Official Houston Rockets Thread: Phase 2 on hold

[Pastor Dillon]

Game 5 was great to watch, even without Gordon hitting 3s or Westbrook hitting anything we won big. 
 

it’s clear that we are better than the thunder. It’s also clear that the thunder can still win game 6 because our style can cost us games. 
 

hopefully Westbrook knocks off the rust and we win tonight and go into the lakers series with him at full speed. 

[Pastor Dillon]

People are seriously suggesting blowing it up this off season and selling harden. 
 

I am not onboard with that, though I would trade Westbrook. 
 

first on Westbrook,

if we trade him to a team like the Knicks and we don’t have to take back salary beyond this upcoming season, we can create max room for a big market in 2021. 
 

secondly, I don’t see losing Westbrook as hurting our team that much, assuming we can replace him with some decent talent. Again going to a Knicks trade, we could easily come out 10-15 million ahead cap wise, which gives us the ability to use the full 9 million MLE. We can get a decent player with that. 
 

now as for why to not blow it up this season, we have a pick swap in place with OKC. Let’s not give them a good pick. 
 

instead if we just can’t do anything in 2021, 2022 is the perfect time for a full on tank. The rockets own their on 2022, 2023 picks outright. A two year tank could result in two high picks plus any assets we can get for harden. 
2024 pick is top 4 protected
2025 pick is top 10 protected
2026 pick is top 4 protected

so while we did sell the farm, we still have some eggs in our own basket. We don’t have trade chips, but we do have the ability to get really bad and still get our picks. 
the beauty is that because we went out so far on those picks, if they don’t convey, we don’t owe OKC crap. 
 

let’s run it back with a new coach, hopefully a real offensive system and let’s see what happens. 

[Pastor Dillon]

Here’s my list of targets for this off season:

resign Jeff Green to a 1/1 vet minimum deal. This should be doable. He thrived as our bench center and played a little point center. He’s got another run left in him. I don’t see teams beating down his door. 
 

sign Noel using the MLE. I’d be willing to offer him the full amount for 3 years. Comes to a 3/17 million deal but I would try and get him cheaper. I believe the MLE requires a 3 year deal but I’m not sure about that. 
 

if we are willing to pay the tax, I’d resign Austin Rivers. We have bird rights on him so we could resign him but I doubt we offer him more than the minimum and he’s not gonna take that. 
 

Reggie Jackson is another guy I’d gauge the market on. Seems like he should be able to get a solid deal from someone but if not, I’d give him either the MLE if we don’t use it on Noel or a vet minimum deal for a year. 
 

It’s hard to judge the market for guys this season. There’s a few guys that would fit us but probably out of our price range 

Courtney Lee
Solomon Hill
Etwuan Moore
Aron Baynes
Wilson Chandler 
kyle Korver 

I don’t  expect any trades so our roster already looks like this 

Harden/Clemons
westbrook/Mclemore
gordon/Nwaba
covington/House
tucker

Apparently we are really high on Nwaba and think he can be a 3 and D rotation guy for us. 
 

we really just need a 4th ball handler for when Westbrook and Gordon are out. 

we also need a legit center. I would consider playing a center like Noel for every minute that Westbrook is on the bench. Then we play him situationally with Westbrook for defensive purposes. We just can’t play them together because of floor spacing. 
 

im all I’m on Noel this off season. I think we can rehab his work ethic and his energy and he can be a difference maker for us. 

[Pastor Dillon]

Idk what’s gonna happen. It doesn’t appear that Westbrook has any kind of market. It also doesn’t appear that harden has a superstar market. So my guess is that both guys remain. We control our own 2021 1st round pick, and are likely to get the Blazers 2021 1st and have a really outside shot at the Pistons 1st. so my assumption is we will tank next year and blow stuff up. 
 

so looking at the current roster, which is hard capped, this is what we are looking at 

Westbrook/clemons
harden/McLemore/Tate 
gordon/Nwaba/Brown
tucker/House/Martin Jr
Wood/Cousins/Bruno 

2 way deals with Mason Jones and Kenny Wooten 

definitely a playoff team unless they are just really disinterested. 
 

