In a Single Day, the Rockets Doomed Itself To Mediocrity

Yeah, you just don’t get it. Google how luxury tax works.

40 mil over 4 yrs is a huge deal that contributed to losing Arica and not resigning house. In the end, the rockets are looking at a 5 th or 6 th seed instead of a #2 seed. No number of mediocre 6’8 sfs will change that.

 

Everyone starts talking about the CAP problems RIDING MOREY D!!!!

But let PAUL G, LEBRON, KHWAI, Any Star be a great agent...

OHHHHHH KING MOREY CAN MAKE MOVES CAP IS NEVR A PROBLEM

PICK A Side!!!!! I’m with OP

 

At 30m or less he’ll be a tradeable asset

Curious could mori had put conditions on cp3s contract based on reliabilty health and performance

 

Chris still has the talent. The Rockets just need to focus on three things:

1. Monitoring his health.
2. Keeping him active on the court.
3. Find a way to integrate him back into the offense.

The Rockets did a poor job this season monitoring his health. I remember mentioning this back in December, but Chris was logging so many minutes compared to previous seasons. If you go back and compare the amount of times Chris played 35+ minutes for each season then it would be very eye-opening. Chris also had a hamstring issue in late November. It was during that time that maybe the Rockets should have been cautious with him, but they didn't since they felt desperate due to bad record and no bench depth. He ended up getting hurt about 10 games later.

Still, you don't want to rest your point guard, and risk him becoming rusty. Chris Paul still needs to play, and keep his basketball juices flowing. Playing against real NBA teams will keep him sharp. He's no longer a youthful player who can miss an entire season, and return the next like nothing happened. The older you get the more you have to rely on your skills. Chris only has 32 games to get in mid-season form.

Chris has been struggling offensively fitting in with James Harden. I think Chris needs to be more assertive, and look to score and create more rather than playing second fiddle. James also needs to work on playing off-ball better. Too many times do we catch both James or Chris just standing around looking at each other to make a play. The two-point guard offense works, but it needs to be a fluid offense rather than a your turn-my turn offense. Gotta get back to that 17-18 offense.

If the Rockets focus on these three things then they wouldn't have to worry too much about Chris and his contract. I believe Chris should be one of least concerned worries. I'm thinking depth and defense is a bigger issue than Chris's play and contract. I got faith in him figuring it out so long as he stays on the court.

 

Good post!

Maybe put them in room and let them watch CJ & Lillard tapes.

 

I don’t think he understand the cap situation so don’t waste you’er time trying to explain. He can choose to watch another team.

 

Joe Harris signed with BKN for 2 years, $16 million. He plays 30 mpg and shoots 46% from three, and has played 20 more games than CP3 this year.

Is Joe Harris better than a healthy CP3? Of course not. But there is significant value in actually playing in the games; we lose that with CP3, who will probably play in about 50 games this year. Harris has more win shares than CP3 this year.

Plus, this will only get worse. Old guys with a ton of mileage who have always been injury-prone don't suddenly stop being injury prone.

 

I dont think haris would be half the player had he played for rockets
chemistry problems and stagnant offense would make sure his % go down and he would suffer from long and inexplicable bad shooting streaks

 

You are the one who needs to google how luxury tax works. If you are already over the cap it doesn't matter if you are 10M over the cap or 20M over the cap you STILL cannot sign players that arent vet min or rookie deals. In reality whether Cp3 is making 30M a year or 40M a year you can't use that extra 10M on other people as that is the whole point of having a cap in salaries. Its so freaking funny people who are ignirant abiut the salary cap the ones telling me to google it wtf.

 

This is something nobody can predict, how many people would be on board with letting Cp3 go and signing Joe freaking Harris last year? Thats not something a smart GM would do.

 

Are you kidding? So you would have Morey blow up the team that almost beat GS? Do you know how much heat the front office would have taken for not keeping the core of CP3, Harden, and Capela together? You would probably be on this forum bashing him for not signing CP3.

