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2020-21 Houston Rockets: Luv Ya Blue?

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Blotto
Blotto

Not sure if this was the first picture Snacks was trying to post, but if not, it should be  

BigOrange1
BigOrange1

on one had, it's sad that this era is over.  they were so fucking close in 2018 and if harden and cp3 could have just found a way to make it work, they'd still be a contender today.   on the othe

ChickenSandwich
ChickenSandwich

No idea how but hope the CBA deals with players sabotaging their current teams to force a trade with zero leverage when they have more than one year remaining on contract.    maybe a compensati

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BigOrange1

BigOrange1 6467

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espn+ grade for the trade, for whatever it's worth:

Houston Rockets: A-

hou.png?w=80&h=80&transparent=true

In some alternate dimension of the multiverse, this season's Rockets play on with a committed Harden as their centerpiece and I'm fascinated to know how things work out. They've gotten better than expected play so far from newcomers DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall, while Christian Wood has brought a different dimension to the offense with his ability to be both a pick-and-roll partner for Harden and a shot creator in his own right.

Without buy-in from Harden, however, there was little chance of things working out in Houston. Back-to-back blowout home losses against the Los Angeles Lakers, followed by his incendiary postgame comments Tuesday, spelled the end of the Harden era for the Rockets. And while I'm sure that was embarrassing then and disappointing today, it's hard to say waiting worked out poorly for Houston, which was able to leverage the Nets into offering a motherload of picks.

The trade that sent Paul George from the Thunder to the LA Clippers (with free agent Kawhi Leonard) has become the standard for all other NBA pick-based trades. In that one, Oklahoma City got four unprotected first-round picks, one protected first-rounder and two unprotected swaps. This haul -- four unprotected picks and an incredible four unprotected swaps -- is similar value.

 
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Over the next few years, it's doubtful the picks or swaps the Rockets get from Brooklyn will make up for the ones they're out thanks to the Russell Westbrook trade. Still, they will give Houston a steady source of young talent with the potential for huge returns down the road. Given what they've seen the past month, the Rockets might feel good betting against how well Harden will age in his mid-30s.

For now, Houston can evaluate how well Oladipo fits in. Early returns from this season are mixed. Oladipo has been much more efficient than we saw during his comeback from a quadriceps tendon rupture in 2019-20, though his finishing still remains an issue. Oladipo has made 54% of his shots inside three feet, per Basketball-Reference.com, down from a career-high 69% when he was voted to the All-NBA Third Team in 2017-18 prior to the injury. The Rockets shouldn't count on Oladipo getting back to that level. I'd probably rather have just kept LeVert.

There's a downgrade from even the lesser version of Harden to Oladipo that Houston will have to hope to offset with better chemistry. If the Rockets don't look likely to make the playoffs by the deadline, they'll have decisions to make on both Oladipo -- an unrestricted free agent at season's end -- and veteran forward P.J. Tucker, who would be an attractive target for contenders.

In a remarkable turn of events, Houston could go from in the luxury tax to start this season to having cap space this summer if Oladipo walks. They turned Harden's $44.3 million salary into just one player under contract for 2021-22: Kurucs, whose $1.9 million salary is a team option. The Rockets aren't going to be serious players in free agency as long as Wall's contract (which runs through a player option in 2022-23) is on the books. But if Houston ends up heading down some sort of rebuild path, the team will have the ability to take on bad salaries to add still more draft picks.

This certainly wasn't Plan A for the Rockets, who hoped Harden could lead them back to the conference finals this season. As compared to how bleak the future looked after last year's playoff elimination, however, Houston now has a reasonable path forward.

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Macklemore

Macklemore 2873

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2 minutes ago, Brothahorn said:

So in 2022, The Rockets get 3 1st round picks? Possible 3 in 2023?

https://tradenba.com/teams/Rockets/11/draft-picks

 

With a little luck and good scouting this is a good deal. No reason to hate unless you just don't like the Rockets.

 

 

2022 draft is going to be deep as fuck too because of the disruptions caused by COVID. Lots of players will be draft eligible 

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Murfdogg21

Murfdogg21 4423

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If not for the CP3-RW trade that Harden forced, the future for the Rockets would look bomb. Need to revisit what picks and swaps OKC gets to know if they are about to get Texan’d (handing over a high draft pick by sucking after a trade that was supposed to make you great).

