[Feigen] Trades today to be combined into one large trade (possible $21m more in capspace)

Are the trades completed?

 

nothing yet..

 

Nah - Udoka likes good players

 

Harsh but true.

Tate (probably) cuts it to be in the NBA, but dude is definitely in the bottom 20% of players.

 

I honestly think Raffy bit off more than he could chew with these grand off-season plans, and got caught with his pants down with the Brook Lopez debacle. It seems like this front office approaches a lot of their problems with bravado and over-confidence only to get slapped in the face by reality fairly frequently. I hope I'm very surprised and forced to eat crow and sing their praises in a couple of days, but I sincerely doubt that will be the case.

As it stands, this off-season has been fairly decent with some much needed additions in terms of locker room presence and culture shifts. However, it also can't be denied that they overpaid for Dillon Brooks, slightly overpaid for FVV, and did not address shooting in the slightest with any of their moves.

 

Lol

 

You hit the nail on the head. Stone can come up with a plan - but the details always seem to get him.

 

Agree with pretty much all of this--although I do think FVV improves our shooting. He had a down season, he's not actually a 34% three point shooter. I expect him to return to around his 37% career average, especially if he plays fewer minutes than he did with TOR.

On the flip side, adding Brooks brings our shooting right back down again if they can't work some kind of miracle on his shot selection, so maybe that's what you were referring to.

 

I felt like this was rafs best offseason and put that assessment on the plan being Ime’s with Raf executing against it. It felt like the Old Morey days with a clear direction. An overpay- similar to a poison pill contract when we were last in this place - contracts with huge flexibility levers - a shot on young talent with an expanded role


Brook Lopez was a calculated miss. How bad did it really hurt? The Brooks contract will be the ultimate barometer for this and I haven’t seen the full details. Some reports it’s declining annually and some reports it’s got incentives.

I haven’t seen anything done that’s make me feel we lost something tangible.

people complain we lost former first round picks for no value and could have gotten more. But what they aren’t stating is that the more they could have gotten down the line was negligible.

I’m still not sold on Raf, but see this as a positive offseason with an adult back at the table - Udoka.

 

When a front office fixates on a plan A and comes up short, they definitely will look really, really bad, even one that is flexible.

I am not gonna defend the Rockets' approach this summer; I personally think they are going to fall backwards into realizing that Sengun is a worthy piece to build around, whereas if they had managed to actually sign Brook Lopez, they clearly would have dumped him for nothing, just like the rest of the players they deemed not important enough to develop. I absolutely hate the Brooks contract, and it does the exact thing I was worried that a James Harden 4-year max would have done; restrict the ability to keep together the Sengun/Green/Eason/Smith quartet. This deal combined with the new 2nd luxury tax apron is going to virtually guarantee the Rockets can't sign all 4 guys to their second contracts, and that's assuming that Brooks is even a rotation player in 3-years; I heavily suspect that he'll be a complete deadweight that will be unplayable, just eating up cap space while Whitmore is taking all of his minutes.

Just to play devil's advocate however, the Rockets under Morey had what I feel to be a substantially worse consecutive two summers when they were obsessed with finding a star to replace McGrady/Yao. Just look at this transaction record and this has to be miles worse than what Rafael Stone just did:

June 1st, 2011: Hire Kevin McHale as HC.

June 23, 2011: Draft Marcus Morris over Kawhi Leonard, trade 2 first rounders who would become Nikola Mirotic and Andre Roberson to move up 3 spots and get Donatas Motiejunas and Jonny Flynn. Also draft Chandler Parsons, but f- that guy.

December 7, 2011: Be a part of the "basketball reasons" vetoed Chris Paul trade which would have sent Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic, and a first round pick for Pau Gasol.

December 27th, 2011: Waive Jeremy Lin because he was a non-guaranteed contract, in favor of Jonny Flynn.

