[SHAMS] Fred VanVleet - Torn ACL - Out for the season

Durant could take a decent OKC team after Harden left but that was 10+ years ago.....

He could not lift up the Suns......not entirely on him but that is reality.

Jump shooting stars are the cherry on top and not like Harden, young LBJ players that are the System.

Make Durant 27 years old again and Subtract Sengün from this team, he is not going anywhere in the regular season.

Harden and Capela at least showed they can hang in the regular season.

If you recall his legacy right now, Durant's legacy is pretty average among the Greats, he had to rely on Curry and defensively on Donkey.

 

Been saying all summer for them to go get another pg.

 

Me too, so frustrating..

 

And a Combo guard SG who fills the depth for Green, Whitmore, etc....

 

The team can apply for an injured player exception, which would be the lesser of 50% of his salary or the full mle. There is an exception for that.

The problem is that they used the MLE and are now hardcaped at the 1st apron. They cannot exceed the 1st apron for any reason. That means that they would be unable to use the injury exception even if it were granted.

You may not like it but that is how the current CBA works. All contracts count against the cap. An exception just allows you to exceed the cap. Unfortunately, we have a second unrelated restriction which hardcaps us and thereby prevents us from exceeding the apron for any reason.

 

Next man UP, JD

 

Exactly. I wish I could like this post more than once...

 

FVV is done as a relevant player in the NBA

an ACL injury for a short, fat PG might as well be a closed casket funeral

 

Well, this sucks

 

from John Hollinger in The Athletic:

Speaking of Thompson, we also need to talk about the silver lining, if you will, to the injury: The Rockets get to test what they hope is true and badly want to be true. It’s Point Guard Amen Thompson or bust now in Houston, and behind him, Reed Sheppard is either going to sink or swim.
Thompson is the only player who can reasonably be the lead ballhandler with the starting unit. His inability to shoot will have opponents going miles under screens and daring him to beat them off the ball, and if the Rockets want to lean into Şengün-Adams pairings (as they did at the end of last season), the spacing could get hilariously ugly (as it did at the end of last season).

Thompson, however, is Houston’s most talented young player; he’s not as accomplished as Şengün, yet, but has a much greater ceiling. Ripping off the Band-Aid might be the only way to figure out how this works, or if it works at all. It’s possible the offense is kind of bad, but the defense, with Thompson and Eason at the point of attack, is so huge and hellish that it doesn’t matter.

Behind Thompson, the Rockets have the safety net of Holiday’s floor as a slightly-better-than-replacement-level backup who makes open shots and competes on defense. But he’s limited as a creator, something magnified by the fact that only a couple of other guys on this team can dribble (I’m only slightly exaggerating).

Realistically, it has to be Shep Time now, and the 21-year-old should be the first guard off the bench. With Houston already looking at lowered expectations, there is no reason to shunt the third pick in the 2024 draft to the nether regions of the bench again. He only played 652 minutes as a rookie despite being healthy nearly all season, an amazingly puny total for a player drafted so highly. Every other 2024 lottery pick played at least 1,000 minutes except the injured Nikola Topić and Devin Carter, and Minnesota’s Rob Dillingham.

Sheppard wasn’t exactly gangbusters when he got chances — a 9.7 PER on 35.1 percent shooting — but Houston needs to give him every chance to succeed.

The irony, of course, is that the opportunity to test large samples of Thompson at point guard and Sheppard in the rotation was going to be much more difficult with a healthy VanVleet commanding 2,000 minutes. The Rockets are clearly worse off as a result of his injury — my prediction model has it costing them four wins — but they have a chance to make lemonade with Thompson and Sheppard in a more forgiving environment.​

 

He will return for the 2nd round of the playoffs.

 

Many if not most of us were concerned about the lack of ball handling in the backcourt and now it’s clear why. I was assuming a Fred injury happened at some point. Didn’t realize it would happen before we played a freaking actual game. It’s literally the one position we couldn’t afford an injury to. I think it’s devastating and really knocks the rockets’ contending chances down a few rungs. Just completely bummed. Reed better come into the season a completely different player.

 

then I remembered why I don't post here much. Fred being out means Amen is taking over as starting point guard. Durant's role doesn't change. Pnr with Durant and Sengun was going to get ran with or without Fred. It takes two business days for Fred to dribble around an opponent.

How did FVV's leadership qualities work out for the Rockets in the 1st round of the playoffs? He's a good guy but he's a role player at best.

On the court, Durant most definitely has Fred's leadership qualities. He's a great scorer, but it doesn't take away from his overall talent and experience in this league. You can't "key in" on Durant easily on this team with Sengun and Amen on the same squad.

FVV being on the court wasn't going to stop defenses from focusing on Durant. Opposing teams studied film last season so they could try to stop Sengun, not Fred Van Vleet. And Sengun will be even better this season.

Will Fred be missed? Of course he will, but the Rockets were never winning a championship relying on FVV as a 1st or second option. His "leadership" qualities aren't needed as much as the years prior, that's why the Rockets had the leverage to negotiate his salary down. Nobody was going to pay him $40 million+/season to be a "leader."

 

We traded Cam

 

how the f u gonna make this about Cam? lol. You have an obsession my man.

 

Another d#ck punch that is sinking in: we are on the hook for $25 mil of a Fred’s salary next season. Fred is gonna be virtually useless coming off an ACL surgery at 32 yrs old. This screws us for 2 seasons.

 

Ya plenty, the idea that the aging curve just doesn’t apply to kd because he’s a rocket is absurd. There’s also a big difference between 34 and 37. Literally no player in basketball history was even close to their peak at this age, not even lebron, yet Durant will just magically return to peak for is pure delusion.

 

Phoenix had a winning record when Durant and Booker played. He was carrying them. It is a different dynamic here. We replaced one of the worst SG’s in the league with Kevin freakin Durant. Amen, Sengun, Jabari, Tari will all be better this year. Losing FVV sucked, because we lack depth at guard if Reed doesn’t step up to at best average. You don’t go from terrible to above average in one off-season. Amen is going to have to play monster minutes at least until December and they add depth. Otherwise you are going to see a lot of Okogie. A Reed/Holiday backcourt would be a trainwreck defensively. I don’t think they panic and trade Tari and draft pick(s) for quality depth and he is the only one of note tradeable before December. A team with Amen, Sengun, and Durant is going to be good and barring more injuries we will still be in contention at the deadline.

 

Time to throw Reed into the fire and see if he was worth the #3 overall pick.

If we don't see any good by December 15th a trade will definitely happen. They will not waste KD's time here.

 

It was tongue in cheek, sorta, it was also why you don't trade a guy for nothing as you never know what could happen...you keep talented young assets, you might need them.

DD