No LMA. No Llull. No “insert guy who got above the non-taxpayer MLE, and whose contract the Rockets could not have possibly matched”. What the heck is Daryl Morey doing? Taking selfies on all the iPads he didn’t have the chance to send to prospective free agents? Making Jon Snow sad mopey faces with CyberX at the Toyota Center? Ignoring the Rockets obvious holes in the name of #flexibility and a fool-hardy chase after Kevin Durant in 2016? The West is too tough, and every game counts! We need to get a PG right now; all the good ones are signing! Step back from the ledge. Put away the crazy pills, take a few plays off, Champ. There’s no trophy for winning the offseason, or having the best Vegas futures odds, or being the number #1 rated overall team in NBA 2K when the game ships. Rosters aren’t locked in until the trade deadline and the day waived free agents become ineligible for the playoffs. Last year, the Rockets started Tarik Black 12 times in their first 25 games. Isaiah Canaan started 9 games. Joey Dorsey, 12. Francisco Garcia was a 15 mpg player through December. Papanikolaou was a 20 mpg player through January. This team had holes bigger than (your favorite p*rn star, Greece’s economy, what Demarco Murray was given to run through last year). And all they did was win, win, win, until Morey used his piles of second rounders, trade exceptions, and his unused bi-annual exception to land Corey Brewer, Pablo Prigioni and Josh Smith during the season. If he had followed the advice of the chicken littles here and made his moves before the season started, the bi-annual gets spent on Marion/Nelson/Okafor, http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=256590 and the trade exception gets you Brandon Bass http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=259690. Hell, if you listened to some posters, Capela was a bust after his debut, and should have been cut or traded immediately. Sometimes the best move you make is to let the season develop, and see what shakes out. On July 9th, teams still need to sell season tickets, and everyone is undefeated. Every rookie is going to come in and make an impact immediately, and every veteran who signs for the minimum just had a bad year in a bad situation, and their health and athleticism is going to magically return. Prices are at their highest, and teams with cap room are desperate to spend it. Teams with malcontents can pretend that the situation will improve once training camp starts, and you can totally run out 2 centers together, or 3 point guards. This is a great team already, with amazing chemistry, whom we haven’t seen fully healthy. But they’ve got alligator blood, and incredible mental fortitude. No one gives up, no one blames injuries. Just next man up, you’d better be ready. No matter the holes, no matter the odd fits, I really do believe that they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt that they can persevere through adversity temporarily. 25 games in, 50 games in, things can change very quickly. Teams throw in the towel, coaches get fired, tempers boil over, injuries happen, guys get old, rooks and young guys make veterans expendable. The cost of trades in-season, and the players available, change. Is it really that unreasonable to think that the Raptors go into the tank and might consider handing the reins over to their newly signed Canadian hero? Or Mudiay impresses and makes Ty Lawson available? Darren Collison gets lost in the tire fire of Sacramento? Isaiah Thomas does what Isaiah Thomas does and pisses off his teammates for hogging the ball and winning all the minutes, pushing out one of the Celtics’s tweener guards? What if one of the Rockets young players breaks out? Capela becomes the Swiss Guard, Terrence Jones learns to “drop dat ass”, or Dekker is actually Tayshaun Prince, and two or three of them can be a godfather offer for that long chased 3rd star, or make the guys in front of them tradeable? I have no idea which, if any of those scenarios might play out. The likelihood of any one of them happening is low. But the probability of something happening is nearly absolute. Teams will look vastly different on February 18th. I don’t think the magic trade to push the Rockets over the hump is out there right now, but I have the utmost confidence that Morey and the rest of the Rockets brass already have every one of a million scenarios playing out like the War Games supercomputer. Throughout Daryl Morey’s time with the Rockets, he has never failed to make a deal at the trade deadline. Great GMs just put themselves in the best situation possible, with the understanding that a lot of the time, it comes down to factors outside of their control. Deals that are 75% likely to happen don’t materialize, or the Commissioner of the league vetoes a trade. But Morey hasn't done things so outlandish that he's lost my trust in the process. Maybe he will. Maybe he's been playing the long con. And maybe Beverley gets hurt again, or Dwight can't make it through 82 anymore, or LMA eats D-Mo alive. But I'm willing to wait until the Rockets get officially faded and are truly playing poorly before I start panicking. Sit back, and enjoy the ride. We have a great GM, a generational superstar, and the one guy who definitively chose Houston. Basketball matters again in Houston in June for the first time in a very, very long time, and it's gonna be a long season. There's no need to have everything in place before the league year has even begun.
