[ClutchFans] Podcast: On the Rockets draft and their goal of a superteam in Houston

Nice Podcast as always and very informative. Thanks

 

He's always in the room.

 

Cap space: $8.7m

Out: Ryno ($19.6m), Beverly ($5.5m), Williams ($7m)

In: CP3 ($34.1m), Pat Pat ($6.7m)

Room exception: Nene

Rotation:
CP3 / Gordon
Harden / Gordon
Ariza / Dekker
Pat Pat / Dekker / Harrell
Capella / Nene / Onuaku

60 wins, WCF

 

Yeah that team will get you nowhere...

 

Boom.

 

I said it before. We were all drunk with the December success. I don't really know what happened in December that made them so dominant. But whatever it was, it disappeared afterward and never really resurfaced.

Maybe that's the variance Morey was thinking. Too bad it happened in December, not May.

I am hoping the Rockets can find emerging young guys to grow with Harden rather than the tail-end of Chris Paul's prime and a rental Paul George to "win now" and get rid a guy like Beverley in the process, not to mention reassemble a decent supporting cast almost from scratch again. I just don't see a Harden-Paul-George core and a decimated supporting cast can beat the Spurs, let alone the Warriors.

 

Too many minutes; MDA needs needs needs to expand the rotation and max the abilities of guys he ran into the ground. IMO, of course.

 

Exactly!!! Yes!!!

What were they like 18-2 in December.

But people think that's the real team they're closer to ... not the one we saw more often which was still pretty good but not at that tier.

Maybe competition. Maybe fresh legs. There was a different feel about it all hays for sure.

 

I think it's simply the legs.

Shooting is legs. Look at how good we looked in games 1 of the Thunder and Spurs series, when we had days off leading in.

Dan Tony is brilliant about some things, but he's a real hardhead about physical limitations and the basic science of human anatomy, fatigue and the physics of shooting.

There's a reason why we peaked early and got steadily worse as the season went on.

It's another of the main reasons jump-shooting teams have had so little relative success historically. It would be much different if the NBA Finals were played at the start of the season.

 

Bear in Mind we had guys like Gordon who were shooting well from the 3pt line in December. With the Rockets success in December teams paid more attention to guarding the 3pt shot because of the Rockets dependence on it. Defenses were guarding our players at the 3 point line more and centers were waiting for Harden at the rim instead of running out at him. Is the 3pt shot more efficient if teams focus more on contesting it? Don't know. In game 1 vs the Spurs the Rockets had a lot of wide open 3s. After that game the Spurs adjusted and Rockets were shooting more contested 3s relative to their wide open shots. The Spurs also new they did not have to worry about the Rockets shooting mid range jumpers, so when Harden or whoever drives they waited for them at the rim rather than close out on him. If we were more efficient on our floaters which Bev, Williams and Gordon took because the opposing bigs were waiting at the rim we might have eeked out another win in that series. MDA does not like floaters so maybe pulling up and shooting may happen in the future.

 

We were both teams, that's the whole point of variance. Unfortunately we got hot at the wrong point in the season and never got hot in the post season. It happens. I think we may be seeing the season the same way.

Very surprised to hear Clutch being THAT confident in getting Chris Paul. Something sounds like there is something in the works. Was there something I missed? (sorry, haven't been my normal scrounging the bbs self lately)

 

Look, as the season wears on, teams dissect each other and it becomes more difficult for a good team to beat another good team. This factor plus the fatigue factor led to our mediocre finish.

 

Hmmmm if that's the point of variance than it's a pretty asinine approach.

Get hot at the right time doesn't seem to work all that much in basketball. Makes more sense for other sports.

 

I haven't had a chance to listen yet, but this comment did strike me.

Pat's certainly been talking in the past tense, but another thing is strange that I may be reading into too much.

Clint, Nene, Wiltjer, Bobby Brown, even Mario Elie all said congrats on Twitter to Pat on his All Defensive selection. Nothing from Harden...now perhaps being at the event at the same time means they may have interacted as actual humans and talked, but I guess it just seems odd given how close they are. You'd think Harden would publicly show Pat some support.

 

I don't think it is that simple. Fatigue was probably one factor. I'd say a small factor. If that's a big factor, then we don't even need to change the roster much. Just rest the guys like the Spurs do and we'll be beating our opponents like we did last December, right? Obviously not that simple.

11 of the 15 wins in December were against losing teams. Maybe a simpler explanation is strength of schedule. Or to put it a more crude way, it may just be a fluke. I don't have the numbers. But it felt like everybody on the team was shooting better than their career average. It couldn't just be because of their fresh legs.

We were 15-17 against winning teams, 40-10 against losing teams. Losing in the playoffs should not be a surprise. All playoffs teams were winning teams. It seems that MDA's high power offense is good at destroying bad teams but not so good at stopping the good teams.

 

@Clutch @BimaThug If the Rockets traded Anderson + Lou Williams (hypothetically to Sacramento) to create space to sign CP3, would the Rockets have to completely deplete their team to work a S&T with Atlanta for Paul Millsap, considering his starting MAX salary would be around $35m? It seems like if the Rockets sign CP3, trading for Millsap would be extremely hard to do strictly based on his salary. Would the Rockets have to match salary in a S&T with Millsap?

 

"Chris Paul had been leaning towards the Rockets, but sources tell me last night he met alone with Jerry West for five hours and they discussed basketball. Jerry West discussed going to 9 finals and losing 8 of them and doesn't want Chris to go through that. At this point I think it is 50/50. Jerry West has a plan for the Clippers." - Stephen A Smith

 

Let's assume in your scenario that Paul is signing for HIS max, meaning after the Anderson-Lou deals you have no cap space and need to get to the matching number for Milsap.

You need to be within 125% of his salary.

You would nee to combine Beverly, Gordon, Ariza, Dekker and Harell into a sign and trade to bring in Milsap.

Edit: Honestly, even if you can make it worth mathematically, the actual mechanics seem too far fetched to be possible. If Paul is signing for his max, I genuinely believe the "third star" has to either be Paul George or bust, barring a trade for someone else that we don't currently know to be available. I just can't see it being possible that we are going to bring in TWO players making $35 million onto the roster. That's just not possible.

 

Bobby Marks has Millsap projected at about a $25 million starting salary. I trust his evaluation.

 

You've got me there. The NBA doesn't have a long list of surprise champions.