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Official Houston Rockets Thread: Phase 2 on hold


Pastor Dillon

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1 hour ago, Texansfan713 said:

I think we win tonight.  Rockets always have that one playoff road win where people expect they lose but they end up winning.  Even if we lose tonight I am not panicking.  Just have to win 2 home games if that's the case. 

I'M 30% in a panic. I never expected a sweep, because the Wolves are probably the 3rd or 4th best team in the conference. I figured it might take 6 games, but the way we have played has me in panic mode. We would get swept by the thunder and warriors playing this way. I could see tonight go either way. We could come in an finally light it up, or we could come out and the struggles continue and we get beat bad. I just dont have a clue what will happen. 

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Report on Mbah A moute is mixed. Hes going to get cleared next week, which means he will be back for most of the 2nd round, 3rd round and 4th round, however long we are in the playoffs, but there are two things ive read

1. Hes at major risk for reinjury
2. Hes going to need shoulder surgery in the off season

this brings us two important things for us. 1. will he be able to return to hitting 36% from 3 after shoulder surgery and 2. does this mean we can easily bring him back on a bet minimum deal?

No matter what happens this off season with our roster, being able to have guys like Mbah A Moute and Green return to our bench on vet minimum deals would be huge for us, especially if we try to gut the roster to bring in a super star. 

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I agree with the slander that our crowd are usually late arriving and not loud but I seriously believe if we face GS next round every home game will be crazy and loud.  Loudest playoff game I've gone to is game 7 vs the Clippers a few seasons ago.  Not making an excuse but playing teams like the Wolves and Jazz don't get the crowd into games.  Heck I find myself not being loud and rowdy when I went to game 1 against both teams.  I was still loud but not how I will be when we face GS.  My pet peeve are the people at the game who think they are too good to put on the playoff shirts. 

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Great season by our guys. Very disappointed that we didnt get to see CP3 in the final 2 games, and I think we would have won game 7 if we had him. I dont think we are as good as the warriors, but we definitely wanted it more. I think this team still has a 2-3 year window to win a championship, before we rebrand in the final years of Harden's career. Its so disappointing that we were so close to getting that one ring for CP3, Harden, Joe JOhnson and Mike Dantoni, 4  guys who deserve one. 

Looking ahead, I think we bring back most of the same team next year and once again chase that 1 seed. We should be even that much hungrier. CP3 can miss  his 20 games, and thats fine,  fact we should rest him some if he is healthy. Harden will finally have the MVP monkey off his back, and while he didnt light it up, his performance without CP3, scoring 32 both games will keep him from hearing most of the critics all off season. Ariza, Moute, green, Johnson, Capela will probably all  be back. I think we trade Ryan ANderson for a 1st or maybe 1 1st, a 2nd and a young guy. We need the savings. 

We will have about 5 million per year to give someone with the MLE. I think we need another guard/Wing. If we strike out on trading Anderson to free up space, we might be able to move him for a guy that would fit our team better. Like Give Brooklyn a 1st and Anderson for Demmare Carol. Saves us about  6 million per year, which adds up when we are in the tax. Hes much more trade able the next off season if need be, and he is what we need on this team. 

but worst case, this will be our roster next year

CP3 / Johnson
Harden / Gordon /
Ariza / Green
Tucker / Mbah A Moute
Capela / Nene

plus whoever we can give 5 million to, and whatever big man wants to ring chase on a vet minimum

JJ Reddick on a 3 year 15 million deal would be a dream come true. I dont think that gets him though. Still having 3 years at his age, might just do it. His shooting would add a huge plus for our team. Its clear we need a 40% 3 point shooting guy off our bench to turn to when the 3s arent falling. we also need a 4th guard, and Reddick is not a lazy defender. 

We will be right there reading rumors and all that wondering if we can get a 3rd star, but i think it will be a quiet summer.

My best case for us, is trading away most of the roster, signing CP3 and Paul George to 25 million per year deals and keeping Tucker. it could work out for us to have a roster that looks like this:

CP3 / JOhnson
Harden / Green
PG / Ariza
Tucker / Moute
Capela

thats really an 8 man playoff rotation with Johnson and a vet min guy backing up capela. I think Johnson can play 60 games about 12 minutes a game next year before he retires. 

 

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39 minutes ago, Pastor Dillon said:

I think we trade Ryan ANderson for a 1st or maybe 1 1st, a 2nd and a young guy. We need the savings. 

I think you're vastly overestimating Anderson's value. With that albatross of a contract, you're not likely to get anything useful for him. You may even have to give something up to dump him.

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4 hours ago, jrry32 said:

I think you're vastly overestimating Anderson's value. With that albatross of a contract, you're not likely to get anything useful for him. You may even have to give something up to dump him.

