The Rockets have multiple players around age 19-22 who have the ceilings of guys like SGA, Tatum or Brown. They might not have Luka ceiling or Wemby ceiling. The Celtics won a ring with the best players being second all NBA team level players and not bonified MVP level players.
Some things I would consider. Opt out and and resign FVV. Something like 4 years 120 with a team option works well. Extend Adams to something like 2 years, 25 mil if he’s healthy. These moves should give us enough room to extend two of Bari, Whitmore, and Tari so long as they are taking well below max extensions. However, if one performs well enough to demand a max or near max contract, things get complicated. Amen’s presumably max or near max extension will kick in after Adams and Brooks’ money rolls off.
I think it's important to not let one really bad contact signing take away all of the excitement heading into this season. Being shackled with the Brooks awful contract and now the Green awful contract kind of kills the upside of this team in the short term and probably the medium term, but in 4 or 5 years, the Rockets might have something special.
Notice how the thread is "Next", not "Next big move". Even if we were to pursue people like Harden or KD, I can't imagine that is our most probable NEXT move
Tari Eason is not getting "similar or more money to $25M/yr" next summer, unless something wildly unexpected happens this year. We've seen it this cycle -- rookie extensions are mostly about counting stats, starts, and perceived "star" upside. Guys who start and have high lottery pedigree like Jalen get "overpaid". Guys like Tari get underpaid. If as expected Tari doesn't start, doesn't play more than ~22mpg, and doesn't average more than 10-11 ppg... he's not getting more than maaaybe a little bit above MLEish money. ~8-10% of the cap. Somewhere around Isaiah Stewart, Moses Moody, Cory Kispert levels. All of us Rockets fans know Tari is very impactful when playing. The rookie extension system doesn't reward role player reserves in that way.
The Moody contract is a great comp. They love him over there and he still has a lot of potential but still off of really small sample sizes. 39M/3 is an absolutely amazing price for him and I'd be willing to go beyond that for Tari especially if we get creative with the contract structure like frontloading.
Haha - I'll take actual Larry O'Brien trophies over cool narrative for a year or two any day. If Harden and Durant REALLY wanted to rekindle a commitment to win another title for Houston they would take less money to come here just like the aging guys who jumped on their super teams. That's the narrative I'm interested in....but that would require giving more than just money back - would take them losing ego too.
Those numbers are all deeply contextual. Gordon in particular had Denver over a barrel because they had no other way to improve the roster if he left. How much players make depends on the market of team money available when those players hit FA and need - it's one of the reasons why we got Sengun and Jalen on the contracts we did because there was a fairly limited market of teams with "max money" available this offseason and an even smaller number who had a need for those. For instance Brooklyn had max money available but also had Cam Thomas on a contract doing largely the same things Jalen does. Additionally, teams are starting to face the realities of what is effectively a hard cap in the new CBA(because of the competitive disadvantages that come with being a tax repeater) so we are in the middle of a larger restructuring of contracts so the baselines are all over the place. You see it in these predictive win models as well - the new CBA is throwing these long standing metric models in disarray because teams are changing how they structure contracts and build teams. You can't form a big 3 now and reap the benefits of Blake Griffin joining mid season for the playoff push. Those types of things were built into the old models and produced real wins and they won't exist in the near future. This impacts the "expected wins" of a max type player moving forward and makes you think twice about those types of investments....and that's just the top - these all have impacts down stream to role players like Tari.
Phoenix is the play. They are completely restricted by the apron. If you offer Jalen Green, Jabari, Brooks+ their picks back for Booker, they shed a little salary this year while remaining competitive. If they collapse this year and need to make this trade next summer, they can’t do it because Green’s salary will have gone up. We have the leverage to say “if you want your picks back, you are going to need to make this move now.” I’m not sure what the trade restrictions are on players signing extensions, but assuming they can be traded at the deadline, I would stay in constant touch with Phoenix this year.
I think talent is far more distributed in the NBA today than 10 years ago. The middle of the pack teams are closer to the elite teams compared to a decade ago. I think we are just believing the past two decades of superteams is the norm.
This is nothing about super teams. This is about superstar players like Curry, Giannis, Jokic and Durant. you need transcendent MVP superstars to win in this league
Sounds like we need an analytical, economics paper on this. "Is the SuperTeam a dead model? : Life in the age of the new NBA CBA"
That’s dumb! Do not want it, not in a million years. Btw, “under the influence” means he’s taking drugs.
Brad Stevens could not win with Tatum, Brown, Kyrie Irving and a little better than average Gordon Hayward. The right mix takes myriad years. The Celtics have that group right now for the next 3 years.
I sort of agree with this. I agree in that I think the talent in the top 20 or so teams is more evenly distributed. I think the number of really bad teams has increased with the pray for victor and capture the flagg (or Tanking with Mr. Cooper) campaigns. I think it is going to be harder for the tankers to jump back into contention as they are diluting the value of tanking and the Top 20 or so teams are pulling away with more talent. Overall, I think the rules favor depth of roster more than it previously did (though superstar is still more important than depth). Also, I think teams are getting better at recognizing which skills stack well and which ones don't.
Okay so Ime took that team minus Kyrie to the Finals. So we need two guys to reach Tatum and Brown level which I think there is a decent chance given we also have Amen who is a guy who might also reach that level outside of Jalen and Sengun. So 2 out of 3 of them need to reach Tatum and Brown level. And the rest of the starters need to be guys at the level of Derrick White which I think we also have multiple candidates who can get to the same level. Who knows Ime with 26 year old Tari 25 year old Green, 25 year old Sengun, 24 year old Jabari, 24 year old Amen, 23 year old Reed could be a legitimate champion contender. We have the coaching staff and the talent to have a puncher's chance at a Celtics level rebuild.
The Rockets are still waiting for 1 1/2 stars. I am optimistic Sengun can be one of them but he's only partway there at this point so give him half a point here. Until then everything else is just rearranging deck chairs while waiting.
I don't necessarily disagree with the idea here .... but I do think that both Amen (currently) & Tari are more natural 3's than 4's and Jabari is that natural 4. I don't know if moving Jabari really free's up minutes for either. The guy that has to go to free up minutes for those two as well as Cam is Brooks, not only does it free up minutes, its ~$21m in cap room. The Rockets are absolutely loaded at that position - Brooks, Amen, Tari, Cam & Tate. All of them would get minutes on most other teams. That logjam needs to be sorted out this season .... Then there's the offensive limitations of both Amen & Tari. Amen can't shoot and Tari as much as we all love the guy, he's one handed and has trouble finishing at the rim (Maybe he thinks he's Moses Malone padding his rebound stats?) - .... They are all plus defenders. I think if you move Jabari, you have to replace him with a similar player, long, good shooter / 3-4-5 defender. I don't know if maybe we undervalue Jabari because he isn't an explosive athlete that makes a bunch of highlight plays. He just does what he does, kinda Ariza like, can't dribble, can't really create for himself but can shoot and defend. If he could figure out how to attack close out's by going to the rim, I think he's a great fit next to Sengun. What's that guy worth in today's NBA economy? You probably can't keep all three of them, but you get to keep two, I'm probably going with Amen & Jabari.
