Many of us are very proud of what this team has accomplished but even with DMO and Beverly do we win it all? My biggest concern is that this team might stand still and be content with the current roster because we were definitely able to over achieve this past offseason when there are some major glaring holes on this roster. This upcoming season will show if Les Alexander is the type of owner willing to spend to win us a championship. Who on this team is truly expendable and who is set as part of our core? Whether you are a Dwight fan or a Harden fan, I believe those two players are set in stone. The others might be Ariza, Josh Smith due to his relationship with Dwight, Terry, and Dmo. Do we resign Beverly and Brewer? Who else is here to stay and is expendable. Goldenstate has our number, the Clippers will adjust, Dallas is looking to poach our roster and improve, New Orleans might get better. If we stand still we are done.
Much of that will depend on who is available in the positions we need. I think it's unanimous on terms of positions we need to improve on. But if we can't get players better than we have currently to fill those gaps, then there's not much point making a change - that's unless players leave who are out of contract.
To me it's broken done like this: Definitely Core (Guys We Def Won't Trade) Dwight Harden Guys Who Are More Or Less Core, but would get traded if a deal for a superstar Happens Ariza Motiejuanas (to a lesser extent) Capela (as we saw with Asik, having 48 minutes of rim protection is a beautiful thing, and he'll probably start to really be starting quality as Howard ages out). Guys We Want To Keep For The Right Price Terry (for a min.) Brewer Smith Beverly (who will probably get a big offer and be gone) "Assets" Johnson Dorsey (who won't be traded because of no demand) Papa (Wouldn't be surprised to see him gone before season opener) Jones Prigs Am I forgetting anyone?
Don't forget that you are talking about the Houston Rockets ...I say there is a 99.99% chance that there will be some kind of roster turnover this offseason. Obviously Harden and Dwight are here to stay. I'd be very surprised to see Ariza go - the only way I see this happening is, if we can acquire a guy like LMA, Gasol, etc (but I think it would be possible to acquire anyone of those guys and still keep Ariza) Beverly might be gone, depending on the offer he gets. Anyone of our young PFs could be gone next season. Terry, Brewer, Smith - I'm expecting at least 2/3 to return (Of the 3, Brewer is probably the least likely to return) Now GS beat us a lot this season - I wouldn't say they got our number though (except for Game 3 - which was a Clipper series-like showing), all games were hard fought and could have been won. Games 1-2 it really came down to luck/bad luck, depending on how you look at it..win at least one of those and the series looks completely different (not saying we would have won - but I would have expected 7 Games at least) NOLA will get better of course and will certainly be in playoff contention. LAC - let's see how they do this offseason. They got some decisions to make as regards DeAndre and others. They will most certainly want to keep DeAndre - so other than that there won't be a whole lot of roster tweaking they can do. If the Clippers adjust to the Rockets, who is to say that the Rockets can't counter that with some adjustments of their own? Either way, the Clippers will never be an easy out for the Rockets. Dallas, well I don't think next season is gonna be that much different to the season they had this year (they might be even worse if Monta leaves). I don't think they will be a serious contender, whether they poach our roster or not.
Don't worry. I'm from the past and I came to tell you that Les is indeed the type of owner willing to spend to win.
That sounds about right. But we do need to keep one of either Jones or Smith. Smith I'm hoping, but otherwise we're gonna to draft someone to backup DMo. I don't care about the bottom 9 on the list there. They're ALL VERY replaceable.