Wood is a wildcard because no one really knows how good he is. He had a 15 game stretch last year that made him 41 million dollars. If we get that guy, we could be a top 4 team 

there’s also cousins who is on a camp invite basically. If he’s got any juice left, he could be a really nice addition to the roster.

we did make some “swing for the fence” signings. Jae’Sean Tate, Bruno, Martin Jr and Mason Jones all have upside but probably don’t offer anything to a playoff team. I like though that we swung on 4 young guys and maybe we hit on one. 
 

Nwaba is a guy that the previous leadership were really high on. They think he can be a solid 3&D guy. We will see if he can come off that injury or not. 
 

overall, unless we blow things up, I think we can finish somewhere around 50-22 to 45-27, which I assume will put us 4-6. This season you want to avoid 7-10 for sure. 
 

I think Harden will see his numbers dip big time under Silas as he adds more of a system and less playground ball. I think he does something in the neighborhood of 28/5/5

[Texansfan713]

@Pastor Dillonyou should change the thread title to "superstar needed"

[Pastor Dillon]

3 hours ago, Texansfan713 said:

@Pastor Dillonyou should change the thread title to "superstar needed"

I have hope that we will still keep Harden, but its not looking good. Hopefully wall can get back to somewhat of his form, and hopefully Wood is as good as people think he could be. We could be decent next year if thats the case, especially if we get 3 or 4 guys from the nets who can play. We could have a really deep team, not gonna win anything, but we will be in that 7-10 play in situation. we could have a depth chart like this:

Wall/Dinwiddie
Gordon/Mclemore
Levert/Prince
Tucker/House
Wood/Cousins 

that group can compete, play D and shoot pretty good. Theres no need to try and go full tank this upcoming year, save that for next year. 

[Pastor Dillon]

It’s just pre season so you can’t put much stock in it but both Wall and Cousins have looked like they can still be really solid NBA players again. We can be really good if we can get harden to buy in. Just convince the guy we want one more year and then we will trade him if it’s what he wants. 
 

cousins probably can’t play 30 minutes a night anymore but we only need him for 15-20. 
 

I am looking forward to seeing Wood on Tuesday night. If he’s anything like the 20/10 player we saw for a few weeks last year, I am really excited about this team. 

[Pastor Dillon]

Rockets have been on a roll and have a very easy schedule for the foreseeable future. I think we can make a run at the 6 seed if we stay healthy. I like what we have done. We’ve got those 4 1sts from the harden trade, we’ve got our own 1sts in 2022, 2023. We’ve got firsts this year from Portland and Miami(probably) and we’ve got a future pistons and future wizards pick coming at some point. 
 

I like the young guys we have too in wood, Tate, Jones and now Porter jr. 

I am torn on possibly trading Eric Gordon, PJ Tucker and Victor Oladipo and fully embracing a tank vs resigning Oladipo and going the Boston Celtics route of trying to rebuild while making the playoffs every year. 
 

I guess we just see where we stand at the deadline. If we think we can get a playoff spot, we go for it, if not we try and trade those guys 

either way, it would appear that wall/Wood/Tate will be starters for the long term. 

[Texansfan713]

Stone needs to be fired ASAP! @Pastor Dillon

[Pastor Dillon]

17 hours ago, Texansfan713 said:

Stone needs to be fired ASAP! @Pastor Dillon

I think that’s a bit harsh. He’s done a pretty good job of restocking the shelves with young talent considering the mess he inherited. We have Wood signed for pennies on the dollar. He’s a legit 25/10 threat every night and is just 25. Tate looks like a PJ Tucker type glue guy who is also only 25. KJ Martin and Kevin Porter Jr are both 20 year olds with great potentially, especially Porter, he has all star potential. 
 

stone also inherited a team that had basically no draft capitol, now we have the 2nd most of any team over the next 7 years. This year we really need to suck so that we get our own 1st in the top 4. There’s 5 legit players in this draft and we really need one of them. Either way, we are getting 3 1st round picks in the upcoming draft. We also control the nets draft for the next 7 years. People are saying that it’s gonna be late 1sts, and maybe that’s true but I highly doubt the nets don’t fall off a cliff in 4-5 years and give us a couple lotto picks on the back end. 
 

now to address the Oladipo situation, which I’m sure was the final straw for you, it’s basically giving him away. But he obviously had ZERO value. He made it very clear that he was going to sign with the heat this off season. No one wanted to give up anything to rent him when he’s not even healthy. At least we got control of Miami’s draft next year. They are built on often injuried stars so it’s possible they could have a down year. Now we could have just got LeVert, but LeVert has just as bad of injury problems as Oladipo, if not worse, and has never come close to playing a full season. 
 

