Bottoming Out or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Rebuild

Tanking is dead, that is prolonged sucking in the hopes of nailing a franchise player through the draft.... the new odds have become a tank buster but young draft talent is still concentrated close to the top.

So bottoming out is a 3 season (including this one) duel strategy of trying to get high draft picks and clearing cap space to be predatory if/when the opportunity arises (or the dreaded flexibility).

Blue chip(s)- Woods

Keepers- Nwaba, Tate, Kevin Porter Jr, Kurucs (pick up team option), Sterling Brown, Kenyon Martin Jr, Mason Jones

Movers- Dipo, Gordon, Tucker, House, McLemore, Exum, Cousins



Trade as many of the "movers" as possible at the deadline and let the chips fall for this crazy Covid season. Use the next two seasons (projected ~$88 million in salaries on the books per year) to try and compliment Woods through high draft picks/good draft picks, FA, and/or trade to form a new core. Obviously the length isn't set in stone but is based upon Wood's current contract and our draft pick obligations.

If you are shaking your head at this, then maybe you are thinking WOW or some of the clever acronym is the current answer. I can understand that and I can't really argue my strategy would be any more fruitful, but I just think things are setup for a rebuild.

This is a good website to keep track of Rockets picks this season and beyond

 

Fair. In the context of bottoming out, we can pick up Kurucs $1.8 team option and see what we really have. His off court stuff is what is most concerning to me.

Exum could be a keeper for the right price as I think he fits into the our defensive identity. But also that's an expiring contract.

 

Wall is Wall..... pretty set in stone as we will either need to attach a pick to hurry up and move him or wait it out and hope his $47 mil expiring nets us something.

We need bodies to fill out a 15 man roster so we will cycle through a lot players like Kurucs.

House isn't getting you something big in return, he can optimistically be attached to Tucker or Dipo.

 

If it's the off court issue I understand.... if it's a picking up a team option because you need to fill out a 15 man roster issue then I don't.

I don't realistically see him being in a trade package, but that could also be hit fate.

 

Bruno has been in the league since 2014 and Kurucs since 2018. Let's keep some context here.

 

That's just silly. You need end of bench guys, especially if you are going to be taking flyers on guys.

 

Because two years and a few games after being traded is enough time to conclusively say he's worthless..... No.

He's not even that important, it's just silly how stubborn some folks are.

 

His rookie season was better than any season Bruno could string together because he actually has some bball IQ. Kurucs is a much better shooter than Bruno and their PER 36 are a lot closer than you think. Kurucs has played a total of 2036 NBA minute vs Caboclo's 1293 NBA minutes.

He's really not all that important to the Rockets, but your player analysis isn't correct. We have him on a contract and can pick up a team option. It's as simple as that from my perspective.