Once again, an athletic article with no actual information added. Really doing a terrible job leading up to the deadline. I think Jake Fischer is getting all the good scoops now. As a side note I recommend his book Built to Lose. Incredible insight to the tanking era before Adam Silver ruined the league.
Stuffs will happens if Rockets likes offers, stuffs wonts happens if we donts likes the offers. badda bings badda booms
He expects both Gordon and Wood to be traded? I don't. I mean, I wouldn't be mad if it happened, but I don't think that them both being dealt is the likeliest scenario.
I hope it is. It makes the most sense if you look at our roster. Preferably if we get back guys who are instant waives too (Rubio, Dragic, Tristan Thompson etc) Porter / Augustin / (Nix) / (Wall) Green / Christopher / Brooks Matthews / Nwaba / (Queen) Tate / Martin Sengun / Theis / Garuba Sign a couple of g-leaguers, wait for the draft for happier days.
There is no clear cut favorite this year. So many teams have a chance to make a deep run this year, IMO. It may go down to the wire- but Gordon and Wood are both solid pieces for contending teams. I’d put it at 75% chance they BOTH get traded. Just get fair value, Stone.
I’d say the fact he expects Wood to be traded is information added. That’s a whole different tune from before. A few weeks ago, we were not actively shopping Wood and only listening. Would only trade him if they were “blown away”. EDIT: Never mind. Didn’t realize that wasn’t from Iko.
I think Gordon’s likeliest destination is actually Phoenix. If they really want to give themselves the best chance to win this year and get some separation from other contenders, they need another back court scoring option that can play on both sides of the ball, especially to help take pressure off CP3 and Booker. This is the window, they didn’t get it done last year, they have young talent and draft picks at their disposal, Paul will convince GM and ownership to go out and get Gordon. The Suns being legit contenders would also factor as I’m sure we want to get EG to a contender. Jalen Smith, filler and late 1st, may actually be realistic.
If the Rockets can attract a max free agent after next season, I could see them packaging our young players and picks for a 2nd all star, thus having the 'rebuild' completed. I'm doubtful the team and city have the patience for a drawn out rebuild through the draft.
That was actually a decent interview. For me the news of the interview is that Stone thinks we’ll probably get something done because they are getting a lot more calls than in pervious years. I pretty much take everything he says with a grain of salt, but the most truthful moment of the interview was when he reluctantly said that they would probably be able to get something done as far as trade. Of course he spent the rest of the interview talking about how much they like the team and don’t have to do anything, but that’s to be expected.
tl;dr: went to his Morey bag “We love our roster, always looking to upgrade but we don’t have to do anything.” Hopefully tonight’s game ends a little different than last time these two teams met. Yeah. Fun game but definitely didn’t end the way we would’ve preferred. 2nd go around as you approach a trade deadline. What did you learn about the mechanics of being a GM? What was last year’s trade deadline experience like and how do you learn from it this go around? I learned zero that I didn’t already know. As a team, we’re in a very different spot than we were last year and probably a different spot than any time I’ve been with the Rockets. Our approach will be considerably different than last year. Are the phones quieter or louder? It’s different. We tend to, ever since I’ve been here, we tend to make more phone calls than we get in. One of the nice things is I want to be someone who is approachable. At this point, I know all the GMs really well and they know me really well and so we are getting more inbound calls than we’ve ever gotten since I’ve been with the Rockets. That’s a positive development. We still make a ton of calls. It is different. Last year, we were going to do a couple of things. We absolutely knew we would do a couple of deals. It was “What’s the structure gonna be, what are we gonna get back?” We knew we were sending a couple players out. This year it’s different. We’re really comfortable with our team this year. If you asked me in the summer where we wanted to be in February, we’re really close to where we hoped to be. It’s been a good season in the macro. How we got here, I could never have predicted in a million years with the twists and turns and the inconsistencies that maybe come with youth. We like our roster, we like our players. There’s not something that we just have to do. The result is we’re having a lot of conversations about “Are there things that make sense for us and other teams?” We’re having so many conversations that odds are we’ll do something I suppose but it is very different from last year. You have Daryl in Philadelphia and Monte McNair in Sacramento, guys you’ve worked with. What are those conversations like when you’re trying to figure out is this a good conversation or are they trying to stir something up? We got Sachin in Minnesota and Arturas in Chicago. The danger with those conversations is I end up on the phone for 2 hours talking about our kids. It’s normal. They’re trying to make their team better, I’m trying to make mine better. We talk about our teams, what we’re trying to achieve. It makes it easier to talk to them about multi-team deals. OK, you like this one guy on my roster, I like this one guy on yours or I want this one asset you hold but how can I get that in a non-direct deal? It is rare you have what another team wants and vice versa. It’s more the norm the deal that works for everyone is 3-4 team deals but it’s harder to construct. Easier to have conversations