Gordon should not play another minute as a Rocket .... he should have been moved last year. Mathews .... should be a break glass in case of emergency guy. Play him if someone gets hurt or you are in tank mode. Tate, Smith, Eason & KJM should get all the minutes at the 3 & 4 spots unless there is an injury. KJ should probably get some burn as a small ball 5 too. I pretty much agree with the assessment of Tate being wasted on this current team. But .... Next season, things change and he can be a critical cog in the machine that has $70m in cap space and another lottery pick that should allow for a quick turnaround. I don't see moving him to be a great idea if the team has aspirations of winning beyond the end of this season.
What if we can send KJ to the Suns to help Crowder move elsewhere? Pick and or talents in return? There are some interesting young pieces on some of the teams Crowder is rumoured to go to
I looked at deals involving swapping EG & KJ for Crowder and filler with each of Miami, Boston, Milwaukee & Philly. Lots of interesting possibilities.
That would be a mistake. Why trade a player who looks better than say a 20th pick for a 20th pick? Looks like that would be fire selling KJ + EG. I'd rather just let EG walk and find a new home for Tate. With KJ/Tari/Tate/Jabari you have your 3 & 4 spots covered very well. If Sengun can develop enough offensively, and Bruno can develop enough defensively, you may have a complete team and not need a Wemby Right now the weakest position is backup pg
As of right now, I don’t want to make any changes. The roster is basically set after cutting Favors. I want to see what these guys can do for a while.
This conversation has really devolved. My original point of view was that outplaying the majority of your draft class looks good to GMs in the league, I know it's tough to remember with all side tracking you've done. If you don't think KJ has 1st round talent, than good for you, but that was never really the point. Let's refocus on your original point, which was that minutes played in the NBA is irrelevant when it comes to determining a young player's value. Remember, the GM "either likes him or they don't". Let's stop going in circles. How about we make a poll if NBA minutes played is a factor in GM's and Scout's mind when pursuing a 21-year-old player. Loser has to tipjar.
To be honest, I couldn't come up with deals that made sense for all three teams involved. Or find a contract on each of the 3rd teams that would satisfy the cap rules as well as making sense for that team too. The premise of any deal would be EG & KJ Martin for Crowder and Saric, both of which expire. Saric, who is out for the season would go to the Rockets while Crowder would go to a 3rd team. His contract is $10,183,800 so you are looking for a contract between $8,147,040 and $12,729,750 from those 3rd teams. This might be the easiest one to pull off: Crowder to Boston for Gallinari who like Saric is out for an extended period but his contract is about $1,668,040 short of satisfying the trade rules. They'd have to send out another smaller contract. That would add another $16m to the Rockets dead money, putting them at about $79m in dead money and a single pick from PHX isn't enough compensation. Both teams have all their own picks thru 2027 so the Rockets could probably get a pick from both in the near term. Miami is kinda complicated. Same basic deal as above EG & Martin for Saric to Houston & Crowder to Miami. The only single contract that they have that works is Olidapo but I doubt they want to move him. They could also combine any two of Caleb Martin, Tyler Herro and Dwayne Dedmon .... but they just signed Martin and Dedmon to new deals this offseason - they cannot be aggregated for 90 days then there's Herro - would they trade him? This one just didn't make sense to me. I'm not sure there's a deal that makes sense for Milwaukee. They could swap the expiring contracts of Pat Connaughton and George Hill to bring in Crowder .... but I just don't think that makes any better. Philly could facilitate the same deal by flipping Thybulle & Niang for Crowder. But again, I don't think this makes Philly better. Atlanta doesn't seem like a good fit to me.
Atlanta is interesting if PHX has any interest in Gordon Crowder (+ Saric) to Atl Gordon and Martin to Phx Bogdanovic and ? to Houston The ? Is a young talent or pick from Atl and possibly a pick from Phx as well If you walk away with a young talent from Atl and a 1st from Phx, PLUS Bogdanovic (injured this year and a handy expiring for next year) to me that is a great haul
I dont see the need to trade kj. The minutes should be available here. Hes cheap and under team control. Also hes young and fits well with the core as he doesnt demand the ball and he has a good skillset for a role player. Hes not a terrible defender but if he really locks in on becoming a better defender And keeps up his three point shooting his value here will be huge. Theres a reason that teams looking to contend like him.
I came into the preseason thinking we should trade kj but he has shown me that he has improved and I want to see more of it. He is also a 3 who can occasionally play 4 not the other way around so I would love to see him in that role. We def need to get rid of gordon and if we need to package another player, that player should be Tate.
That trade does work and helps all three teams in one way or another. But when looking at these individual deals, I didn't want to take back contracts that extended beyond the end of this season - preserving the maximum possible cap space to add pieces with. I'd really have to dig into the numbers to see if pushing some of that space out a year was advantageous or not.
1 Kpj (nix/Washington) 2 Jalen (josh) 3 KJ Martin/Tate 4 Jabari (Tari) 5 Sengun (Bruno) What is the problem with just sticking with this as a basic plan? Trade Gordon (and Matthews if you can).
