Disagree. If he was in 2022 draft, where do you think he would be going? He got hurt and changed leagues. He played well in high quality leagues and international games. Giving up on him already is weird.
lol if you can trade garuba for a top 55 protected second rounder you should have a job in nba... hes worthless....you have a better chance of getting a 2nd rounder for danuel house or dawid nwaba than for garuba.... greedy rockets tried to work the system and find a way around hard work and it couldn't be done...losing only produces more losing....there is no substitute for winning...and loterry is called that for a reason...
I do not think it is weird as new rookies and new undrafted players are making the roster. Time is ticking away, it is a harsh business as you have to develop 4 to 5 young players on a roster. The competition is enormous. Garuba would get more and more marginalized unless he is stashed overseas. Just face the music one or the other way.
I'm not sure what the rush is on giving up on any young player. If they're on a rookie contract, there's nothing to lose being patient with them while they battle through the rigors of an NBA schedule/regimen.
The more I think about this, the more I'm actually getting convinced that Garuba may have his 3rd year rookie option declined by the Rockets this summer. I don't want it to happen, but the roster crunch is real, and it doesnt' look promising unless he shows a Capela-esque jump in Y2. In an ideal world, you've got a top-5 pick from 2022 demanding 30+ minutes next year, and hopefully, we'll see a big jump in minutes for Sengun as well. You've also still got KJ Martin and Tate who can play 4 in small-ball lineups. If Wood sticks around, Garuba is going to have to really show out in summer league and training camp to beat out these 4-5 guys. It gets even worse the summer after; you are also adding a mid-round pick from the Nets in 2022, a Houston/Brooklyn 2023 pick, and a Milwaukee 2023 pick. Even if you trade both Wood and Gordon, just look at the number of guys who need development minutes over the next two years: Building Blocks Jalen Green Alperen Sengun 2022 Lottery 2023 Lottery 2022 Nets High Tier Role Players Josh Christopher 2023 Bucks Replaceable Role Players KJ Martin Garrison Mathews Daishen Nix Veterans that could leave in FA Christian Wood Eric Gordon Kevin Porter Jr. Jae'Sean Tate Where does Garuba fit in this? Probably somewhere in the Replaceable Role Player tier at best. Unfortunately, the guys there are already outplaying him, and are all on non-guaranteed 2023 contracts. It's not really an open secret that the Rockets' timeline should be to start competing in the 2023-2024 season, when they start having to owe OKC their picks/swaps. With John Wall's contract expiring, and KPJ looking at a below-market cap-hold, the Rockets might be really squeezing to get every dollar under the cap to make competitive offers to FAs. They're going to have to overpay in FA; no one is taking a discount to join the worst team in the league 3 years running, no matter how many Landry's coupons they get during the pitch meeting. I sincerely hope that $1.6M over an empty roster charge wouldn't make a big difference, but it's more than KJ, Mathews, and Nix are slated to make in that year, and you have to commit to Garuba 1 year early. The last aspect I would imagine is that Garuba might want to ask out to return back to Spain if he continues to not find playing time. I'm not exactly sure how his buyout was structured w/ Real Madrid, but if he were to return to them, perhaps they might forgive some of the money he had to pay out (assuming they want him back and were not just showcasing him to secure a transfer fee). If he's not going to make the rotation next year and his future earnings are heavily dependent on securing a second contract, he might want to protect his perceived value by avoiding being waived/salary dumped; the "resign rather than be fired" style of leaving. I'm rooting for the guy. But during the draft, pretty much everyone here was thinking that Josh Christopher was taken as a favor to Jalen Green, was a reach on value, and I don't think many would have batted an eye if he had played the whole year in the G-League and then been waived unceremoniously. We shouldn't really be that upset if it turns out that prediction was correct, just that it was applied to the wrong mid-20s draft pick. You gamble, and most of the times it doesn't work out.
The goal when you have a glut of young talent and are ascending is to package them up for a star veteran. Think like the CP3 or TMAC trades. This is why I wanted Gordon gone. Let KMJ, Jaygup, Garuba eat and get their stats up and then you make a deal like Tate, JC, Wood and a first for a disgruntled Zion or KAT. But that only works when you have guys like Jaygup showing promise which you can’t when they are stuck behind useless vets like Gordon and Schroder.
Looking at the asset list above, even if you dumped Wood, Gordon, Tate and KPJ, you'd have 10! players still on rookie deals ahead of Garuba in 2023-2024, all of whom need minutes and opportunities. One thought I had about the difficulty of trading Gordon and Wood at the deadline was the potential that the Rockets did not want a 2022 pick back because of the current roster crunch. For an acquiring team, trading a 2023 or 2024 pick in-season is rather difficult because of the Stepien rule against trading consecutive picks. Let's use the Cavs for example; if the Rockets had requested a 2023 pick back for Gordon, the Cavs would then be restricted from dealing a first until 2025. They could technically draft someone this summer and deal their rookie rights, but the draft is before free agency starts, meaning that they'd have to pick someone and then hope he would remain attractive enough as an asset in future deals. Instead, by dealing their 2022 pick, the Cavs can include both their 2023 and 2025 picks if they wanted to swing a big deal. Would I make that gamble that I could still get a 2023 FRP for Gordon in the offseason, as opposed to settling for a 2022 FRP at the deadline? Probably not, but when I look at the current roster and see how a current 2021 FRP is getting squeezed already, I suppose I can understand the idea that the Rockets have to start rolling over picks in lieu of maximizing value.
I am sure the FO thought along that line which is not total nonsense. The obvious problem with that reasoning, however, is that you don't have to draft a player with a pick. It is just an asset. You can swing it for something else. If the priority is to get rid of Gordon and Wood for the sake of team development, then you trade them for assets (good assets, of course) and worry about how to use the assets later. If the picks had good values, somebody out there would be willing to pay for them.
We shouldn't get too attached to our picks, most picks in the first round end up being not so useful NBA players anyway, and most are very expendable. We don't have the roster space to keep a bunch of mediocre projects, especially when we have so many more picks coming in in the next two years. Some will be dumped along with vets to make room.