with those guys because I know them so well. The reality is we probably end up talking more just because we end up talking non-basketball things. You mentioned having more conversations. What is something you know now about these conversations that maybe day one you couldn’t wrap your head around? Same answer: none. It sounds like you don’t want this to be the answer but I’m a sophisticated dude. I’ve been negotiating deals for a living since I was 22. This aspect of the job, this is stuff I had a tremendous amount of input in my entire time with the Rockets. Have you had conversations with current players? “Hey, my agent heard this.” or “I go on twitter and hear this.” Again, that’s something I had a decent amount of experience with pre-GM. I’ve always had good relationships with our players. I’ve frequently been the conduit for messaging. It is slightly different being in the GM role. Basically I do the same thing in year’s past. I try and be honest with guys. This job is not one where you’re guaranteed to work in the same building every day for your career. It’s not guaranteed for me, it’s not guaranteed for them. We try to be transparent. This time of year, there is uncertainty. It’s part of the job. Try not to focus on it. If something looks likely, I won’t surprise guys. I didn’t last year, I won’t surprise them this year. It feels like right now that there’s nobody I need to be saying “Hey, it looks like something will happen or is done.” We’re happy with our roster. From the outside looking in, people maybe perceive that we’ll do stuff that maybe we’re not going to do. We want to get better and do the right deals but doing the right deal is very different from doing a deal. Single biggest thing is I try to be a) someone they can talk to and b) will tell them the truth. That’s important to me. It’s a repeat business. You frequently have players you see more than once. A player I traded, I had a great conversation with them a couple days ago because they were in town and we hung out for 20 minutes and talked about their kids. You want this to be something they understand is part of the business but also there is a right way and a wrong way and I try very very hard to do it the right way. Does contract extensions play a role in whether you start kicking the trade winds? In theory it would but our entire roster is on long term deals. We don’t have anyone imminent. We have no one that if we don’t do something with now, we’d lose in the summer. The fact is we have people on deals we like and are comfortable with. In this instance, the answer is no but generally speaking, that can be the case for why you do a transaction. Draft picks are key but sometimes you want live bodies in return. Does that play a factor this go around? We want to get better organically and systematically in such a way we can continue to build year over year over year. That can come in the form of draft picks, that can come in the form of players. We’re open to either. We do like our current construct and we think there should be a decent amount of internal growth. We don’t feel pressure to do deals to acquire draft picks or young players outside the organization. A late first this year doesn’t maybe have the same meaning for us as it did last year and that’s intentional. Some of the deals we’ve done in the past have set us up well so we’ll have multiple picks in multiple drafts. You are constrained by roster spots. We try to map out at least 3 years in advance. It’s easy to map out 2 years, we try to go as far out as 5. It does have some affect. You had the incident a month ago with Kevin Porter Jr. and Christian Wood. People were saying they need to be let go. Thoughts on the handling of the situation and where you are right now with those two players? I think Coach Silas handled it really well. There were things that happened during the course of that day, at halftime, and during the 2nd half. That’s his domain. I don’t mean that to say I don’t know what happened but that’s his. He made the right choices and handled it well. I was and am very supportive of it. I don’t want it to seem like this isn’t his show. It is. In order to be a good coach, everyone has to understand this is his thing. That was his purview. He took the action and organizationally, that’s how we view it and that’s how it happened. … … Although we had issues with two players on the same day, the issues were unrelated. He did a really good job addressing them both. Both have played well since. That’s an indication of the right result. These seasons are really long. It’s a grind. It’s hard. For a group like ours who hasn’t been together before, that’s especially true. There’s going to be ups and there’s going to be downs. We have to learn from all of it, the good times and the bad times. We did. Ultimately it’s Stephen’s job to make sure people are learning the right lessons. He did a really good job in that case. Any update on John Wall? No, we’re largely in the same place. Given the time of year, now would not be the right time to comment on anything. I get John is in a different situation because we agreed to find a next spot for him and that hasn’t changed but now would not be the right time to talk about it.
I'm not so sure about that. If we listen to Tilman, he's said stuff like not rushing the process .... That gives him a few seasons where the roster doesn't cost him a heck of a lot of money. Covid has been a nightmare for his industry. I can easily see him staying the course on the rebuild & getting a couple top flight pieces thru the draft before adding anything else in FA / trade. Bottom line, we're Bruno Caboclo, two years away from being two years away.
“We’re having so many conversations that odds are we’ll do something I suppose but it is very different from last year.”
if C-Wood is here past the deadline, I’m gonna have an attitude Wood shouldn’t be within a 2 state radius of TX