If Harden has peaked and/or the Nets break up in a year or two and start to suck, this trade will look like theft. 

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19147

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1 hour ago, Murfdogg21 said:

If not for the CP3-RW trade that Harden forced, the future for the Rockets would look bomb. Need to revisit what picks and swaps OKC gets to know if they are about to get Texan’d (handing over a high draft pick by sucking after a trade that was supposed to make you great).

If Harden has peaked and/or the Nets break up in a year or two and start to suck, this trade will look like theft. 

Yep. But that won’t bear any fruit in contention until about 2028 at the earliest (first time you could hope for a high pick is likely 24 or 25. 

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19147

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1 minute ago, HtownHorn said:

He's 25, you build around him. The Rockets aren't rebuilding for 5 to 6 years.

No?  Having 65 million ties up in Wall and Gordon makes you believe. There’s a chance at title contention? 
big ticket FA gonna want to play for Ferntits? 
you are dreaming I think. 
how many assets did Jeff Lunow not trade? 

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ChiTownDoc

ChiTownDoc 21154

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5 hours ago, David Dennison said:

Watching those three try to co-exist is going to be very entertaining.

I know you guys love KD - and I honestly have no real issues with him.  But Harden and Kyrie are petty little bitches and if karma exists at all they are up shit creek.  I thought Kyrie was far and away the biggest bitch superstar in the league but Harden's fat ass has rallied hard for the crown.  This shit is gonna be hilarious.  And Houston will end up with some high draft picks once these dbags burn down the nets.  I'd say a definite win for the Rockets. 

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LCHorn

LCHorn 2629

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16 hours ago, BigOrange1 said:

espn+ grade for the trade, for whatever it's worth:

Houston Rockets: A-

hou.png?w=80&h=80&transparent=true

In some alternate dimension of the multiverse, this season's Rockets play on with a committed Harden as their centerpiece and I'm fascinated to know how things work out. They've gotten better than expected play so far from newcomers DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall, while Christian Wood has brought a different dimension to the offense with his ability to be both a pick-and-roll partner for Harden and a shot creator in his own right.

Without buy-in from Harden, however, there was little chance of things working out in Houston. Back-to-back blowout home losses against the Los Angeles Lakers, followed by his incendiary postgame comments Tuesday, spelled the end of the Harden era for the Rockets. And while I'm sure that was embarrassing then and disappointing today, it's hard to say waiting worked out poorly for Houston, which was able to leverage the Nets into offering a motherload of picks.

The trade that sent Paul George from the Thunder to the LA Clippers (with free agent Kawhi Leonard) has become the standard for all other NBA pick-based trades. In that one, Oklahoma City got four unprotected first-round picks, one protected first-rounder and two unprotected swaps. This haul -- four unprotected picks and an incredible four unprotected swaps -- is similar value.

 
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Over the next few years, it's doubtful the picks or swaps the Rockets get from Brooklyn will make up for the ones they're out thanks to the Russell Westbrook trade. Still, they will give Houston a steady source of young talent with the potential for huge returns down the road. Given what they've seen the past month, the Rockets might feel good betting against how well Harden will age in his mid-30s.

For now, Houston can evaluate how well Oladipo fits in. Early returns from this season are mixed. Oladipo has been much more efficient than we saw during his comeback from a quadriceps tendon rupture in 2019-20, though his finishing still remains an issue. Oladipo has made 54% of his shots inside three feet, per Basketball-Reference.com, down from a career-high 69% when he was voted to the All-NBA Third Team in 2017-18 prior to the injury. The Rockets shouldn't count on Oladipo getting back to that level. I'd probably rather have just kept LeVert.

There's a downgrade from even the lesser version of Harden to Oladipo that Houston will have to hope to offset with better chemistry. If the Rockets don't look likely to make the playoffs by the deadline, they'll have decisions to make on both Oladipo -- an unrestricted free agent at season's end -- and veteran forward P.J. Tucker, who would be an attractive target for contenders.