Yeah, I assume Houston will have to give away assets to get rid of him. No way they're getting anything useful in return.

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On 5/29/2018 at 12:13 AM, jrry32 said:

I think you're vastly overestimating Anderson's value. With that albatross of a contract, you're not likely to get anything useful for him. You may even have to give something up to dump him.

When I said "Trade him for" I was meaning the price that we will pay to trade him. We might be able to trade him WITH a 1st, 2nd and a young guy. I know we arent getting anything for him.

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1 minute ago, Pastor Dillon said:

When I said "Trade him for" I was meaning the price that we will pay to trade him. We might be able to trade him WITH a 1st, 2nd and a young guy. I know we arent getting anything for him.

Gotcha. I misunderstood you.

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1 minute ago, jrry32 said:

Gotcha. I misunderstood you.

i wrote that confusingly, I just assume everyone knows that Rockets fans aren't that big of homers haha

If we strike out on free agents, I suspect we keep Anderson unless its cheap to off load him. He becomes more valuable next off season when hes got a 20 million expiring deal. But I would also look to trade him for another bad contract of the same length that might be a better fit. Like a Demarre Carroll. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's some options about what we can do with Ryan Anderson

1. we try and shed the salary and eat the draft picks required. There are a few teams that he would fit with that we can work with. Portland and Milwaukee. We could make 3 or 4 teams deals with either of them that look something like this:

Portland gets Anderson
3rd team gets Leonard
4th team gets Harkless

We probably have to give up a 1st to portland as well as picks to the 3rd team that gets Leonard. this was the rumored trade we had worked out in the melo drama, but Portland wanted 2 1st round picks. who knows if that is true. 

Mikwaukee gets Anderson
3rd team gets Henson
4th team gets Delly
once again we have to part with draft picks to make this happen. 

 

option #2 We try and make a trade that helps us, by taking on a bad contract and better fit. Some options:

Demarre Carrol. He makes about 5 million less than Anderson, so we would have to pay something to make this happen, perhaps a 1st round pick. It really depends on if the nets feel like they can compete this year, or if they finally want to tank next year and get their own pick. 

Kent Bazemore. he makes about 2 million a year less, same amount of time on his deal. he is a great fit for us, and the Hawks are needing to tank anyway

Tim Hardaway Jr. This one would basically require us the pay 2 first round picks to someone to take Noah, ridding the Knicks of a lot of salary. Once again this depends on whether they like what they got with Hardaway

Nic Batum. The Hornets could save a ton of money by trading him for Anderson. its a lot to take on, but Batum would be a much better fit in our system

Delly & Henson. we could try and do a straight up trade with the bucks. They dont take on any more money, but we give them some draft assets. Delly and Henson would both be solid bench players for us. I dont know how they still feel about henson. 

Any of these deals might require us to throw in 1 or 2 first round picks

but bottom line is this: If we are going to compete with the warriors next year, we need to move him and replace him with someone else in the rotation. Heck, just paying someone to take him no matter the cost will be fine with me at this point. he's not Deng or Noah bad. He can still hit 40% from 3 and get a team 12 points and 5 rebounds a night and he is a great lockerroom guy. We just need to add another 2/3/4 type player who can defend and shoot 3s. 

we were really close to beating the warriors, who knows what happens if CP3 is healthy. We had no depth in that series. Green and Gordon were our entire bench. A healthy Mbah A Moute would have been a huge difference, so if we can flip Anderson for someone even on that level, we will be much better off. Who needs 1st round picks anyway?

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Another off season post. If we bring back our own guys, and do nothing else, we will still be able to add some guys via MLE and vet min deals. we have a number of options

Give the MLE to Mbah A  Moute or Gerald Green to bring them back
 

here are some other guys we might be able to get in the 5 million per range or vet minimum

Aaron Afflalo: He probably wants to play for a contender, and I dont see him having a huge market. He is a career .386 3 point shooter and has hit over 40% 6 times in his career. Hes only going to be 33 this upcoming season, so a 1 year min deal would be a good get for him. I wouldnt give him much more at this point

Wayne Ellington: He will cost the full MLE, but he would be a solid wing off the bench. He is a career 38% 3 point shooter, and he hit .392 on over 7 attempts this year, which is exactly what we need on our bench. He is not a + defender though, so he could struggle a little. 

Will Barton: I think he will command about twice what we can offer, but if the market cools on him, he might be a good find. Moute signing for the vet min was a shock last year, so Barton signing for 5 million could happen. I think hes going to get too much though

Danny Green: Same with Barton. I dont see Green turning down a 10 million player option to sign with us for 5, but maybe he would want a 4 year deal worth over 20 million as opposed his his 1/10 deal, but i doubt it. 

