Rudy Gay tells Kings he "likely wont return". , per Woj

If he really intends to opt out next summer, as he's implying (last time for him to cash in), then maybe Morey had interest in him after all.

Seems like he would have already told the Kings this awhile ago, in which case there's a reason for this timing.

OR he's frustrated that a trade didn't already go down, in which case there's a reason for this timing.

 

Gay will be a Rocket this season.

 

It's pretty much public knowledge that the Kings will trade him for the right price. Now that Gay and his reps are making it known he'll be leaving after this upcoming season, the package(s) teams are willing to offer SacTown would be pupu platter esque even moreso.

Sacramento has one of the worst front offices I've seen.

 

lol ranadive is probably the only team owner who can make les look less crappy

 

Jim Buss
Mikhail Prokhorov
James Dolan

Really, Dan Gilbert probably belongs there, but LBJ is his saving grace. Michael Jordan is pretty bleh too, but it would be hard for any owner in Charlotte.

 

i think you're right. so i guess les is actually in the top 25 of owners then..

 

I'd figure Rudy Gay would be traded to OKC for Ersan Ilyasova and salary filler (Semaj Christon).

 

For the right price (aka crap), I'm not entirely opposed to trading for Gay.

That said, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. His ISO heavy game isn't going to change. You can shelf any thoughts of him being the Shawn Marion of this MDA team since he doesn't play that way at all. Off the ball, screening, cutting, collecting garbage points, etc -- that's not his game at all.

 

Well, there's plenty of other teams/owners you could place him above as well, though anyone could argue the rankings...

Atlanta - well, I guess not anymore since they sold in 2015. That said, if we're judging performance on the court, they've been worse then the Rockets (considering they are in the east and both teams recently made their conference finals), and new ownership this offseason traded their starting PG for a draft pick (which ended up being a really weird choice), and signed Dwight Howard. Enough said.

Milwaukee - nothing bad, but nothing good

Orlando - historically a terrible team

76ers - maybe the tank works out, maybe not

Wizards - consistently above average at best. Signed Scotty Brooks as head coach, which is equivalent to the Rockets signing MDA as head coach, imo.

Dallas/Cuban - Dude spends money, but overspends on average players at best. And says tons of hypocritical things which points to the fact that he is just throwing **** on the wall. Chemistry is important! Jettisons his whole championship roster. His saving grace is Carlisle, and the greatness and relative longevity of Dirk.

Denver - average team forever.

TWolves - finally putting it together, but you can't forget they've been a horrible team for a decade.

Pelicans - horrible team forever. Why'd they fire Monty, right after he had them finally moving in the right direction?

People can think whatever they want about Les, but he seems to operate from a similar playbook as most every organization. Tries to avoid the luxury tax - you know, like the Spurs, and every team. Certainly is overly attached to "not sucking, in order to keep interest and profits up", "reaching for Chinese players for obvious reasons", "hiring older, has been white coaches"... which are valid complaints.

But then, Steve Kerr was somewhat of an older, has been (poor GM tenure in Phoenix imo) white coach, and had Curry's injuries continued to plague his career, we'd be saying the Warriors are middle of the road, too.

I'm not saying its luck... it's clearly smart decision making... but I'm also pointing out it isn't so cut and dry. I think things that are cut and dry are overall organization culture issues. What kind of culture do the Rockets have? Are they known for being 100% professional, making sure their players are well taken care of, have good accommodations, allowing players time to develop, allowing coaches time to develop, etc. On the whole, I think the Rockets do have this culture. At times, they can be a little quick to treat players as assets, but that is more media hype than reality, as other teams do this as much if not more than the Rockets. They were lambasted for the McHale fire, but any true Rockets fan would tell you McHale was an average coach AT BEST, and was meaningfully BELOW average last year, running one of the worst camps I can recall seeing, and basically just throwing up his hands and blaming the players for running a bad camp when the season didn't start as anticipated.

 

i disagree the kings owner is doing everything, spending money to try and build around a team cancer in demarcus cousins. Look at the talent cousins has ran out of sac, isiah thomas, hassan whiteside, now rudy gay, etc

if Les put that kind of talent around harden we would be a top 3 seed every year, because Harden despite what chuck, and snackquille o'neal say has the intangibles and is a team leader

 

It's on the mediocre Maury to put talent around Harden, not Les.

 

I think they were lambasted for the McHale EXTENSION in the first place. The McHale firing was not frowned on asides from its timing. Firing the head coach 11 games into the season pretty much showed that they didn't know what they were doing when they extended his contract less than a year before.

The timing of the firing also left them very few options in terms of saving the season. So the season was in the dump just a few weeks after it started.

 

Did you just imply that replacing Patrick Beverley, Trevor Ariza, and Dwight Howard with Isaiah Thomas, Hassan Whiteside, and Rudy Gay would make the Rockets a top 3 seed?

 

Gay and DMo to the Nets would make the Nets very decent in the East and basically blunt the value of the Nets 2017 pick that Boston owns. Jes say'n.

 

What could we get from the nets in a sign and trade though

 

And D.Mo would also be able to play with his buddy Scola...but what can we take back in this scenario? Rondae? LeVert (are his injuries that worrisome?)?

Not sure they would trade one of them for D.Mo, not without a sweetener at least (which i think we can definitely throw in)...

But what about a three way deal with Lopez (which...maybe, is the closest thing to Marc Gasol out there, maybe Joerger likes him) in SacTown, Capela in Brooklyn, and Boogie here? Probably impossible but still...

 

is that a trick question

 

for the record i think ben mclemore or nik staukus would be better with the rockets than the kings