In a remarkable turn of events, Houston could go from in the luxury tax to start this season to having cap space this summer if Oladipo walks. They turned Harden's $44.3 million salary into just one player under contract for 2021-22: Kurucs, whose $1.9 million salary is a team option. The Rockets aren't going to be serious players in free agency as long as Wall's contract (which runs through a player option in 2022-23) is on the books. But if Houston ends up heading down some sort of rebuild path, the team will have the ability to take on bad salaries to add still more draft picks.

This certainly wasn't Plan A for the Rockets, who hoped Harden could lead them back to the conference finals this season. As compared to how bleak the future looked after last year's playoff elimination, however, Houston now has a reasonable path forward.

Mind pasting what Zach Lowe wrote on it?

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BigOrange1

BigOrange1 6467

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2 hours ago, LCHorn said:

Mind pasting what Zach Lowe wrote on it?

Spoiler

 

In the end, the Houston Rockets didn't get the blue-chip young player they boasted they would receive in return for James Harden -- the second-greatest player in franchise history, behind only Hakeem Olajuwon, and one of the league's all-time best scorers.

Victor Oladipo, acquired in exchange for Caris LeVert as part of this monstrosity, does not quite qualify. Oladipo is almost 29, two years and one major leg injury removed from his only All-NBA season. He has looked more like his old self this season; he is getting to the rim at a pre-injury level. But he also is eligible for free agency this summer, when there will be oodles more cap space than available stars. It's not out of the realm of possibility the Rockets will have to pay Oladipo the maximum salary, or something close, to retain him -- if they want to when the alternative is potential cap space.

LeVert doesn't have Oladipo's track record, and he was off to a blah shooting start as a supporting actor in the most predictable soap opera in basketball. But he is more than two years younger than Oladipo and has shown -- including during the bubble -- that he might be ready for a larger scoring role. He is on a decent contract for three seasons -- one that would have carried positive trade value for the Rockets had they decided to flip LeVert later on.

Houston isn't wrong to bet Oladipo will be better for the next three seasons. I still might rather have LeVert. For the Indiana Pacers, nabbing LeVert in exchange for a player who was likely leaving anyway is a huge win. Oladipo's future with Indiana has been murky, to say the least, since talks about a potential extension went nowhere before last season. LeVert has a broadly similar skill set to that of Oladipo and fits alongside Malcolm Brogdon, Domantas Sabonis, and Myles Turner.

There are two questions that really matter about the Harden megadeal:

• Did Houston get enough?

• Did the Brooklyn Nets improve their championship odds enough to justify the massive pile of draft assets they forked over: three unprotected first-round picks and four unprotected swaps, a bounty that sustains through 2027 -- when Harden, Kevin Durant, and Kyrie Irving will be ancient (by NBA standards) or retired?

 

The answers, from here, are "yes" and "maybe, but I'm wary because, umm, defense."

That is an enormous amount of draft equity. Enormous. I don't care how good the team is now, or how good it projects to be in 2023, dealing that many unprotected draft assets that far into the future is a giant risk. It can ruin your franchise for years. If you don't win at least one championship, the trade can go down as a bust -- even if you win 60 games a bunch of times, and breach the inner circle of contenders every year.

EDITOR'S PICKS

 

That draft equity is a strong return for the Rockets. Is it stronger than Ben Simmons by himself? To be clear, I don't know precisely what the Rockets and Philadelphia 76ers discussed, what the Sixers offered, or whether they even made an ironclad offer in the end. Reconstructing trade talks in the moment is maddening. Maybe one team, or both, got too cute haggling over whatever young players and/or draft picks Philadelphia might attach to Simmons. I feel confident saying this: The Rockets could have had Ben Simmons if they wanted him. They apparently decided they preferred the mother lode of picks from Brooklyn. Maybe they got greedy in negotiations with Philly.

Time will tell if they were right. Simmons is a great player coming off an All-NBA and All-Defensive season. He is 24, and he provides an identity upon walking in the door: Run like hell and put shooters around him.

Building a good version of such a team would have taken Houston years. And even if you construct one, it's unclear if Simmons can ascend into being the best player on a title team. I'm dubious, though the designation is more fluid than people would like. Few conceived of Jimmy Butler as being in that circle, but the Miami Heat came within two wins of a title despite multiple injuries in the NBA Finals.

