See, my primary issue with Tari is I don't think he's a long-term starter with this group. I think, given our makeup, he's far more effective as a sixth man type. I could be wrong, but I feel our core four starters will be Sheppard, Amen, Bari, Sengun. Between these four, there's a great balance of offense and defense. I just don't really see how Tari fits in well. He's not a good enough shooter to space the floor, his amazing defense is a little wasted when Amen and Bari are covering the other team's #1 and #2, he's not really great in a half-court offensive setting, etc. I think he could shine on in a larger role (which I don't really see happening here), but for the Rockets, I think his chaotic energy is perfect off the bench. Is that worth 20m+, which will eventually limit our ability to field a deep team? Maybe. I just am not 100% sure.
IMO, Tari likely asks for something close to what Bari gets around 25 million per season and maybe even more after seeing Keegan Murray’s new contract. He sees himself as a starter and potentially a star in this league, so I’m worried this could turn into a bit of a headache for us. I don’t want to lose Tari, but I’m hesitant to pay him over 20 million a year given his injury history. If we’re going to use him like we use Adams and only get 40-50 games a season, I don’t think extending him makes sense. if you look at his overall skillset, I think Tari is the most replaceable player among our young core, so we have to be careful not to end up regretting a big contract. I’d rather maintain our flexibility in the market, so for us, a good deal would be a two year contract worth 22-23 million per season.
If his leg is never going to be 100% again, it might be best for his career longevity to be more of a 6th man anyway, honestly?
When you look at recent rookie extension categories, there are kind of three groupings (putting aside Jalen Green's weird contract): Role players: 15m and under (Kispert, Moody, Jovic, etc.) High-End starters: 20 - 30m (Bari, Murray, Suggs, Jalen Johnson, etc.) Max or near-max guys (Sengun, Bane, Holmgren, etc.) So the question is, where does Eason fall? I'd personally be happy giving him a Kispert, Moody, etc. type contract - I just don't expect he would take it. Anything 20m+ would give me heartburn, especially given his injury history. That puts him in the 16 - 19m mil no man's land.
That’s what they have team options for. That man is a difference maker on the floor. Keegan Murray jsut got extended And Tari is a more impactful player than him in both sides of the ball. He’s just an overall better player.the same with Jabari. Jabari and Murray’s numbers are identical across the board. Only difference is Jabari and Tari are improving Every year whereas Keegan’s best season was his rookie year. Jabari sold himself short at contract negotiations based off the deal Murray got. Tari is easily worth 20 million.
Sorry, but I totally disagree. Bari is far more valuable to me than Tari, and just because the Kings overpaid Murray doesn’t mean I want to follow their lead.
So far everyone's been game. Sengun took below market value. Jabari did as well. Fred frankly did as well before his injury. KD will likely do the same. Tari seems to be the only holdout. If no deal gets done I'd probably ship him off before the deadline and have another team deal with it. Reminds me a little bit of Luc Mbah a Moute in that he is impactful defensively but injury prone. Luc was just old at that point though.
That is sound logic. Tari may get squeezed out on the Rockets - and then another team will get a great player. If that is the case, I hope Stone doesn't get fleeced in a trade. I think Tari is worth more than 20MM, but there are only 5 spots on the court and one basketball.
I think Jabari got overpaid for what he’s shown. 24 mill per is expecting him to grow quite a bit. Fred did not take a discount after his terrible season last year, Jalen didn’t take a discount. We got Sengun for less than his max which he probably could get in FA, I think mostly because of his player mold with shooting and defensive limitations and not some expectation of “discount to help the team”.
but like on what basis is that a reasonable outcome. There’s no evidence that it will hinder him going forward. Obviously it’s something the team doctors have a better idea about, but I don’t understand why folks assume he’s not fully healed. I agree with you that if it’s a long term injury all bets are off, but I just don’t think that’s likely and there really is no evidence that is the case. I suspect he’s asking for Bari money and Stone is offering something closer to $18 mil. Hopefully they meet in the middle. also, if he really does have a long term injury issue, his trade value is going to tank.
On Sengun I think it was his cap hold. By extending him early we gave away almost $20 mil in cap space because his rookie scale deal was relatively cheap given where he was drafted. I suspect that was part of the negotiation. We’ll extend you, give u your security and forgo the cap space, but u have to give a little back.
Do we know if he's going to still have to rest on B2Bs this season? If so, I'm going to have to assume that's medical advice from the team doctors, and the issue is likely going to plague him for the rest of his career. If he's not resting on B2Bs this season and is considered 100%, then fair enough.
I would prefer to keep Tari, let KD walk (since he's so old) and trade FVV + picks for a 3rd solid piece that is an efficient scorer. After watching the Netflix doc, I only further think KD will not be with us long term. He was getting so many minor injuries last season, I doubt it'll get better as he ages. Also, his thoughts about basketball really doesn't strike me as someone who cares about winning it all. He just wants to hoop and get paid, everything else he's not really interested in doing. I'm fine with paying him but I don't want his contract to jeopardize our apron situation when we have to pay Amen next year. He said it himself in the doc: "I just wanna be one of the guys". I think that's fine but the problem is you don't want to be paid like "one of the guys", you want to be paid like a superstar.
Depending on how he performs this season, I wonder if Lauri Markkanen might not be a decent KD replacement (provided we trade for him next offseason, not at this trade deadline). I know he is overpaid and injury-prone, but at his best he was not too far behind KD's current production, and he will be an expiring contract the year Amen's extension kicks in, which means he should not be too challenging to get off the books if we need to do so.
Restricted free agents in general did poorly with the contract offers they got this past off-season, right? We know Quentin Grimes got lowballed and Kuminga settled for a shorter contract with a team option. Is Tari taking a bit of risk then hoping next off-season would be different?
The only restricted free agent that was better than Tari Eason was Josh Giddey. Grimes and Kuminga are not in his class as a player. Also, the primary reason restricted free agents didn’t get paid this offseason is because only the Nets had significant cap space.
I would put Grimes at least around the same level as Tari based on what he showed toward the end of last season. No, he will not be an efficient 25 per game scorer moving forward (probably), but I think he can be a 20 per game guy with good defense. Basically a very high-level roleplayer, which is also what I think Tari is. Kuminga, yeah, no way.
I need to see Grimes do it for more than 10-15 games before I say that. Not saying he can’t, but I need a larger sample size to evaluate. Eason has done nothing but improve as a Rocket, and he’s been a defensive monster since his LSU days.
Fair, it is a small sample, but comparing his averages on the season as a whole, they do compare pretty well with Tari's. Tari is the better rebounder and defensive player, but Grimes is no slouch in those areas (for his position) and was a more-efficient, higher-volume scorer.
