KPjr - A better than average starting NBA 2, probably more... Amen - I'm glad to be wrong here. Sky's the limit. Jabari - Blossoming before our eyes, deceptively high ceiling. Sengun - Conan : ) Green - We'll see on Jalen. While he may or may not become a "superstar", he'll IMO eventually become a perennial all star one day. Tari - He's on hs way. Cam - Turned 19 yesterday? Joe Johnson While, a "superstar" might not (or might) evolve out of these guys, ALL of them have a good chance of making at least one All Star game. I say this to illustrate the amount of talent the Rockets have accumulated. FVV - I objected vehemently to his deal when I thought it was three years guarranteed. But at 2 yrs...a totally different animal. Even desirable. He can stick pull up/ catch and shoot threes and doesn't commit turnovers. Dillon - Unlike many, I'm okay with this. He's the ultimate 3 & D guy. ALL NBA on defense, while shooting 38% on catch and shoot threes. And, strange as it may sound...could be an important veteran voice, in keeping us fockassed. I realize we had to meet the floor, so we overpaid, but....We REALLY overpaid. That combined with the across the board, mismanagement, has raised the floor, but lowered the ceiling a bit. Perhaps this IS in fact a much needed heavy dose of glue/veteran leadership in the foundation to win games now, while becoming a team, and giving these guys the best chance to grow BTW - What about the Harden trade!?! Tari is a player, and the rest of those picks/swaps are fermenting like fine wine. Unlike Daryl, Stone has had the benefit of a rebuild, where broad strokes come easy..much greater margin for error. We'll see what happens next. The deviil is in the details.
Fire Stone. I'll be the hakeem94 of fire Stone (Silas) 50,000 postings a day. Nothing wrong with Tillman paying up $10 to $15 mil to the league slush fund for not spending enough. Take advantage of next free agency. Tillman threw away $42 mil and $45 mil to Wall for nothing. What's $15mil ?
The FVV deal was pretty solid. 2 year guaranteed is a great pickup for a really depleted free agency pool. the Landale contract isn’t at all bad. But paying 8 mill to him when I’m not sure he’s better than a min guy like Eubanks means it’s likely only going to be used as salary matching in the future. The BroLo miscalculation is a huge colossal miss. Not being able to snag him cost us picks, 4 young guys that we have no clue are good or not, and then forced us to give more to Brooks and Green than was necessary. who were we bidding against to get brooks? Just go like 3 mil over the MLE and you likely have him. Or get rid of the declining salary. Just don’t give the guy a guaranteed 86 million. They could’ve used that extra salary that they were forced to pay Green annd Brooks and taken on the Bullock contract to get another veteran and an unprotected Dallas 2030 pick like San Antonio did.
Yeah but at least he's more photogenic than Morey. When I see the Rockets posting pics of Stone smiling while wearing jeans with fake holes in them, that is my NBA championship.
There were more ramifications to future flexibility for not meeting the floor in the new CBA. I’m to lazy to look it up for you.
That DB contract is absolutely indefensible IMO. Even if we were bidding against other teams, let them have it at that price for that length. I would have literally taken anyone else (or a collection of anyone else) instead of DB at that contract.
Stone has put in his chips. He has made his moves. And now we see. What Stone deserves or what fans will think of him will depend on how all this plays out. Or at least, that is what usually happens. In this case, and it has no more substance than a gut feeling on my part, is that even if expectations are met, whatever those are on the eyes of our glorious owner, Stone will be replaced. Probably not till after the season is over though. Once the team turns the corner, once the team starts winning more, once the Rockets landscape is attractive to GM's wanting to come here, I think Tilman goes after a name GM. If things do go well this coming season, look for who is getting the credit. Whomever that is between Stone/Ime, the other guy is in trouble I think. If things go badly, look who gets the Lions share of the blame. IMO, Stone gets blamed if it goes badly and Ime gets the credit if it goes well. Just my Take.
We did not have the cap space to offer Lopez those amounts after the FVV signing. This was not about Houston lowballing him, he was offered the maximum allowed. Clearly Lopez's preference was to go back to Milwaukee if they offered the same amount. Even if we could offer $30M/yr Milwaukee could have gone that high as well.
We all knew Tilman was on a budget when he hired Stone. He probably won't be the guy to get the Rockets to the next level if they find a franchise player out of this group but he's ok for the next 1-2 years. When and if it comes time that the team is ready to contend, let's hope Tilman is smart enough to pay for someone better.
I feel like Stone shows his inexperience with trading and signing free agents. A lot of signs of panic spending when plan A doesn't work. But drafting has been quite standard with some great pick ups with later first round picks (Sengun, Tari, Cam)
No, you're right. After the trades we cleared up more cap, but Lopez had already agreed to the max cap space we had at the time. He just went back to Milwaukee to match the offer, which they could have down even if the offer was higher. There is no guarantee that we would have gotten him at any amount. We offered Chris Bosh the max and Miami just matched as well.
"You're a nice guy? I don't give a sh*t. Good father? F*ck you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here? Close!"
We need to reserve judgment till after the season ! I’m excited to see this team play .. this team might surprise people with a big leap this year
