Trade Russ to NY or some other crap team for picks and expiring contracts. Trade James Harden to Philly for Ben Simmons, a pick and whatever to match salaries. Ship out EG. Them wait till trade deadline and trade Covington and PJ to contenders that will pay put more than they will right now. Then you have a young coach with a young star in Simmons to build around. Not ideal but seems better than this mess we have currently. Plus, I think Hardens reputation has a teammate has just really diminished after his "good friend" Russ, asking to leave after 1 season.
If you trade WB, you should trade Harden as well. You aren't going to get enough for WB to make this team competitive for a title, and Harden's discontentment will only increase while his trade value decreases. Harden is at peak value. Now is the time to trade him and reboot this team.
I don't necessarily disagree, I just wonder what the best case scenario is with a reboot. I suspect it would be everything goes absolutely perfectly, and several years down the road we have the potential foundation of a championship team, and then ownership doesn't pay to get us over the hump. I mean, even getting to the equivalent of the Chris Paul squad would be a miracle, and Tillman immediately ruined that by being cheap. I'm equally skeptical that we can succeed without a reboot though. What a mess.
Run it back. 1. It's Tillman's money not ours. 2. There's this thinking that if get rid of Russ (and his contract), that a magical expectation of Tillman to use whatever saved on other things. On the contrary, I think if he doesn't have to pay; he may not even buy the mid-level players folks think they would want. At least right now he's on the hook. 3. Let Silas and his assistants get a crack at this current roster, before we blow everything up.
You've lost both the coach and the old GM. Running it back just is not the same. Stuck in some odd mode in between. More veteran players are going to pout, very natural. Soon hands are forced when the record is bad. Tilman Trumper is going down.
I am sure Tillman did not clearly understand how fragile relationships are in the NBA. He didn't see himself when the team didn't pay Mike that Daryl would be gone as well.
I don't think people remember how hard it is to build a champiohship contender. During the Kevin Martin years when we struggled to make the 9th seed fans were miserable, everyone wanted a superstar to help make us a contender. Now we have one. The draft is a gamble of unproven players, many bust, don't live up to thier potential or some get injured. Some teams never become contenders even with high picks. We have prime and peak James Harden and a second star with capable role players and a promising coaching staff. Only a handful of teams without LeBron or the Warriors have won rings this decade. If these guys were past prime that is one thing, but I wouldn't take this for granted and run it back with tweaks.
Like a phoenix, Patrick will rise from the ashes and lead Rockets out of the darkness. Starts with him hiring away Shane Battier and clearing salary cap to sign Ibaka.
Removing Russ = Blowing it up I think the biggest problem is the weaknesses at certain positions PJ Tucker cannot be a starter Russ cannot be allowed to run wild Harden ??? House Covington ??? EGo is a second stringer / 6th man period No other starters on this team House is not really a starter to me .. but he will do . . . . Outside of Harden and Covington . . .who on this team is a starter in this league? Rocket River
I think the Rockets should wait for the best offer for James only If He wants to be traded take everything from whatever team that wants him I like Ben but I’ll wait for the best offer and it ain’t to many players you can swap James with straight up. The Rockets just need to trade Westbrook first before they pull the trigger on James
You are right, it's hard to build a contender especially when you have questionable management. Blowing it up won't lead to a championship. But neither will staying the course. Best thing to happen is to get start rebuilding now versus later. Why? Because you aren't going to resign Harden so might as well get value for him.
I can understand that point of view, but honestly we won't get equal value for Harden and it would hurt the team and likely his championship chances for years. I think we take for granted just how good Harden and this team has been in comparsion to the rest of the league. Of all 30 teams every year for the past ten years, only a few have won championships that didn't have LeBron or the Golden State warriors. Harden is a perennial MVP candidate, having won one already. Regarded as one of the GOAT offensive players of all time, During his historic 36 ppg game season he had .616 TS%, no one in NBA history, not Jordan, Wilt, anyone has ever been that efficient on that high volume. He improves every year, to this day. Last season his defense kept improving and he had a clutch defensive block on Lu Dort in a game 7 sealing the win. With OKC to be determined, teams that have traded MVP players have historically always lost the trade. We don't have leverage right now also. We're not getting another MVP candidate for Harden or equal value check this article: https://www.landofbasketball.com/data/mvps_who_were_traded.htm With the Rockets team he is currently on, we have had the longest active playoff streak in the NBA: https://www.landofbasketball.com/statistics/playoffs_active_streaks.htm Rebuiilding would make the team worse with a hope in ten years we can become as good as this current team. Everyone has a right to thier own opinon so no judgement, but I think adjusting what we have is a much better choice.
Rebuild. This current team isn't going to get it done. Not with Harden as the best player. Might as well burn it down.
Could not agree more. First choice is to keep Russ and sign Ibaka and/or Wood, no rebuild. 2nd choice is to trade Russ for similarly talented player(s) to pair with Harden, no rebuild. 3rd choice is to trade Russ for young players and/or multiple FRP to quickly build around Harden. Last choice is to rebuild completely and trade away both Harden and Russ. This is the worst choice imaginable, grass is hardly ever greener on the other side.
Retooling would demand a working club culture. That's almost impossible under Fertitta. So one can only enjoy developing talents while they are talents. If you have a cultural crisis, players are always at risk of just quitting, you can't stop that.
You are 100% right that a rebuild may not lead to anything better than we have now. In fact, the most likely scenario is that this team goes into a decade long period of being a Sacramento Kings or Orlando Magic type organization, or even worse - a NY Knicks. But that's a better roll of the dice than to watch this trainwreck play out. Harden is going to walk and ring chase once his contract is up. He's not winning a ring here - he's not the leader of a championship team and you aren't going to get that caliber of a player to come here. He's going to walk if you stay the course and you will end up with nothing in return. There's a reason Morey and D'Antoni left. If they saw a championship as possible they would have stuck around. They were sure it's not going to happen. It's time we accept the truth. This team is going nowhere. So what other choice is there but to blow it up?
Very true. Being mediocre but being able to change things Vs Pretending team that waits/bides its time for star players to quit. And Tilman having financial trouble himself being the douche he is.