The Rockets decided they'd rather (basically) start over. You need picks to do that, and the Rockets had flung away two -- plus two swaps -- in the disastrous Chris Paul-for-Russell Westbrook deal. They get more back here. They are shorting the Nets' future, wagering on a train wreck. Can you blame them given the train's current status?

Of course, trading Simmons down the line could have brought Houston some picks -- though likely not this same bounty. And even with this trade return, the Rockets still can't compete with the Oklahoma City Thunder and the New Orleans Pelicans -- fat with picks -- for the next disgruntled superstar (should either of those teams decide to get in on that fun).

Either way, Houston has come out well here.

 

Garrett Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images

Back to the Nets. They also gave up three rotation players, including a rising rim protector and ferocious rim runner in Jarrett Allen. (The Cleveland Cavaliers are an undisputed winner for turning a lousy Milwaukee Bucks first-round pick into Allen, even if they already have so many centers that they are playing Dean Wade -- look him up -- at shooting guard in spot minutes.)

From the moment the Nets acquired Irving and Durant, they faced an existential dilemma many championship hopefuls have navigated in many different ways: depth or a third star, Big 2 or Big 3?

It is the question that keeps GMs up at night -- makes them queasy. There is no universal answer. If your Big 2 are Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, or Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, perhaps you roll with a deeper and more flexible roster behind two top-five overall players.

Irving has never been a top-five player. Right now, he's not actually playing at all. The clock was also ticking on Brooklyn's depth. Allen is eligible for a big, new deal this summer. Spencer Dinwiddie, a likely ingredient in any blockbuster of this sort before tearing his ACL last month, has a player option for next season. Teams often trade depth for stars because the depth is about to become too expensive to keep all of it.

Perhaps that was not of concern to Joseph Tsai, the Nets governor and one of the wealthiest humans. If Tsai was willing to swallow huge luxury tax bills year after year, Brooklyn could have run almost a dozen deep in quality NBA players around its centerpiece stars.

But no amount of depth compensates for an ill-timed injury to a superstar. Lose one superstar in the playoffs and any two-star team is toast. Acquiring a third star fortifies the Nets against an injury to Irving or Harden. An injury to Durant might destroy any title hopes, considering the team right now has two players with any experience at power forward (Durant and Jeff Green, who is somehow always around NBA history, like a backup singer to the stars) and one solitary experienced center (the recently benched DeAndre Jordan.)

Acquiring Harden also opens the possibility of trading Irving at some point to recoup depth and draft picks (if he rebuilds his trade value). It is a hedge against Irving vanishing.

 

play

2:44

 

Will the James Harden trade work out for the Nets?

Tony Kornheiser and Pablo S. Torre break down the long-term ramifications of James Harden being traded to the Nets.

As of now, the Nets have nine proven or semi-proven NBA rotation players: their new Big 3, plus Joe Harris (a perfect fit anywhere), Jordan, Green, Bruce Brown, Landry Shamet, and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot. Some might include Tyler Johnson, but he has been more or less bound to the bench for the past two seasons. Three of those guys -- Brown, Luwawu-Cabarrot, and Shamet -- are mostly untested on the biggest stages.

It's a thin team, but the Nets can carve a workable rotation out of it. They will find another center. They should dominate the buyout market. Stars win in the postseason.

They are going to be impossible to guard. I'm more optimistic about the fit on offense than those snarking about how Brooklyn's three stars can possibly share one ball. That's a real concern. There will be growing pains. Irving has to buy into a third option role after winning a title as LeBron James' No. 2.

But Durant is the most malleable superstar in NBA history, playing at his old MVP level again. He can do everything, on and off the ball. He has always been content toggling between one-on-one plays and everything else: scurrying around pindowns, screening for other dominant ball handlers, spacing the floor.

Harden should supersede Irving as Brooklyn's lead ball handler. He is just better. He will have to pivot from James-ball back to regular basketball. Harden won't be able to dribble endlessly into 15 step-back 3s every night. He will have to, like, move his body and limbs when he doesn't have the ball. Maybe set some screens.

