Will Daryl Morey repeat the mistakes by letting players walk in free agency?

No worries.

 

Morey misread the market, which is a rare thing for him. Or more precisely, everyone misread the market, then it changed. But DM's smarter than the others and still didn't get a good read on it.

 

yup i have a tipjar bet with @bulkatron thats looking good for the site

 

I wonder what Nick Johnson is up to right now.

 

We made CP3 whole after he sacrificed a year of salary with the opt-in-and-trade. I can't speak to Butler's mindset (don't really think you can either), but we've shown that we can be trusted here. If Butler knows he'll get his money eventually to play in a iso-heavy system that he prefers, I think he'd heavily consider it.

We were willing to trade for Butler earlier this year, so Tillman had to have been on board with paying up to keep a core 4 of Harden-Paul-Butler-Capela. It would be very expensive, but that is such a sick core to build around. All fit perfectly in our offense and 3 of them are elite on the defensive end. Worth the risk imo.

Philly is most likely willing to pay up to maintain that core, but if they flame out early in the playoffs, they'd have to re-evaluate things a bit. Plus, would Butler want to stay there?

 

There was no mistake. Signing Ariza to a $16M+ a year contract would have hamstrung the team for years to come. LMAM has played in 4 games this season for a total of just over 60 minutes.

If the Rockets had signed both of these guys and tied up $20M+ in salary (and even more in Lux Tax) we fail to get under the Lux Tax cap this season and we'd be screwed next year in terms of the ability to add impact players.

And there is no way the Rockets hit 70 wins this year even if they did sign Ariza / LMAM because the same injuries to CP3, Gordon, Capela (and LMAM) would have prevented that.

Morey has worked the market masterfully both this year and last. He replaced all of Ariza / LMAM's production with minimum contracts guys (Faried, Rivers) and players on more affordable deals (Shumpert) while getting the team under the cap. He will attempt to retain all three next year, but he won't match insane offers. If Fareid gets a 3 year, 15M a year offer, he's gone.

If Fareid will sign a Tucker like agreement he will stay. It's all about the economics of the deal - Morey isn't going to make the mistake of over paying a role player again (I'm looking at you Ryan Anderson) and destroying his financial flexibility. Every contract has to be a value contract except if he's bringing in a Top 20 player like CP3.

 

Who knows. Personally I doubt it. The thing about iso heavy offense is, you have a limit on how many players can dominate the ball (think back to when iso was popular and teams constantly made this roster building mistake). Does Butler want to have to be 3rd in usage on a team? If he bolts, it will likely be because of a lack of shots.

Hopefully I'm wrong. That core would be good enough to surround with minimum players. I'd take a risk on the injuries since we're all-in with Paul anyway.

 

and still has played since october and counting. his games played to $ ratio is impressive though

 

Probably never got surgery on that shoulder too.

 

Here you go again saying what's likely to happen with Rivers and Faried when you have no clue.

Why are you so hellbent on a creating a doom and gloom scenario?

I can easily see where Faried would sign for the MLE, no other team plays like us or has 2 great playmakers like Houston does.

I also don't see a team who is looking for a guy who is undersized at the 5 and is questionable as a perimeter player, remember he was just traded for salary cap relief and bought out this year.

That does not scream to be a high demand player to me you can get that type of player much younger and cheaper.

Now if he continues to shoot well from 3 all bets are off.

Rivers production can be replaced with a minimum vet guy IMO as well as an upgrade in Shumpert.

You also forget that these guys could be replaced the same we got them and players will see how we raised their stocks which will make us appealing.I

But really why do you have to act like it's a near lock we lose everybody?

 

I think there's pretty much no scenario where we can keep Faried and Rivers. We only have the tax payer MLE to work with. The best case scenario would be that Shumpert completely out plays Rivers and can be that 4th guard and SF. Then, we try to sell Faried on a large portion of the MLE. The key for Morey isn't to not sign players it's that he will only sign what he thinks are good contracts. He won't overpay, even if it limits us. If you look at our roster, the worst contract is for the guy that just dominated against the Warriors in a win

 

We heard the same criticism when Paul signed up - not enough shots, how will they co-exist, etc. We give the ball to whoever can attack a mismatch, which Butler is more than capable of doing. He complained specifically about Philly's motion offense, which no one would mistake our offense for haha.

Plus, Butler would be replacing Gordon, who gets 14.5 shots per game.

 

Rivers is better than Johnson and Ellington would not be in the rotation regularly.

And you would still have a guy making 19 million who is at best your 4th best guard how is that a good deal?

You would be trading Anderson for a marginal rotation pieces, Shumpert is worth more than that and a 1st.

 

theres huge difference between adding a cp3 to a lone harden. and then adding a butler to an already cp3/harden combo. gordon gets a good portion of his shots by catch and shoot. Is butler going to be just fine with that or does he make it an issue like hes done previously because he thinks hes too much of an alpha

 

Load management, my friend. CP would be more than willing to cede touches in the regular season so that he can be spry for the playoffs. I place a lot of faith in Harden and CP's ability to recruit players of all backgrounds (see Luc, Tucker, Manimal, Rivers, Reddick)

 

I agree with this totally, I think Rivers can be replaced rather easily.

I would not be surprised to see Rivers sign for the MLE to play a full year in Dantoni's system so he can flourish any get that he,t big deal.

I could see them selling him on being the 6th man to replace Gordon who would be moved.

 

easy to say. absolutely a process in doing so. we've seen and gone down this road before on what happens to guys that need the ball and dont exactly fit. Im not at all worried about guys like cp3 and harden as far as unselfishness. thats not even a question

 

I can think of two instances where it didn't work:
Dwight because he was actually terrible in isolation but still wanted touches
Melo because he was a sieve on defense

Butler is elite in isolation and a defensive monster. Harden and Paul respect his game and with Gordon out of the way, Butler would get his touches. Well, that would be the pitch that Harden/Paul would make to him.

 

thinly-disguised bash Morey thread

 

cautious for various reasons but I don't really seen butler here regardless in the end. too many things shift me towards going somewhere else