The market isn't great because he's not one of the best PGs. Where do you rank Fox just amongst PGs? Luka/SGA/Steph/Brunson/Ja Lillard/Haliburton/Trae/Harden/Lamelo/Cade/Kyrie/Garland/Maxey/Herro Just sifting through the names, you can't reasonably say he's any higher than 6th. I would have him outside of the top 10. He's a good player, better than any guard on the Rockets but I'm not sure he'll be worth everything you'll have to give up to get him.
Jalen and 1 pick is the max he's worth. Sac won't find a better deal if the rox make that offer. I'm not sure he's even worth that.
Genuine questions, how certain are you about him getting a 30% max contract? How many teams in 2026 will have max cap space that he would hypothetically leave for to sign with? Of those teams that have cap space, which team would have a need for him that would throw max money at him? if the market doesn’t demand a max contract for him (and he’s not a max worthy player by your evaluation) the rockets shouldn’t have too much difficulty negotiating a contract less than the max and that is more commensurate with his actual value then, yes?
He turned down a 3 year max extension so he could try to make all nba and get a supermax from the kings.
I'm personally not really high on the Rockets trading for Fox myself. But I don't think the issues you're worrying about are honestly big deals. For one, you're overrating future contract issues. Even if he does decline like Beal, Beal was still able to be traded for mediocre assets towards the end of his contract. Washington also was able to get rid of Wall's contract fairly easily when they found the Lakers taking on Westbrook's deal. Which just shows these contracts aren't albatrosses even when the players decline quicker than people expect. And there's always the chance that he doesn't decline. At which point you can either keep him or trade him for positive assets. Also, these trades are win-now moves. Whether he's worth the assets mostly depends on how how well he plays in the next 2-3 years. If you're thinking long term, then you're rejecting the trade on the premise that you want the Rockets to make a sustained run rather than push their chips in right now. BTW, I'm currently in this camp, because while I think Fox makes this a clear better team, I don't think the resulting team is a contender. So I'd rather wait to see who shows up next year for trade. But to me that's not a knock on Fox, but rather I don't think the Rockets are one piece away. Unless that piece is someone untouchable like Luka or Tatum. I think if you want to reject Fox, you should be thinking about how he's lacking NOW. Cause the whole point of getting him is that you want an extra star while your young players are still cheap. Cause if the Rockets need to pay even 2-3 of Jabari/Tari/Amen/Cam big money, they are going to be so deep in luxury tax hell that Tilman probably won't want to make big moves by then.
Oh i absolutely don't think he's good enough now, that's not even a question to me. The rockets situation is vastly different from the other albatross situations, so giving the 25th best player (or whatever he is) a max hurts the rockets far more than beal could ever have hurt the wiz. I think it's a bad move for the present and a horrendous move for the long term.
Keep in mind whenever a player joins the Rockets, they’re guaranteed to shoot 5% worse from the field and 3.
This is the absolute most I would give up in a Fox trade and I would want Monk in the deal because he would be a good 6th man that we need. Fox + Monk -> Rockets FVV + Reed + Cam +25' Suns FRP + 25' Rockets FRP + 27' Rockets FRP -> Kings Even then I'd be hesitant because we'd have to end up paying the max/supermax for Fox. I'm not sure if he's that caliber of a player. This trade lets Kings decide if they were going to blow it up, they can keep Fred for the mentorship that he did for the Rockets young core or they can opt out of the team option and sign a 3/4 they seem to desperately need, Ingram or Randle are both free agents this summer. They would need to let Reed take Fox's minutes but they can easily replace their 2 spot with Cam or Keon. If I were the Kings, I'd blow it up because 3 picks (one of them being a Suns top 15 pick) + Cam + Reed is a perfect start to rebuild.
I dont think the Rockets even own the Suns 2025 pick outright, its only a right to swap, so they will only have 1 pick in the first round.