Doubt over whether Harden can rewire his game crept into discussions within teams on the fringes: Boston, Denver, Toronto, Miami, Portland, others. At go time, none was really a contender to get him, sources said. Boston wasn't trading Jaylen Brown, according to sources. Portland wasn't going to include CJ McCollum -- a beloved player currently raining fire across the league -- in any deal construction that approached Houston's desire to strip teams of picks and young players, sources said.

Harden's listless play and off-court flouting of both Houston's training camp schedule and the league's coronavirus protocols had several within those teams wondering if Harden -- at age 31, two years from free agency -- was worth upending their franchises. He will perk up. You watch: We are going to see peak Harden pouring in 40 very soon.

But what would happen if anything was not to his liking -- if he grew weary of their coach, or soured on yet another superstar teammate? Would he pout and carouse? It was entirely predictable -- I have discussed it in several podcasts and columns dating back months -- that Simmons would be the only blue-chip young player available to Houston.

James Harden traded to Brooklyn

r798496_2_1296x729_16-9.jpg

The Rockets are sending James Harden to the Nets in a four-team blockbuster. Here's everything to know about this massive deal.

• Lowe: Analyzing every angle of the deal
• Trade grades: How good is Brooklyn now?
• Harden deal shocks players on social media
• Inside Harden and Houston's breaking point

 

Some grappled over whether any Harden deal would leave enough talent for them to win the title in the next two years. That is the window we are talking about here. For all the talk in the media over whether Harden would re-sign in 2022 with whatever team acquired him, that extended timeline was of little concern to a lot of teams poking around. Any deal for Harden would have been about winning today.

That is what made Philly such an intriguing fit. Joel Embiid is almost 27, playing like an MVP. When engaged and in shape, he is maybe the best defensive player in the NBA -- ideal cover for Harden's weak spots. The Harden-Embiid duo would have fit complications to work through on offense, but the Harden version of the Sixers probably has a better chance to win the 2021 title than the current one. If Houston's ask was as big as has been speculated elsewhere, Philly can feel OK demurring. Maybe there was no price that would have made Tilman Fertitta, the Rockets' governor, comfortable trading Harden to Daryl Morey. If Houston's reported demands are exaggerated, the Sixers have to wonder if they haggled themselves out of a deal they should have made. (My best intel suggests Houston was at least signaling it would have taken much more than Simmons in players and picks to beat Brooklyn's offer.)

Teams confident in their ability to contend with Harden then asked themselves whether he would rise to the occasion when it mattered -- if he would commit to the grimy things that win in the playoffs. Harden's postseason résumé is not as bad as his harshest critics conceive of it. It's also not what you would expect from a player of his caliber. It is almost devoid of signature moments since his 3-pointer turned the 2012 Western Conference finals between the Thunder and San Antonio Spurs.

Dig deep into Harden's postseason record and you will find a disproportionate number of his best games came with Houston down 3-0 or hopelessly overmatched -- that many late-game scoring flurries came with Houston far behind in the waning seconds, and sometimes with the opponent conceding layups. You will also, somehow, find three 2-of-11 shooting performances in super-high-leverage games.

Harden redefined the boundaries of basketball in Houston. He wasn't the most enjoyable player to watch, but the strategic implications of his game made him among the most interesting. And playing his way, the Rockets in 2018 came within a whisker of derailing the Golden State Warriors dynasty and maybe winning it all.

But they didn't, and both the Rockets and Harden disappointed in several other postseasons -- including in falling flat on their faces against the Warriors in 2019 (with Durant injured late in Game 5 and the deciding Game 6) and against the Los Angeles Lakers last season. The Nets provide his latest chance, and maybe his last, to write a meaningful postseason story.

 

play

1:35

 

Harden's best Houston moments

Take a look back at James Harden's best moments with the Rockets as he moves on to Brooklyn to play with the Nets.

Irving is the one who will have to sacrifice most for this to work. Even so, he is going to stumble into 25 points on a lot of nights without forcing any shots. He'll have chances to bring the ball up and orchestrate. His usage will spike when one of Durant and Harden sits.

More broadly, no one will be able to guard these guys. How do you defend a lineup of Irving, Harden, Harris, Durant, and Jordan rim-running? What about when they go with Durant at center?