Yeah, I wish CP3 would have signed for less. I wish Cousins would have joined the Rockets for pennies. I wish Ariza wasn't offered a ridiculous salary. I wish Luc hadn't snapped his shoulders in half. I wish Ryno hadn't lost all confidence in his shot and became an albatross instead of an asset. None of that was in Morey's control and there was absolutely nothing he could have done about it.

Morey took a shot at Melo and it failed. He took a shot at MCW and BK and both moves failed. Marquese Chris was a failure as well. So there's definitely criticism to go around but signing CP3 wasn't something to even debate about. We had to make that move.

Rivers and Faried have worked out so far. We'll see what comes up before the trade deadline. No matter what happens though, we aren't going to outmatch the 5 starting allstars GS has on a position by position bases. Nobody can do it. Instead, we will have to build the best team we can and hope we hit a 3 point hot streak at the perfect time against GS and sustain it for 4 games. It's a long shot but we have as good of a chance as anyone else.

GS is the favorite and it's not even close.

 

I hate to be that guy, I know James is playing out of his mind and I don't even know if he's phisically able to do it, but he has to move off the ball a little when Chris is handling it. We get too stale when CP3 has the ball and James is on the court. Besides that, CP3 has got to get his rhythm back... it takes a while.

 

looks like you need to take your own advice. amazing there's still people til this day that think cp3 has kept the rockets from doing anything. lost track of how many times its been brought up over and over and over. it really does weed out those who actually are caught up on all things related. for people like you, he needs to play for free so the rockets would be under the cap.

 

I wouldn't have been on board with it at the time, but 2-3 years down the road it might have been the right move. Impossible to say what the opportunity cost is of the CP3 deal. Is Tilman really willing to pay for a 3rd expensive star alongside CP3/Harden? We'll see, I guess, but I don't think he is.

As a general statement though I don't think it's unfair to say that $40 million for 50 games played at a sub- All Star level isn't a good value. Maybe he'll produce more in future seasons... but old+injured isn't a recipe for future success, generally speaking.

FWIW I don't think that his deal has doomed us to mediocrity. I just no longer think it was a no-brainer to re-sign him to the contract we gave him.

 

1) Not re-signing CP3 would have doomed us to mediocrity. We would have had $8 million or so in cap room and then once that was gone we would have no foreseeable path to cap room in the future with Harden's contract spike, Capela, etc. We'd still have the same junky trade assets to try to trade for a star.

2) CP3 signing for his ultimate max definitely hinders us. Being that deep into luxury tax territory is absolutely going to restrict what the team is willing to do no matter how rosy we want to act about it. Ariza is gone because of luxury tax concerns. That may ultimately be the right move to let him walk, but it was largely about financial implications not talent.

Both things can be true. We wouldn't be better now or in the future without CP3 re-signing AND re-signing him to the contract he got hamstrings the team. (pun intended)

Unfortunately we were in a corner. There was a real choice to be made.

 

I thought this thread was going to be about trading Jeremy Lamb.

 

I need access to this crystal ball of yours.

I wouldn't guarantee how good he would or wouldn't be, but I personally would love to have a lights-out shooter on our team.

 

This is a good take and seems in line with what I'm saying.

I think people saying it's a no brainer we should have let him walk are being silly.
I think people downplaying how his max contract will limit this team are being silly and defensive.

I GET why Morey had to re-sign Chris Paul. I get it. It does have HUGE risk though and it is very possible that our window is slammed shut. CP3 may never be a star player again. From what we've seen this year he looks old and more of a complimentary player. If that's the CP3 we get for the rest of this year and next we are done. That said, if we DIDN'T get this deal I don't think we'd be any closer to a title than with broken CP3 so it's still a good gamble.

All of our money was on the table already the only question was whether we would actually roll the dice or just sit the game out and let the house keep our money without trying.

 

So much of this board is people saying they are unhappy about real life.

 

Well letting CP3 go definitely played a role in letting Ariza go. 100%. In a hypothetical world where they weren't over the luxury tax threshold they would have kept Ariza. Now they'd be worse today but still...