Anthony Toliver: I dont know the market on him either, but he can play the SF/PF role in our system. He is a proven 3 point shooter, and will be 33 this season. If he doesnt have a market, he might be a possible add. He is a decent defender. He might be a 2-3 million 1 year signing type guy. I wouldnt mind him being our 9th or 10th man on the bench this year. 

Raymond Felton, Mario Chalmers, Jammer Nelson:These guys I would look as solely as a 3rd PG to play 10-12 minutes per game on nights that one of CP3/Harden/Gordon are hurt. Maybe someone will give them more than a vet min, but thats all I would give any of them. 

Ersan Ilyasova: If there is not a market for him, I would give him a min deal to sit on our bench and play the Anderson role at 10% of the cost. He played well for the 76ers though so i suspect they give him something.

Lucas Nogueira: I dont know this guys value either, but we need a back up big. Black will not be back and Nene is getting to the old and worthless stage. 

 

Just a couple guys to watch for. I suspect that we will have a roster that looks something like this before filling in the peices:

PG: CP3
SG: Harden / Gordon
SF: Ariza
PF: Tucker / Anderson / Zhou
C: Capela / Nene / Onuaku

Plus we might have a 2nd round pick and we have Isaiah Hartenstein playing in the G-League, who i hope we keep there. Zhou and Onuaku can both be replaced. At this point if Onuaku cant be our 3rd big, hes a waste of space anyways. 

but we will add 2 guys on two way deals. but that still leaves us with at least 3 - 5 empty roster spots. Green and Mbah A Moute will be in the mix to bring back, so will Joe Johnson, who can play 8 minutes at PG in a pinch, but would mainly be an end of the roster guy. 

so the best I can tell, we probably bring back the same main rotation plus 2 guys, maybe without Moute or Green. I dont see us losing Ariza, especially if we dont sign anyone big. We will offer him 3/30 and no one else will come close to that. I could see us with a rotation of:

CP3 / Gordon
Harden / Ellington / Green
Ariza / Moute
Tucker / Tolliver
Capela / Nene

We would be in the tax for the 1st time in a while, but we have a 2-3 year window with that team to compete with the warriors and maybe get threw them for a chance at a ring. We would be about 15 million in the tax if we are able to trade Andersons contract. If we cant trade him, i suspect we try to buy him out or waive him with the stretch. The problem  with the stretch is that we owe him 8 million for the next 5 years. Surely we can offer 2 1st round picks and at least flip Anderson for someone making 8-12 million per year that can actually play for us. No sense in losing 8 million per year on Anderson when we can get something of value for that 8 million. Heck at this point Mozgov or Noah would at least solve out back up Center problem for the price that Anderson is getting paid. 

we could just role with him in the season and use the nights he gets hot shooting 3s, and just be prepared to shut him down in the post season. 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Current Depth Chart:

PG: CP3 / Melton / Jackson
SG: Harden / Gordon
SF: Tucker / Green
PF: Anderson
C: Nene / Onuaku / Zhou

Of course Capela will be in the mix, unless we go all hardball on him, and he decides to hold out or something. Bottom line is that hes not getting an offer sheet anywhere, so he will have to either play for 4 million this year or take whatever we are offering. I suspect our offer is in the 4/80 range, which would be a good get for us, and honestly if he plays for 4 million this year and then signs with someone else for 100 million next year, hes not really making much more money, and he wouldnt see it for another 4 years anyway. 

But if he does sign the QO, we can stretch Anderson, get way under the Tax line, and be able to offer that 8 million MLE. There really isnt anyone left that is worth that, except maybe Evans. We could though sign 2 guys to 4 million deals. 

This biggest news of this, it keeps us away from repeater taxes longer. 

The down side to this, as terrible a contract as Anderson is on, hes basically our starting PF right now. And we know with him starting PF, we can be the 3 seed, even without CP3, so we would have to weigh that pretty heavily. 

 

of course if Capela plays for the QO, more than likely we lose him in Free Agency next year, but perhaps we could convince Jordan to come on a huge discount if that were to happen. 

I am not in favor of stretching Anderson unless we can use that savings to do something of value. Especially when his deal becomes much more tradable in its final year. I wouldnt want to be stuck with 8 million per season for the next 5 years. 

I am surprised the Magic didnt go this route with Gordon, they gave him a ton of money when there was no market for him. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

i really like the James Ennis signing. Hes not as good a defender as Ariza, but he has shown flashes of ability. Especially when he locked down James Harden. I was at that game, it was a thing of beauty. Gives us a legit option at replacing Ariza in our line up. 

as of today the depth chart looks like this:

CP3 / MCW
Harden / Gordon
Ennis / Green
Tucker / Anderson
Capela / Nene

a little step down from last year, but I like having better depth at PG behind harden and cp3. 

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