Unfortunately, The season and playoffs kind of proved that he’s indispensable. He’s glue...we need someone like him that doesn’t have a weakness in his game and can play with anyone. I wish we could just move on, but we won’t find his services anywhere close to what we are paying him.
another thought on this... Let’s say Houston and Orlando come to an agreement on a Gordon for Gordon swap, including multiple 1sts going to Orlando. Before I make the deal, I go to Harden and tell him we will make the trade if you sign the 2 year extension. We aren’t trading 1sts unless Harden recommits to the franchise.
If we must keep House, then move to bench. And per @ch44 revelation about Rockets aggressively shopping Tucker: https://tradenba.com/trades/KuJsHcEZX ORL: Zach Lavine PHI: PJ Tucker, Ben McLemore CHI: Eric Gordon, Mike Scott + Magic FRP + Rockets FRP HOU: Aaron Gordon, Matisse Thybulle, Furkan Korkmaz + 76ers SRP *Bulls Sign & Trade Shaq Harrison to Rockets for SRP, TPE & Clemons. Wall/Shaq Harden/Nwaba/Korkmaz Thybulle/House/Brown AG/Bruno/Tate Wood/Cousins Agreed. Harden needs to sign extension.
Send Tobias to Orlando instead. Rockets get AG and Thybulle + picks. But why would 76ers do this? They have Seth Curry and Danny Green now. Morey does value PJ, but enough to give up Tobias and take on EGo contract? Perhaps to dump Tobias contract. PJ is better defender too. EGo, Green, PJ, Simmons, Embiid is better starting lineup, offensively and defensively than Seth, Green, Tobias, Simmons, Embiid.
good trade. Don’t think you can count on Bruno for minutes. one thing that appears obvious now is we are fully adopting the now and then team building approach. We don’t want to tank. We want to resign Harden, but if that doesn’t work, we want to move straight onto the next era of Rockets basketball. Under those conditions, a Tucker trade makes sense. A Gordon trade may or may not, depending on who is coming back and how many assets we have to attach to him.
I'm in total agreement here. No sense blowing assets if Harden is traded at the deadline or even into next season. You have to keep every asset for a rebuild IF he is leaving. We haven't heard a thing from him either .... but him refusing the two year $100+million extension speaks volumes.
This trade also allows Rockets to get younger, longer, more athletic while we still have Harden as well as a head start on the rebuild. We do not know how good the new Rockets FO is at draft evaluation so amassing a multitude of picks is myopic. As for Bruno (same for Tate, Brown, Nwaba, Cousins), for sure there are question marks galore (injuries, experience, etc.) so taking wait and see attitude. But I'm optimistic.
from a business perspective ATL should do this in a heartbeat. They need a spark to that organization only a superstar can create for the fans.
I think you just have to be prepared to go either way. You tell Harden we’ve rebuilt the team around him with a younger core...now choose. if he still wants to leave, you trade him for a young star and a massive haul of picks. If he signs the extension, you trade the picks to improve the team.
Don’t disagree. Having a bunch of middle-1st round picks wouldn’t be super valuable under those conditions. I’d rather have Thybulle and A Gordon so long as the cost was reasonable. even without Thybulle, Aaron Gordon in with Eric Gordon and Tucker out can work simply because it opens up more space under the apron to make more moves, including using our remaining MLE on buyouts.
Portlands pick is alright, but the pick we received from Washington is so useless. And when we trade the pick we’re probably looking at attaching it to EG’s contract, which on its own would require a pick for a team to be willing to eat that contract. I still can’t believe how lousy of a pick we got attached to John Wall. It’s mind baffling.
while not high quality, the Detroit and Washington picks likely will convey as mid-1st round picks at some point. personally, I think Washington is doomed. When Beal is a free agent, Westbrook will be 34 or 35, being paid close to $50 million.
That’s ridiculous to try to paint a negative picture on Washington now. Are they title contenders? No but they improved vastly and made a horrendous situation (Wall’s contract) into something much much better without giving up a half decent pick. They replaced their starting point guard who hasn’t played in two years and has had conflict with sharing the spotlight with Beal, and added a 3rd all-NBA player with a chip on his shoulder and welcoming the trade. You can be ok with the trade if you want for the Rockets, but you just simply can’t say anything bad about Washington in this trade unless deep down you know Houston messed up.
How can anyone say there was no value for Westbrook and not think Wall’s value must have been way worst? I really really can’t see Washington walking away from this deal if we insisted the pick be next year’s lottery protected. To get rid of an unhappy max point guard coming off the worst injury possible??? How is ownership and the front office that fkin stupid.
Lateral move... I guess the pick was a mindless throw in because the protection on it sucks. Basically got the East version of Westbrook!!!
Exactly. Got to look at it as a lateral move and hope it all works out. Silas has his work cut out for him having to rely on TWO cornerstone players coming off major injuries AND with such a thin bench.