Why give up Fred plus young bench players or draft picks for Fox? I do want a bigger scorer, but am not sure about losing a much better defensive player, along with tossing in other young bench players or future picks too. Here's a comparison below. I highlighted the better player in each category. Fox - Scoring 26.3 ppg PPG: Better than 98% of the players VanVleet - Scoring 15.3 ppg PPG: Better than 82% of the players Fox - Teamwork -0.3 NETRTG*, 50% positive +/- MTW: Better than 58% of the players VanVleet - Teamwork +8 NETRTG*, 51.7% positive +/- MTW: Better than 90% of the players Fox - Ball handling 6.3 ast, 3.4 tov BH: Better than 94% of the players VanVleet - Ball handling 6 ast, 1.5 tov BH: Better than 96% of the players Fox - Defense 1.7 stl, 0.3 blk, 3.9 d.reb, 114.5 DRTG** MTD: Better than 70% of the players VanVleet - Defense 1.4 stl, 0.5 blk, 3.7 d.reb, 107.2 DRTG** MTD: Better than 91% of the players Fox - Rebounding 5 rebs (3.9 def, 1.1 off) TRB: Worse than 54% of the players VanVleet - Rebounding 4.5 rebs (3.7 def, 0.8 off) TRB: Worse than 63% of the players Fox -Evaluation: Better than 88% of NBA players. Last recorded game on Friday, December 27, 2024. Fred VanVleet - Evaluation: Better than 88% of NBA players. Last recorded game on Thursday, December 26, 2024. https://3stepsbasket.com/
My question is though in the hypothetical of him being traded, and the team that acquired him doesn’t give him the max, what teams do you think he goes to to sign a max deal? If it’s to team that’s a non contender that has max space then he should just stay in Sac. if you’re major concern is having to give him a 30% max, I’m curious what risk you see among the other nba teams (that are contenders) that would give him the max (thus leverage to demand a max contract)? I’d see 3 scenarios playing out: 1) he balls out and plays like a max level player (and therefore warrants the contract) 2) the one I think you see as the likely risk is, he sucks. But then in this scenario he doesn’t warrant nor does the market command and max offering for him and the acquiring team offers a less than max contract (he might walk but to where would be my question). 3) he’s borderline good enough to where it’s not quite clear either way and the acquiring team is in a pickle bc he’s not quite a max player 1a type guy but he could walk and command a max contract else where some team could offer him that kind of money. In which case you still have the question of what team has the cap space and fit for a guy like Fox in summer of 2026 to give him that kind of leverage? again just looking at this from a risk perspective. You’ve made it clear the main risk is having to give a 30% max in ‘26. Just trying to assess how legit that risk is.
I would say scenario 1 has a 0% chance. He’s 27 now in his 8th year and has never had a season where he was worth the 30% max. Scenario 2 also has close to a 0% chance, he’s a good player so it’s unlikely he just starts to suck at 27 or 28. He is considered a star, so he will get a max. That’s just what happens in the nba. Who were the wizards bidding against to max beal? He will almost certainly wait out this season in sac no matter what because he could become supermax eligible, which i believe goes away if traded (correct me if I’m wrong). We know sac is willing to max him, as they already offered it to him, so any team trading for him will already have an agreement to max him, otherwise there won’t be a trade.
Massive overpay for Fox. absolutely ruins are flexibility for a real star. We can't trade the Rockets 25 FRp or the 27 pick. Have to be the 28th pick. Even with adjustments, it's a massive overpay. In order to trade Fox, it would have to be at the deadline next year.
sounds like by albatross contract, you mean paying someone max money that the market would warrant. Meaning others would pay said player that money. A max worthy player by your definition is a player whose level of play exceeds the max limit (Giannis, Luka, Ant). But you have to wait longer for those. Possible but harder to come by. but if Fox fits in scenario C, then by definition he’s worth around that contract (since other GMs are willing to pay that amount) and is therefore moveable if need be. If he’s more in the scenario B end and isn’t quite worth a max, then any GM worth his salt should be able to negotiate a market rate deal on his next contract. I think the main take away from my understanding of your posts is that he’s not a player that well exceeds the max contract value in the league. But in my mind that doesn’t mean his contract would be immovable and an albatross. Albatross is someone like Simmons that’s just dead money that can’t be moved.
He looks checked out and doesn’t look that great to me. Maybe he looks that way because he’s partially checked out, who knows. I don’t know if I want someone like that on the team, but I wouldn’t mind it for a reasonable deal, but definitely not for the packages that are being thrown around here. He is not a good 3 point shooter and he’s not a superstar so we shouldn’t be throwing all of our assets away for him, especially with 1 year left on his deal.
To me fox is like beal. Solid player, absolutely not worth the max, but 100% certainly will get it. I would say there's less than a 5% chance that fox is not a max contract in his next deal, unless he has a massive injury next season. With the new CBA, it's also much harder to move players so i think having bad contracts will be more harmful than it has been. I guess my question is, what is the point of getting fox and maxing him out? EPM ranks him 43rd, VORP has him 41st, BPM has him 61st, win shares has him 41st despite being 2nd in minutes played so his ws/48 is 86th. I do think he's better than those metrics would suggest, but he's certainly not a top 20 player. I totally understand where you're coming from and don't really think you're wrong, and i'm probably more worried than i should be but i guess because i see zero upside and ONLY downside, that's why i'm so against it.
I'm pretty sure he turned it down cuz the team is bad and he didnt want to be another Damian Lillard. If he was just after the money gambling on a supermax and turning down the max doesnt really make any sense. He wont make the all NBA so not sure why you are even worrying about a supermax. If all Fox cared about was the money he'd sign his 5 yr max extension first and then thats when he'd make his trade demands. The fact that he'd refuse a max extension means he cares more about winning than the money.
