I think Amen just didn't have the energy to play as hard on defense. He played the most minutes of any player in the NBA, while also increasing his usage rate on offense. He wasn't trying to dog it, but he's not Superman, even though he looks like it on occasion.
It's clearly Ime's only rotation strategy: "Play the players i trust way too many minutes to cover up my lack of skill" he did it with Fred, now he's done it with KD and Amen
Tari Eason is worth DFS money, and DFS is worth a vet min even 22 mil/yr is an overpay, and it will be apparent after another season of injuries, bonehead basketball, and inconsistent/below average shooting
SNT for LeBron. Starters: FVV Amen Katie LeBron Sengun Bench: Jabari (heavy minutes covering LeBron and Katie during regular season) Reed Adams Fill the bench out during this off-season.
I think Tari is a good kid and I hope he stays in Houston but I have a hard time seeing him worth more than $15-19 mil/year which I'm sure is not something his camp is trying to hear. Tari's problem has remained fairly consistent while he has been a Rocket - it's inconsistency across several areas and that hasn't really changed too much over the years. He has missed 1/3 of his time on a rookie contract to injury, and in the 2/3rds of games where he did play 148 of the 221 games he played in the regular season as a Rocket his game score was below that of an average NBA player....so we got 73 games across 4 season where he played above league average....and the reality is - he does lots of special effort things out there every time he steps foot on the court - but he gives it right back up with boneheaded plays so even though he makes a critical steal that gets us the ball back when we need it most or stops a run or hits a big 3 but then he will then miss a layup, get a charge, mess up the offense by being in the wrong place, get called for a bad foul trying to be overly aggressive contesting a bad 3pt shooter, be out of position defensively/lose his man, etc. There is a lot to be excited on a play by play basis, but the more you zoom out on Tari the more you see a pattern of him being relatively ineffective overall to the team across larger and larger data sets. If he only plays 66% of the time and is below average as a player in 67% of the games he does play in that amounts to 255 games out of the 328 games he could have played in, Houston would have been better with a league average player in those minutes. You dont give a guy big money who showed he can contribute at a high level in less than a quarter of all games he was under contract for over 4 years....and again - these are based on real numbers of his availability and gamescore and his trend is not rising - it's gotten worse. Either Tari has to take A LOT less guaranteed money or he has to be comfortable with higher pay but less guaranteed money. For a guy with his injury history so far - he needs to take the largest guaranteed bag he can get for him and his family, save it like he might not get it again, and move on and try to get better for the next contract - he pretty much killed his chances of a large contract this time around.
Looking like we’ll make the same mistake as the 23’ Grizzlies and value Santi Aldama’s aesthetic game, height, TS%, and success in an easier job over Dillon Brooks low iq moments, streaky shooting, and failures trying to guard LeBron James and make plays and attempt the most difficult jobs that someone has to do. Dillon is the better player despite what the annoyance/ frustration emotional response or TS% says. Tari is the Dillon Brooks and Jabari is the Santi Aldama. I think giving Dillon the 20 million per and trading Santi Aldama for high value would be the better move.
Pretty shocked by the poll results. I’d be surprised if any team offer Tari more than the NTMLE and I think he’s worth that on a 3 yr deal. Something like 3/45 w/ a team option on the final yr given his injury history.
I forgot he was a terror twin at one point. Bring that dude back after a few situational awareness seminars.
I personally think they'll let Tari go. He’s inconsistent and he's injury prone. He's going to make 20+ mil but it'll probably be in Brooklyn or Sacramento. Ime probably wants some young hungry drones and the second round of the draft is loaded
I too am shocked by the poll results. I didn’t like Tari’s attitude this season and I get annoyed by the boneheaded plays, but he’s a valuable player and I believe the shooting over the first half of the season was real.
I just don't think he is worth that amount based on his play. Only 95 players got paid $20 mil or more this season, and he is not a top 95 player. I think he is top 150 ish personally at best, which is why I came up with $15 million. There are some dumb teams out there (including us lol?) so wouldn't be surprised if he got $20 mil a year for sure.
I do think there's some upside with Tari if he's back next year. There were so many possessions last year where it looked obvious he was pressing and trying to do too much in hopes of securing a bigger contract. You could tell at times he was going to some 1on1 moves he had trained during the summer. But, that's just not who he is. He's not a 1on1 player. We don't need him to showcase his ballhandling (or pack thereof). He needs to be attacking closeouts, cutting, and being reliable with the shots that he does take.
I don't think the rockets value him at that number, thats why they put the injury guarantee in his contract, they knew he'd reject it, he's gone.
An nba level gm would've traded him, but Stone is a bald fraud, so the situation is what the situation is. He's restricted so they'll let him seek a contract, and when he finds one, they're not matching it. They'll lose him for nothing. That's the level of ineptitude the rockets front office operates on.