June 28, 2012: Select Jeremy Lamb, Royce White, and Terrence Jones in the draft. Actually not terrible since that draft was horrible outside of second round steals (Draymond/Middleton, who were not realistic options where the Rockets were picking), but Royce White....

July 11, 2012: Salary dump of future hall-of-famer, franchise icon, and 6-time all star Kyle Lowry for a reverse-protected first round pick.

July 13, 2012: Waive Luis Scola under the Amnesty Clause. Later claimed by the Suns and traded for Gerald Green, a first rounder still on their rookie contract (Miles Plumlee), and a future first.

July 17, 2012: Poison Pill 3-year deal for Jeremy Lin, who must be salary dumped two years later as the Rockets chase Chris Bosh in FA.

July 19, 2012: Goran Dragic signs with the Suns, 4 years, $30M (Less than Lin)

July 20, 2012: Courtney Lee salary dumped for a second rounder and trade filler.

July 24, 2012: Poison Pill 3-year deal for Omer Asik.

August 10, 2012: Dwight Howard is traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. The Rockets are not a serious contender at any point.

October 26, 2012: Fire Morey threads on ClutchFans hit peak volume.

October 27, 2012: Morey saves his job and legacy.

Do I think Stone has a Harden-level homerun swing coming up? Hell no. Does he need one, or at least for one of his six chosen prospects to develop to that level? Almost certainly, and very, very soon.

 

Still crossing my fingers that the Rockets will drop a contract in Bostons lap for Grant Williams on the 6th. Probably not, but you never know.

 

Maybe the reason they aren't adding another front court player like Grant Williams is because Ime feels good about Tari and Jabari holding down the 4 spot. He’s had a chance to get to know them and see them in practice. I feel comfortable with those two because they are both high-motor 2-way players that I expect to take big leaps this year. This is not to say the rockets’ free agency wasn’t inadequate; it was. But I always felt okay about Jabari/Tari at the 4.

what I’m not okay with is the lack of shooting despite having $65 mil to play with. It’s shocking stupid.

 

I don't think FVV is an overpay at all given it's only 2 yrs with 1 unguaranteed. FVV is in his prime and still gonna be in prime in 3 yrs and we can then trade him for assets given he is a massive unguaranteed contract or just cut him ourselves.

All our signings are great value and great signings except for the turd contract give to Brooks. If we turn that remaining 12M or so cap to someone useful all these JC, Tyty and Garuba lovers can go suck an egg imo.

 

What? If you make a plan that's one option deep, you're not a general with a failed plan, you're just a moron.. lmao

 

Has anyone seen the official terms of this Brooks contract? I’m still holding out hope it’s not as bad as it appears on the surface. Aside from the length I don’t know what more he could have done.

Was I upset, yeah. I would have preferred Lopez on a friendly two year rather than to be locked into a 4 year with Brooks. But in reality only veterans chasing the dollar were going to come here. There’s little chance we’re a playoff team in the next year or two. We’re hoping two of our four turn into a Tatum and Brown combo we can build around. Maybe, we’re a young Thunder team that has a Durant, WB and Harden core. Only time will tell but I am excited about the future. Just want to see us maintain flexibility. We still have plenty of assets Im sure we could pay to off load a bad contract. It was a high risk high reward signing for sure.

 

Sorry for my laziness, can someone clarify WTF has happened?

Do we have 21m in cap space after this Feigan large trade report and are we done signing players?

FVV/Brooks/Londale/maybe another combo guard?

 

Keep in mind, none of these trades, separate or combined, can go down until July...6th, right? When the moratorium ends.

 

But that's the entire point of my post. I agree that the FVV deal is not a bad one, and I would do that deal 10/10 times. But the rest of the dealings in entirety leave a lot to be desired, and the biggest issue I have with Stone is his inability to maximize value in the deals he makes. And yes, IF he turns the remaining cap space into something meaningful I will gladly eat crow. But the overall premise of my post is that I'm very pessimistic about him being able to do so given the history of the deals he's made so far in his tenure.

 

No.


Glad to have helped.