cap wise, stone got a team that was destined to pay the tax for years and now we should have 20+ million to spend in free agency next year. 
 

now I don’t know who made the choice to hire Silas but he’s definitely in over his head and has been from day 1. He will probably get a free pass because of Covid, injuries and all the stars wanting to leave but Silas hasn’t done a good job despite all that. 
 

im excited about the future of the team. We will have a starting 5 of Wood/Tate/House/Porter/Wall with a bench that has Gordon and Martin, plus hopefully a top 4 pick and 20 million to spend, which can become max room if we make some trades. 

[Pastor Dillon]

Time to access where we are at. We’ve had about as good a rebuilding year as a team can have. We’ve discovered 4 guys that are young and have serious potential. Wood, Porter, Tate, and Martin Jr. all have a place in our future. We were also able to secure the worst record which maximizes our odds in the lotto, worst we can do is 5th(which would send our pick to the thunder). The good news is that there are 4 good players in this draft so anywhere in the top 4 would be amazing. 
 

we also appear to have the blazers pick nearly wrapped up as it’s only lotto protected. We have a pick swap with our 2nd and the Bucks first so maybe the bucks get bounced early. So regardless of where they are at, we should have 3 1sts this year. 
 

moving forward we have quite a few picks, even though we’ve traded some of our own. 
 

2022 - we get the two better picks of Us, Miami, and Brooklyn 

2023 - Houston’s 1st rounder, Bucks 1st rounder (unprotected I believe), wizards 1st rounder (lotto protected)

2024 - Nets 1st round pick, (our 1st goes to the thunder unless it’s top 4)

2025 - 3 team pick swap with OKC and Nets where we get the 2nd best pick. Our pick is top 10 protected. 
 

2026 - Nets 1st (our pick goes to OKC top 4 protected)

2027 - pick swap with Nets 

we also have a pistons 1st round pick that is pretty heavily protected but in 2027 it’s jus top 9 protected   
 

I think at some point the Pistons might release those protections because they can’t trade a 1st round pick to anyone for the next 6 years because of them  

 

so if a deal comes around for a star, we’ve got loads of picks and young talent to trade. 
 

we need to find a home for Wall and Gordon to truly embrace the youth movement 

[Texansfan713]

I think you need to update the title @Pastor DillonLOL.

Looks like we are on our way to getting a star!

 

2nd pick, I am leaning more towards Jalen Green over Mobley but I wouldnt be mad if Mobley the pick. I feel like we can get a good defensive big with one of our late 1sts.  I'm high on Usman Garuba.  Charles Bassey wouldnt be a bad pick either. So would Isaiah Jackson and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl. Bassey is the perfect fit next to Wood with his ability to play both the 4 and 5.  I dont think the guards around that range are good enough to be a difference maker for us. 

Edited June 24, 2021 by Texansfan713

[Pastor Dillon]

On 6/24/2021 at 9:41 AM, Texansfan713 said:

I think you need to update the title @Pastor DillonLOL.

Looks like we are on our way to getting a star!

 

2nd pick, I am leaning more towards Jalen Green over Mobley but I wouldnt be mad if Mobley the pick. I feel like we can get a good defensive big with one of our late 1sts.  I'm high on Usman Garuba.  Charles Bassey wouldnt be a bad pick either. So would Isaiah Jackson and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl. Bassey is the perfect fit next to Wood with his ability to play both the 4 and 5.  I dont think the guards around that range are good enough to be a difference maker for us. 

I want green too. If this playoffs have taught us anything it’s that explosive offensive players can still carry a team, just look at Booker and Trae Young. It’s not the 80s or 2000s, it’s a wing players game right now. We don’t need two Christian woods on the roster. 

[NYRaider]

2 hours ago, Pastor Dillon said:

I want green too. If this playoffs have taught us anything it’s that explosive offensive players can still carry a team, just look at Booker and Trae Young. It’s not the 80s or 2000s, it’s a wing players game right now. We don’t need two Christian woods on the roster. 

Yeah you need guys that can create their own offense in the playoffs now. The 3 best bigs in the league all got sent home in the 2nd round. 

[Texansfan713]