Because it allows our small ball lineup to matchup with their lineup of death, which is also their best lineup. In a small ball lineup, we absolutely want as many shooters on the floor as possible. In the case of small ball vs small ball, what the hell do you think Melo will be doing? He will be the one pulling Green to the corner.
The last projection I saw was the tax at $141M before an expected bump from gambling royalties. We might not be that far above the tax in the end. We are really in the Thunder's position back in 2012 and we need to think about that carefully. They were so afraid of not being able to afford Perkins that they tried to save $4M on a $67M deal and created our dynasty and killed theirs. Now they are in the repeater tax and gave us a player we wanted last year for free on a salary they are paying. That needs to be a two hour documentary if we win. I still think we did last year. For some money, how hard is it to construct a team like this and have a chance to win? How many trades and lucky circumstances did it take for hard work to be able to take advantage of and will that come again? Those opportunities are so rare with the chance to blow up our revenue that it has to be done or why else did you acquire the asset. You don't pay $2B for something for vanity or charity. You expect to be able to sell it for twice or thrice that amount eventually.
You could pull up a few seasons of Magic Johnson and make this exact same argument. The type of shot matters, and Eric Gordon takes some wacky stuff by D'Antoni/Morey design. If you don't think EG is a superior shooter, I'm afraid I disagree. I've made my case in previous posts. /EGvJB shooting topic for me...
I 100% agree with you on the Rockets rebuild after Harden and 100% disagree with you on the reasonability of the Butler pursuit as a rental. You are in the business of investing in appreciating assets and capitalizing on them. Butler is one of those assets and for him to have value he needs a new contract to guarantee control over him. This is likely his last contract and he is in his prime. Very rarely are you LA and LeBron wants to come to you even if you are crap. This game is about acquiring diamonds and caring for and polishing them and lying, cheating, and stealing to get more.
When they switch, our pick and roll goes to crap, which is why we isolate against GSW, which is why PJ Tucker at C is better than Fashion Copela at C, which is why PJ Tucker is key on the Houston Rockets. Carmelo can not fill this role defensively. It would be an enormous loss.
The Rockets entire philosophy is based on taking efficient shots. The idea is to eliminate the inefficient. If your saying that the "wacky stuff" is dragging down his percentage, then what does that tell you about the shots? Taking inefficient shots is a bad thing. The Rockets dont design for low percentage shots. Feel free to pull up equivelant stats on Magic if you can find them. I look forward to seeing what you find.
We ISO against GSW because Capela and Green neutralize each other (and the PnR) when they are on the floor together. We also ISO because we have the 2 best ISO players in the league. You act like we only ISO against GSW, when we ISO the whole damn league. You are totally ignoring the enormous gains on the offensive side in addition to the fact that Butler is a significantly better defender than Gordon, not to mention that both Butler and Melo are significantly better all-around scorers and finishers than both Gordon and Butler. You also ignore the fact that if we do keep Green pinned in the paint with Capela, that Melo and Butler can both get him in foul trouble in a hurry.
No, just no. We want Butler and are making a great effort to get him. If we had drafted him you wouldn't be saying this. Oh, but wait Thon Maker for Capela. With your logic, we have Harden but he's not our real target. We want Kevin Martin. No, we wanted Harden for the same reason we wanted Capela and we want Butler. I understand the finances much better than you do and know how rare or impossible it is to have a team constructed with the amount of talent this one has. I doubt it will ever happen again and I promise you, Tilman didn't buy this franchise because he loves the Rockets. He bought it because he thought a championship team and expanding markets and gambling could increase the value by over $1B. Tell me where the Warriors were financially a decade ago. Where is Cleveland going and where would they have been if there never was an LBJ.
I disagree with you more than I agree. However, I don't think you are completely wrong. I think you maybe misinterpreting efficient shot with open shot or EFFICIENT PLAY For instance, we would always put Ryan Anderson in a 3 point position that was about 4 feet behind the 3 point line. That threat spread the floor for others in a way that brought efficient play to the team. He would also always be open. While Ryan Anderson had the ability to hit that shot, it was by far and away not individually an efficient shot for him to take. It's a wacky shot and yet we did that over and over and over again. It's a very similar situation to E. Gordon Gordon DOES take wacky shots by design, because he has such a quick release (among other things). We utilize that quick release to put him in some uncomfortable individual positions because overall it creates a threat that the opposing defense must respect to some degree thus providing efficient play for others/team. He always has the ability to score in those wacky positions, but on a personal level it's not the most efficient placement or shot for him to take. He takes a lot of wacky shots by design, and by doing that it will definitely have an negative effect and drag down his averages.
Man, dont be disingenuous. The "wacky" stuff is his volume being 3 times as much no matter how you slice it that is significant. His range, quick release and off ball movements are all things that helped make our offense number 1 offense last season. I'm saying Butler isnt better but if you think he's in the same tier shooter as Gordon you are wrong.
Tilman is only thinking about money and we would not even be involved in this trade if Tilman were not prepared to offer Butler the 5 year max and we have 3 years to think about the repeater tax. Carl Herrera has really done a number on everybody. That repeater tax scares the hell out of every owner in the NBA. That's why its there. Winning is a very elusive thing and may only come once in an owner's lifetime. You have to understand that is the single greatest driver in the ability for the franchise to appreciate in value. Who the hell cared about the Warriors a decade ago? What happens five years from now? When you spend billions of dollars on a team you have to have perspective and understand the real investment. When are the Rockets ever going to have a team this good again? Les was gifted Hakeem and Drexler and then squandered TMac and Yao. Doesn't matter how, you bear the consequences. I will always think about Yao going down against the Lakers. They knew they were done in that series and we still took them to 7. That was a championship team. You always overpay for a winner and save your ammo on a loser. I could fully see Tilman letting Morey pull a Hinkie after Harden. He'd get midway through and do the same thing he did here all over again. I may be wrong about this but I believe Tilman was a small % owner all these years of the Rockets so he had access to the financials and had a long preparation process. You don't just walk up and say hey, I'd like to buy the team. The NBA audited Tilman to ensure that he was capable of supporting the franchise over the long run. When he bought it his investors, CPA, and bankers had to review his revenue projections for the team for probably up to 10 years. I am positive that Morey provided him with the salary and expected revenue projections out at least until the end of the current CBA. I am sure Tilman loves the Rockets but I know he loves money more so he knew this was a great window to increase the value of the franchise by more than a $1B. That was his play. I believe he felt with marketing a championship team he could blow the roof off of the yearly revenue projections and get the automatic boost in value that comes with championships. Look what it did for the Warriors and look at how Dan Gilbert couldn't put up his for sale sign fast enough. Tilman doesn't want a slow play with the best team he is ever going to have. He doesn't want to be competitive. He wants to make a ton of money and grow it fast so he can glide through the down years. He's not stupid so he is not going to spend $20M on a bench player like Ryno that doesn't contribute but if you tell him he can spend it on Butler instead then you have his attention. It has to make sense.
Truth. Half the time he spouts non-sense and postures to know more than he does. I put him on ignore awhile ago but it doesn’t help when people quote him and waste space to argue/reason with him.
Gordon is streaky as hell with this shooting against GS in the WCF: 3-7, 6-9, 2-8, 1-8, 3-10, 4-6, and 2-12 Gordon’s 3 point shooting by month Oct: 30.2% Nov: 32.7% Dec: 38.5% Jan: 31.7% Feb: 32.5% Mar: 47.7% Apr: 27.3% maybe Butler can maintain 36% on 6 or so attempts from 3 here
