The Case for Thaddeus Young

This is unfortunately true. For the moment, he is at least pretending to be interested. Furthermore, waitng until the trade deadline will see his value decrease further.

Need to strike while the iron is still lukewarm.

 

Just like he did in Boston with Paul Pierce????... The ball is in Hardens hands at the end of games either way. He's still the best offensive threat, and the pressure is on him to make a shot.

Rondo does not have the offensive abilities to command respect from the defense late in games. Teams pack the paint and dare him to shoot every time just like they've done over the course of his career.

People here seem to have never watched a Celtics game since 2007 or are just very confused with what Rondo brings.

Rondo would upgrade this team with his on the ball defense, his passing abilities (especially in transition), his quarterbacking the offense by moving the ball & directing traffic in the half-court, and he hopefully would cut down the turnover rate slightly (even though they still will be a high turnover team if everyone is sharing the ball).

Rondo has never really been a great offensive threat so putting him and Howard in the pick and roll means the defense will force Rondo to finish in traffic. He's also a bad free throw shooter, and cannot shoot from the outside. If he's not spacing the floor for Harden and Howard, I have no idea why people think he's automatically going to make life easier for them when he's causing the defense to pack the paint.

Would I accept him in a trade for the Rockets expendable pieces??... sure, but do I think the experiment would automatically reap huge rewards... no way.

 

I think we are better slightly with added depth, but still not good enough yet to break into that top tier of contending teams. The depth helps, but the team is still very vulnerable to taking a large step back if they sustain a major injury to one of the stars. I think that's really the reasons why fans and probably the front office really would like a 3rd player who can play at an all-star level at any point if needed.

Fans here are getting a little ahead of themselves with the LaMarcus Aldridge & Kevin Love talk, but I think its very important to keep in mind that the Summer of 2015 is important for quite a few reasons.

A. Its the year before Dwight can opt out and leave in free agency (if he's not happy with the results, thus far he might force a trade the following year)
B. Parsons will be an unrestricted free agent (assuming they opt for this)
C. They will have a good amount of cap space if not close to max cap space
D. Love and LMA are just 2 players that are free agents that Summer.

Any good NBA front office (or business for that matter) thinks years in advance. If you look back at where Orlando went wrong with Dwight, alot of it had to do with contract management when those contracts didn't concur with their star's free agency timeline. Had the Magic had their financial situation based around when Dwight would head to free agency, they could have put themselves in a situation to present Dwight a way to bring in another star player around him instead of asking him to stay with the same sub-par surrounding unit & tread mediocrity.

The Summer of 2015 represents the Rockets contingency plan if for some reason they struggle in the playoffs these first two years, and they fear their core players might go elsewhere if more help is needed.

Back to the discussion about current depth & whether the roster is a contender - While I think you are right that the minutes Harden/Howard/Parsons are logging now is a concern, adding depth & good surrounding players to the core group should be done in conjunction with what your long term plan, and should not impact it in any way.

The truth is, they might have to sacrifice a few wins right now with that depth not being ideal in order to stay in line with their long term plan. However I dont think those 2 or 3 wins a year really make that big of a difference, and a player like Thad Young or Ilyasova probably wont make the team that much better in the playoffs.

Bringing in Thad Young on his contract that ends a year or two after the Summer of 2015, impacts that long-term plan. Even if he adds depth, and helps the team win a few more games potentially, it doesn't necessarily mean that he makes this team good enough to justify locking up the team financially.

I think ideally, the Rockets will look to players like Paul Milsap, or Luol Deng first,who have short term deals, to bring that depth as opposed to someone like Young, Ilyasova, or Ryan Anderson who stretch beyond that breaking point.

Of course I am taking an educated guess about their long-term plans, but I do believe this is what they are intending to plan for while trying to win now at the same time.

 

I think you're missing the point, yes the Rox looks like a contender on paper, but that doesn't have anything to do with Young. Take Young away from the lineup above and I don't think it loses a lot of championship caliber potential. As I said before Young isn't a difference maker like Love or LMA, he won't bring anything new to the table that we don't already have.

8M for a backup is way too much money if he's not a center like Asik. Speaking of Asik what'll we do with the backup C spot? If we trade for Young you'll be putting all your eggs in the DH basket and hoping he doesn't get any injury whatsoever. A sprained ankle will mostly likely derail our season and cause DH to retain early from any injury, something which might lead to him having a very short and injury-riddled career.