As I had always predicted for many, many years, "Moreyball" was a complete bust that never created any championships and left the Rockets a depleted, skin-suited husk of themselves. So there is no doubt that a rebuild was inevitable. That given, why in the middle of a rebuild where our various top 5 draft picks are playing like second rounders and it is clear that we do not have a franchise player yet, would we sign Fled Vlan Vleet to a contract for $40 million per year? It seems like there was some delusional idea that he would make us take a "step forward" and perhaps start playing like a fringe playoff team...maybe a 10 or 11 seed. No, that was never, ever going to happen. The guy puts up stats like a league average replacement player. Surround a league average player with bad players and the team is still going to be ...bad. Someone like a Danuel House could create the same production if given the same attempts for 1/10 the price, and probably even be a little more efficient with it. Which brings me to the title of this thread--what is even the point of Fled Vlan Vleet? The very, very best he can do with this sideshow is cost us a few ping-pong balls (negative value). Why pay $40 million for that? We could have used that space to sign and trade for bad players with bad contracts, getting draft picks from other teams and making our own pick better. This has to be the worst signing since Pablo Prigioni, who also had no discernable point.
Babysit until Amen is ready Udoka gonna have to man up and bench Fred next season. Should’ve just signed Harden and brought over PG13
I stopped reading after the second paragraph because the answer is simple and obvious. A) we had no superstar to sign as a FA to actually make this team competitive/contenders; and b) the length of the contract ensures we can revisit that in 2 years when the crop is better and we know who of our young guys are actually going to be legit. AND we had to at least meet the salary floor. Why sign TWO guys and complicate rotation and developments even further? people are shocked by the number but the cap is at its highest and contract amounts correlate to cap increase. Max contracts are based on cap percentages. We overpaid him because we needed a good player and a strong veteran. We gave him a short contract so we had flexibility. also, this freaking out over 1 game out of 3 when he also had a really good game is pure CFans move.
Whole Lotta Raptors fans telling us "we told you so" while laughing at us. I think FVV was picked up primarily because there was no one better. He's here as an on court coach until Amen is ready. He goes from undrafted to key starter on a championship team. That's his value.. Teaching work ethic and grit. Next year he's already an expiring contract. I think the plan is probably to trade him next year, similar to the Westbrook trade last year.
He's basically here for respectability and legitimacy.. on paper at least.. I think he fits our phase 2 narrative tho..
"Moreyball" worked. The Rockets had their best record in 2018. James Harden also happened and coddling him ruined our chances. Everyone knows you need a superstar to win and we were blessed with a uniquely incapable #1 option. Also, you compared Fred Vanvleet a veteran point guard on a leadership-needy team to Danuel House. You don't know ball
Moreyball took the most dominate team in NBA history to a 7-game playoff series. Morey won 61.5% of his games during his tenure as Houston's GM. If your benchmark for success is "didn't win a championship" then sure. I would argue you've missed the point.
After Next Year off Season I think Fred VabVleet, Dillon Brooks will be traded. Hopefully both are Healthy and puts up Stats for that to happen. Both players I think are staying for this and Next and that's it. A contending team that needs a Guard, Forward.
FVV is not the problem...our poor 3pt shooting is clogging the laws where he's most efficient in scoring and playmaking...still early in the season, but we need to be more worried about Jalen Green because he's not that Center piece we should build around...we got a bunch of role players who aren't Alphas. Just chill and wait for a disgruntled Superstar that we can trade for https://www.espn.com/nba/team/stats/_/name/hou/table/game/sort/threePointPct/dir/desc
Saturday: Fred VanVleet is the Rockets best player Monday: Fred VanVleet is the worst thing to ever happen to the Rockets franchise. @Easy Sorry, the “rebuild”, “phase two”, “winning” (whatever you want to call it) always depended on “franchise players” Jalen Green and Jabari Smith. Not VanVleet, not Brooks, not Jeff Green, not Landale. Udoka: “I said it from day one, the biggest step we’ll take is from internal growth, not additions.” https://bbs.clutchfans.net/threads/ime-udoka-interview-biggest-step-will-be-internal-growth.320198/
FVV was needed since we didn't have a pg after wasting 2 years with the kpj pg experiment. Fvv is a bridge for Amen, who is hopefully our future pg