The uncertainty is whether Brooklyn can defend well enough to win four playoff series. Their core lineups will feature three solid to great (Durant) defenders around two stars with track records on that end ranging from uneven to comatose. In that sense, losing Allen might hurt more than losing LeVert. Even the best scoring teams reach moments -- quarters, games, series -- when they have to dig down and defend at an (at least) average or better level.

But the real scoring juggernauts don't necessarily have to be elite defensively. The 2016 and 2017 Cavs come to mind. They were mediocre on defense and all-world on offense. The first won the title. The second was clearly championship-caliber; it steamrollered the Eastern Conference before losing in five games to what might be the greatest single-season team ever -- the Warriors, with four superstars who only came together because of an anomalous spike in the salary cap.

Building an average defense is not that hard. A great offense gives you a leg up, since the other team has to take the ball out of the basket so often. The burden on Durant to guard every elite scorer, and every position, is going to be huge -- and a little scary given he is coming off an Achilles tear.

This team can win it all. The Nets pre-Harden had a chance to win it all too, though that was contingent on Irving being present and at full throttle. Brooklyn improved its championship odds on Wednesday. If the Nets did so as much as the FiveThirtyEight system projects -- by almost 15 percentage points -- almost any price would have been worth it.

I'm skeptical they boosted their title odds that much. If that skepticism proves right, they overpaid. If they win a title, it doesn't matter. If they don't, it hurts. That's the standard now, even with all the luck and health variables that go into any title run: championship or failure. And if it really goes bust, the downside potential is disastrous.

I heard a lot of chortling from team executives and agents about the Nets going all-in for a season with no fans and constant virus-related roster disruption: Are we really going to care who wins the title this year? Won't there be an asterisk?

I get that criticism, but don't really buy it. For one, we don't know what the landscape will look like when the playoffs start. Will players be vaccinated? Will the league hold at least the last two rounds in a bubble?

 

Besides, the Nets already went all-in when they handed over their team and their culture to Irving and Durant. Are they supposed to stop now because of a pandemic no one predicted (at least on this specific timeline) and that impacts everyone? The NBA is proceeding. They should too.

They cast their lot with Harden, trading almost their whole future to add him to the Irving-Durant duo. This isn't the Paul Pierce/Kevin Garnett deal again. Those guys were old. Harden is squarely in his prime. The stakes, though, are the same. For some teams, winning 50 games and making the second round is fine. The Nets aren't one of those teams anymore. When you make a deal like this, it's to win everything.

LISTEN: Zach Lowe and Chris Herring on the Harden trade

 

 

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HtownHorn

HtownHorn 14762

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Play all the 1st year guys and see if any of them can become NBA rotational players. Tell Oladipo they will try to move him to a contender by the trade deadline. Exum and Kurucs are likely done with the Rockets after this season.

Meaning the only real salaries they have for next year are Wall, Gordon, and Wood.

Hopefully House sees this opportunity and becomes more mature.

I think McLemore and Tucker will also be traded at the deadline because they have roles on title contending teams.

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Slacks

Slacks 6851

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Hopefully the Rockets have a deal in place for Oladipo, because they will lose him in FA after the season to his preferred destination of Miami.
I assume they would only trade him for picks. I dont think they want more salary in exchange, so it's not likely they'll get a good trade for Oladipo. He might get packaged up as part of a multi-team.
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HtownHorn

HtownHorn 14762

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1 hour ago, billfromlaketravis said:

I think Christian Wood and occasional big nights from Wall will keep the Rockets from completely tanking. 

I like Cousins' new and improved attitude, but the guy looks washed. Really, really awkward when he drives to the basket. At best, he's three and post up guy now. 

Yeah. Cousins looks really bad. Still has skill, but he had limited athleticism even with 2 good legs.

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19147

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1 hour ago, billfromlaketravis said:

If the intent is to tank, the Net's offer makes the most sense. That said, I feel bad for Wood. He's going to be in his prime on some very bad teams. 

Stone explaining to Fertitta that the Rockets will have to pay Wall $45-47 million for 20 wins seasons must have been a fun conversation. 

There’s a salary floor in basketball so it shouldn’t really matter. But I’m sure Ferntits is likely broken up about it. 

