that is primarily what about 90% of the league is. Especially with the new apron rules most teams will have 1 or 2 stars at most. Jabari is a great fit for this team and I suspect he will be extended if not included in a trade package for above 20m a year.
Guessing he will get similar to the Trey Murphy extension of 4 years $112 million. That's about $28 million a year.
If the Rockets commit 90 of ~160 million in salary cap to Sengun, Smith and Green, that's certainly A choice.
They would have, I think Stone did not fully anticipate that both accepted......I might be wrong on this.
With Sengun you are saving money with this deal vs going to RFA and most likely forced to match a max. With Jalen there’s a risk of BKN, who has max cap space next year and whom we just screwed over, throwing out a poison pill max offer at Jalen even if he didn’t deserve it just to steal him. I don’t think the Rockets want to be in that position and forced to lose Jalen for nothing because they will not match a max offer.
Jabari will need to improve by quite a bit to be on Trey Murphy’s level as a player. Fairly confident that our offer will be less unless he has a breakout year this year.
This way was smarter. Even though I'd have no problems paying Sengun a max right now, Jalen hasn't earned it yet and this way we've guaranteed we're not paying either player a max for at least 2 years minimum. If we let it go to RFA then the true bottom feeder teams with no real prospects could've thrown max offer sheets at them, which we may have matched based on this upcoming season, but regardless of whether they deserved those contracts we'd be in a significantly worse financial position for when we have to make decisions on the rest of the young 7. I actually think this was a fantastic move by Stone, even more so if Jalen and Alpi continue to blossom into star players. Imagine if they both play at all-star level this year and we've just got them for a significant discount compared to pedestrian looking players like Mobley?
We heard a lot of talk from the Bobby Marks, Kevin Pelton et al about how the ROckets were going to use RFA as a hammer. Must have been posturing to drive a few 0's off these negotiations. I actually don't mind giving money to Sengun and Green in the abstract, but taken together, but the Rockets went from having probably *teh most optionality in the league* yesterday at this time to having - subastantially less now (it also means that of the so-called "core 7" - it's now down to Smith, Eason, Whitmore, Sheppard, Thompson to fight for scraps (less so for Sheppard). One thing I will say is that even if the Rockets fail to do anything with Sengun - there's a good chance somebody will try to reclaim him since he's a good passer. Green not so much.
There was never any FA of note next year to use the cap space on anyways, it was always posturing. Of the remaining “core 7”, there is no chance that either Jabari, Tari or Whitmore will get anything close to a max. Tari will be on a minute restriction and Whitmore is stuck in a minutes crunch. If someone wants to overpay Jabari then we are trading him. Sheppard I’m extremely high on, but for the next three years he’s likely in a backup role with minutes capped in the 20s, with his perceived weaknesses I bet there’s no chance he gets anything close to the max either. That leaves Amen remaining as the only threat to another big contract, which I think we can handle.
Both have similar FG% and FT%. Trey averaged about one more 3 a game and point. Trey is the better driver to the basket, passer, and less turnover prone. Jabari has a better midrange, rebounder, and is the more versatile defender. Plus Jabari is about three years younger so more potential for growth. Trey is better but not by "quite a bit". How much do you think Jabari will get offered?
Obviously Jabari doesn't have the athleticism but I wish he would attack the rim like this. Just be NASTY and VIOLENT. Dude looks like he wants to destroy, break and obliterate the rim. Like he has something personal against the rim. The rim dissed him and his whole family or something.
Bari needs to play better than he did this preseason, but I still think he has the best shot of being a part of our core outside of Green, Sengun, and Amen, mostly because he fits within that group like a glove.
