Fans underestimate bargaining power. On one end, FVV was not a max player, but we had no choice but to give him the max a few seasons ago, otherwise he would of never come to Houston to begin with. Now, we are in a different situation, however, we still need a point guard. The options in FA are underwhelming (not sure why people are in love with Tyus Jones after watching him fail in Phoenix). FVV, although does not have a lot of options does have some bargaining power because the Rockets are in desperate need of what he brings to the table. The Rockets don't have a ton of options and even internally, they likely want to take a look at a few players closer rather than ship them away from others. So although the Rockets don't want to pay FVV max money anymore (thus likely threatened to release him to the market) they definitely still want FVV since he does bring a value to the team and well, $25M was a good number.
Sure, he's definitely a better defender than Cade, but overall he's 1/3 the player Cade is (according to RAPM). My primary issue with FVV was that he was very much overplayed and Ime Udoka kept him in when he was absolutely dogshit. When Fred is good, he's really good, but we don't have a coach that is willing to sit him when he's really bad. If I had more faith in Ime's player management abilities, things would be different.
If he is the floor general on offense, Ime has failed. I’m praying Ime plays him off ball where he can actually be useful on offense. Then you get his defense and put the whole team in a position to improve offensively.
I get that. But when you clamor for replacing a player, what is the replacement, what is the opportunity cost, play wise, financial wise, timeline wise? Perhaps if you have a solution on mind we can better debate whether it’s worth the consideration.
I remember when A-Rod getting 25 million a year was an earth shattering out of this world ridiculous contract...now its considered a bargain price....
I guess I was just suggesting that cutting the entire 44 mil would give the Rockets more flexibility to bring other players in and I don't think they really have much need for FVV with so many ball handlers between KD, Sengun, and Amen in the starting lineup already and Reed Sheppard as the PG of the future. I don't hate the FVV deal, I just worry that Ime is too attached to him to do the right thing when he's playing poorly. If his primary concern is playing FVV 40 minutes like it was so often last season, we're going to come to dislike him a lot.
FVV was NEVER getting 45m a year in this market. He is now overpaid, probably should have been 20m... DD
Don’t hate it as long as his minutes are reduced and Reed is giving consistent run. Time to bring in a vet backup SG like Beasley for the MLE.
When it says using more than $5.7M hard caps us at the 1st apron, what does that mean, exactly? That we can only use as much of the MLE that gets us to the 1st apron? If we use more than that, we can’t make any trades that would put us over the 1st apron? I try to keep up, but some of this stuff is really confusing. I appreciate those of you who are able to make NBA Salary Cap for Dummies posts so I can comprehend.
Cutting him loose is not 44m in saving and only gives you more flexibility in FA which there is no one worth pursuing and if you did sign someone in the 25-30m range you would have to commit more than 2 years. I don’t want FVV on this team, unless it is as a backup, which Ime will never do. His 25m contract now protects Sengun from having to be part of the deal in a major upgrade. This contract was the best we could expect and helps our ability to upgrade the team. We need to use the MLE this year and then have 2 contract worth 39m to use in a trade for a major upgrade.
I think you vastly underestimate Fred's ball handling. He's ELITE at it. Rarely turns the ball over. It's why he gets huge leeway even when he is shooting like ****. And our best gaurd defender. He was huge to our 52 wins last year, and obviously our playoff appearance. He's the only one who can table set for Alperen at a consistently high level as well. We were so good last year because we would win the posession battle routinely. Fred was a huge reason for that. Yes OReb were huge too, but turnovers kill teams. Imagine Amen or Reed facing heavy ball pressure every night. Some nights it might look good, but overwhelmingly wouldn't.
Good deal for all parties involved. As for VanVleet’s value to the team, don’t forget how awful the Rockets played when he missed 15-20 games with an ankle injury. They went from a legitimately good team to losing games against really bad tanking teams like the Nets and Jazz. In one of those Nets’ losses, they couldn’t even execute a simple inbounds play under a minute left.