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19147

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Would you do this:

tucker and dipo to Miami for Olynick, Myers Leonard and 24 and 26 draft picks. 
Miami gets rid of 2 negative value contracts at the expense of 2 picks well into the future- while adding the best glue guy on the market and a guy that looks healthy after being an all star recently. Pat Riley is almost 80. He isn’t likely buying green bananas let alone worrying about draft picks 3-5 years down the road. 

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BigOrange1

BigOrange1 6467

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there is a slight problem with trading with miami this year.  the rockets get the worst of their own, okc or miami's 1st round pick this year.  right now, miami is dogshit and all three picks are lottery picks at the moment).  i'm sure that miami won't remain in the lottery by the end of the year, but there is no incentive to help them right now while they are struggling. 

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HtownHorn

HtownHorn 14762

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11 minutes ago, BigOrange1 said:

there is a slight problem with trading with miami this year.  the rockets get the worst of their own, okc or miami's 1st round pick this year.  right now, miami is dogshit and all three picks are lottery picks at the moment).  i'm sure that miami won't remain in the lottery by the end of the year, but there is no incentive to help them right now while they are struggling. 

Well, unless we are so dogshit bad that we make the Top 4 of the lottery.

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19147

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11 minutes ago, BigOrange1 said:

there is a slight problem with trading with miami this year.  the rockets get the worst of their own, okc or miami's 1st round pick this year.  right now, miami is dogshit and all three picks are lottery picks at the moment).  i'm sure that miami won't remain in the lottery by the end of the year, but there is no incentive to help them right now while they are struggling. 

I hadn’t even considered that. 
personally I think we will tank and try to be really bad and hopefully win a top 4 pick and keep it, and if not live with Miami’s pick wherever that falls. 
But yeah- hadn’t even considered that. I guess I just think- 20-23 when I see all the swaps. 

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BigOrange1

BigOrange1 6467

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true.  but that feels like a huge risk given the changes to the lottery.  could be the 4th worst team but that doesn't mean you're getting a top 4 pick.

i feel like they'd need to have the worst record in the league to really have any confidence that they'd actually get a top 4 pick.

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19147

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22 minutes ago, BigOrange1 said:

true.  but that feels like a huge risk given the changes to the lottery.  could be the 4th worst team but that doesn't mean you're getting a top 4 pick.

i feel like they'd need to have the worst record in the league to really have any confidence that they'd actually get a top 4 pick.

Even worst record I’m the league is only like 50/60 percent at top 4. Their alternative to a race to the bottom is scrapping to be in the play in tourney. I’d just as soon collect Ping Pong balls even if it only gives me a 1/4 or 1/5 shot at keeping the pick. 
reasonable minds can certainly differ. 

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BigOrange1

BigOrange1 6467

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oh i'd definitely be up for tanking if not for the franchise crushing westbrook trade that put us in this mess to begin with.  hell, i'm not even against it now.  just wish we controlled this year's pick as i think there are some real difference makers at the top of the draft and we have basically 0 shot at them.  

#1 priority of the franchise right now is finding the next #1 guy.  ideally sooner rather than later.  however it happens is fine with me.

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BigOrange1

BigOrange1 6467

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ok, if the chart on wikipedia is to be believed (and I added correctly), here are the odds of landing a top 4 pick by record:

8th worst record - 26.3%

7th worst - 31.96%

6th worst - 37.23%

5th worst - 42.13%

4th worst - 48.08%

1-3 - 52.14%

 

if you're gonna tank, think you need to shoot for at least the 6th worst record in the league.  that actually feels attainable....

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Wulaw Horn

Wulaw Horn 19147

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7 minutes ago, BigOrange1 said:

ok, if the chart on wikipedia is to be believed (and I added correctly), here are the odds of landing a top 4 pick by record:

8th worst record - 26.3%

7th worst - 31.96%

6th worst - 37.23%

5th worst - 42.13%

4th worst - 48.08%

1-3 - 52.14%

 

if you're gonna tank, think you need to shoot for at least the 6th worst record in the league.  that actually feels attainable....

Yep. I’d rather a 37% chance at keeping the pick than 10th seed and play in game. 

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