I'll feel good once the Josh Smith situation settles itself one way or another. However, I tend to agree. Where would this team have been in the conference finals with a healthy Beverly and DMo? Maybe they take the series to six games or maybe seven. There is something to be said for continuity.
Great post. But I do think Houston needs to re-sign Smith if at all possible. And I'd feel a lot more confident about the PG position if Morey could just add somebody to backup Beverly in the meantime.
This happens every offseason. Unless a huge star is reeled in, there's always a few posters who overreact and cry like little girls. With that out of the way, I hope Morey can get the roster in place in time for training camp.
I'm glad someone wrote it, I thought about it, but didn't put in the effort. Our team has gotten better by subtraction in the West and just by letting the dust settle and holding onto what we already have. 1. GS - EVEN 2. Hou - EVEN 3. LAC - WORSE 4. Por - WORSE 5. MEM - EVEN 6. SA - BETTER 7. Dal - WORSE 8. NOP - EVEN GS - obviously trying to move David Lee and may slightly improve their team. They won it all and are being smart and not messing up what got them their ring. Current Expectations: Top 4 HOU - working on getting their team back, we signed 2 of our free agents for under market value. Getting healthy will be key. Current Expectations: Top 4 LAC - Losing DJ hurt, still a playoff team, but they are going to lose a few places IMHO, only time will tell what they can do to fill the void. They still have a really good PG ( i hate cp3) and Blake has stepped his game up each year. They are not very deep but have a good coach. Current Expectations: 6-8th POR - Rebuilding mode, they signed a great PG long term and lost everyone else. Current Expectations: Misses Playoffs MEM - Marc is back, same team we saw last year with some minor tweaks. Current Expectations: Top 4 SA - Made some big changes, lost some depth, I expect them to be as good as they were playing towards the end of last year. I expect a rocky start but should pull thru. Current Expectations: Top 4 DAL - Lost more than they gained. DJ is a big question mark without CP3, Matthews is an even bigger question mark, will he be able to come back? How is CP25 doing? Current Expectations: 8-10 NOP - AD is amazing, they barely made it in last year and it will be even tougher this year. Hopefully they take advantage of LAC and DAL getting worse. Current Expectations: 7-9 OKC - Durant is back, they are immediately better. Durant and Westbrook make you a playoff team in any conference. Current Expectations: 4-6 Last year the West was very close, down to the last game, I expect the same this year. I think it will end up very similar to last year with OKC replacing POR and NOP moving past Dallas. Dallas having to fight Utah and Phoenix for the 8th seed.
Freil, I'd expect a healthy OKC to be 3rd seed; and wouldn't be surprised to see them competing for the top seed.
Great post op. Another one and I wish I could rep you. However I am positive ONE trade at least will come before february. I also don't believe Toronto who plays in the Titanic will EVER be able to tank when they face the likes of Philly and Knicks and Brooklyn on a regular basis. They tried it two seasons ago and they failed. It takes amazing effort. And also I don't expect that IT will piss off his teammates because most of them are not like normal guards. Neither Bradley or Smart handle that much the ball. They are perfect compliments to someone like Smart. And he has taken the position of leader in a team that lacks much veterans. However his contract is too good, and knowing Ainge he will not hesitate to trade him ..for a STAR. So, basically don't expect either Ujiri or Ainge to get desperate and sell at half price anytime soon. They are much better gms than that. But just is nitpicking. Your post is amazing and kudos.
Who do you think falls out of the top 4? GS, HOU, SA, MEM? In all reality someone in the SW division is going to get shafted again.
