a raise of epic proportions to handle and try and fix all the BS? Rockets fans act like Lucas can just snap his fingers any make any issue go away. Rockets shouldn’t be the one trying to rescue Ben Simmons. He refuses to work on his game and is forcing his way out because he’s in his feelings. Instead of acknowledging his faults and trying to improve on them, he’d rather blame everyone else around him. In the words of the wise J Cole, “don’t save him, he don’t wanna be saved.”

 

I also highly doubt Rich Paul and Simmons' family will even allow Lucas to get that close to Ben. We're talking about an agent that has not only botched this entire offseason for his client on both the financial front as well as finding him a new team but he's also mettle in Simmons' development. Like, you're an agent, what the hell are you doing, making decisions like who your client uses as a shooting coach?

 

Agreed. I think John Lucas isn't the miracle worker. It sort of sets him up to fail by setting such unrealistic expectations of what he can and can't fix with truly trouble human beings.