I mean there are tons of wings that can play the SG and a few PGs that play SG... yet no real SG outside of maybe Kevon Harris, Josh Okogie and Isaiah Crawford after Jalen left.
The one person I did not think of as a FVV replacement was Ben Simmons. Simmons would be a very interesting and intriguing addition. Personally I'm still on the Larkin train but Simmons would be a close 2nd choice.
As others have admitted, I am no connoisseur of all the salary cap recipes or 1st apron, but I'd want a seasoned momentum guy- Malik Monk brings a certain 'it' factor to a good team.
I think we should try to get Andrew Nemhard. He’d be perfect for our team. Indy won’t be great cus of injuries and lost free agents
Simmons on the team would be a death sentence to our offense. I would only play him in a lineup that includes 4 players around him who can shoot min. 40% from 3. We barely have two..
FWIW, I think Stone has done a fairly good job giving the team flexibility. Guys like DFS, and Okogie were likely not going to be available later - go maximize your cap space and spend if you think you have legit title chances - I think we did...until FVV got the most serious injury of his entire career. Sometimes **** happens. Honestly we are still in a fairly good position to make a deal in December if needed. Give Reed and Amen a few months to see what they are/aren't ready for, see what other areas we have issues with on the roster, and then you go back and re-evaluate what your long term plans are for Tari Eason and Reed and those draft picks and based on that decision you start shopping to see what you can get with the expendable assets on the roster. If Tari and Reed are available and you have Fred's salary to help facilitate a deal plus many smaller expiring deals - you can probably get a fairly decent starter at the expense of depth and/or future assets. If Reed and Tari look good - then maybe you see what Fred and some picks get you - maybe that doesn't help you enough so you just wait until Fred is back....Maybe another team loses a wing defender and has an extra PG and we are swapping DFS for their PG. The point being - Houston still has a lot of flexibility and should be fine long term provided they are prioritizing what is the best interest of Amen and Sengun's window and not FVV and Durant's. As long as Houston's front office remembers who is carrying this team into the future - they should be completely fine. Side note - I feel like this is going to be a real Amen breakout year and the size of that breakout is going to shape A LOT of how we move going forward. He was already on a trajectory to be the best wing defender in the league - if he can also run an offense and get downhill as an aggressive Westbrook like scorer, he is a top 5 player in the league and everything moving forward is about surrounding him with complementary players ....maybe that means Alpi becomes expendable because you want to surround Amen with shooters OR maybe Alpi takes a leap too. It's going to be an exciting year for Houston - I hope everyone is ready because I can't wait!!!!
I agree that we still have the flexibility we need and Stone has done a fine job. I think you can forget FVV being part of a trade this year. He has the ability to say no and will. One of Tari or Reed would be the player bait(s) in any trade along with draft picks. Tari is the most likely, because if he is not extended by Oct. 15th he will become a RFA which is risky with our upcoming Apron issues. We won’t need to make a trade if Reed can step up. If he doesn’t then his value as a trade chip is somewhat diminished (although his 10M cap figure is more useful than Tari’s cap number). In a perfect world, Durant gives us a discount so that we can extend Tari and Reed performs adequately to lessen the need for a trade.
Just one caveat - FVV essentially has a no trade clause as if he's traded, he'd lose his bird rights in the process, as a result, he can veto any trade. It'll be tough to use his contract as matching $. There are only 10 NTC's league wide, three of them are Rockets, the other two are Jae'Sean Tate & Holiday. All three of them fall under the "One-Year Bird" player rule which states, players in this situation have the right to veto trades because being traded would cause them to lose their Bird rights.
What about JD Davidson the G League player of the year JD Davison was the NBA G League MVP for the 2024-25 season, leading the Maine Celtics to the Eastern Conference Finals. His strong G League performance with 25.1 points, 7.5 assists, and 5.2 rebounds per game earned him the award
haha he can play pg. Random story: my nephews when they were like 9 and 6. The older one kept making fun of the younger nephews friend at the house, saying his friend is “Capela head” - The younger one would get furious lol.
