We have to wait for the opportunity to present itself. But really we just need to keep the team together obviously for chemistry purposes. Just add on to what we already have. You want to have a deep team going into the season and playoffs. I think we have that. Let that meal slow cook.
The excel sheet tells the story, it's the analyst that doesn't understand. He doesn't differentiate between: - Brooks played great defense; and, - Brooks played great defense and inspired others to play better defense than they otherwise would have. In his mind, we were going to end up with 10th best defense as long as we got a defender that good regardless of that player's impact on others. He's assumed that baselessly in retrospect. The truth is that not any all-defense second team player was going to get us to 10th best defense. It had to be a loud and demanding and team-oriented one which is very rare to get out of a wing defender. Further, Brook's salary is declining while the cap rises. He only has 3 years left. That's a fantastic asset for a contender. ANY contender would give a FRP and an expiring for Brooks who is also shooting 36% of 5 3PA. He was career best or career second best in rebounds, turnovers, FT%, 3PT%, FG% and TS%. He showed how coachable he is by reducing his shot attempts on a young team with fewer good scorers (vs Memphis). It's a ridiculous assertion and a classic case of misunderstanding the excel sheet. I'm fine with UPGRADING from Brooks, but to say we attach a pick to dump him is just laughable. No one believes that. A 2nd all defense team player who's hitting 36% of his 3's. That's a plug n play rotation player on any contender. I'd love to see one instance in NBA history where such a player had to be dumped.
I would be fine with keeping Jalen long term considering he's going to have his end of year explosion which should always help the final positioning push into the playoffs IF Jabari, Tari, Alpi, Cam and Amen are significantly better and can carry the team while he's playing like crap and unreliable the rest of the season.
Gobert was seen as a very toxic contract at the time (and still is) given his age and lack of performance in the playoffs. He only looks good now thanks to having stretch PFs like Naz Reid and KaT and Ant ascension but on a normal team he would be seen as a negative asset. Lots of people said the Gobert trade was one of the worst trades on recent memory.
I would like to see 2 upgrades in the veterans department. I think that with the growth of the young bloods and the Rockets will be Top 6 in the west next year and still maturing.
Even the MOST optimistic people view him as a limited backup, nobody would say he's a starting level player. I don't see a world where a team would take on his contract without compensation
Unfortunately I had some time today so I searched @astrosrule history with the word Brooks to see what on earth started this thing for him. My goodness, there was like 100+ instances (in just 9 months) of him talking about Brooks like he's one of the worst players in the entire NBA. He posts his stats as though his analysis has anything to do with analytics but I swear I have never seen a Rockets fan hating a player so deeply. It's impossible to imagine such a person having an objective view. It's truly so interesting how deep the level of hate I found. Here are the lowlights: - Would trade Brooks for Ben Simmons straight up at the beginning of the season (says at least Simmons has a shorter contract) - Worst contract in the entire NBA when he signed with the Rockets - Would not want Brooks for the vet minimum - HC of the year candidate Udoka is a moron for wanting Brooks and also a moron if he starts Brooks past mid-season - There is zero reason Brooks will reduce his shot attempts and he will demand more attempts (Brooks in fact reduced his attempts with us) - Brooks is a bigger cancer than Jordan Poole, we would be lucky to dump him as cheaply as Poole (Poole ended up having one of the worst seasons for any starter in NBA history) - GM of the year candidate Stone should be fired for this (Stone also got an extension) - "I HOPE brooks is the disaster that he will almost certainly be" - Calls Brooks a scumbag, says he can't be proud if Rockets win with Brooks - Brooks chances of improving his 3PT% is as close to 0 as statistically possible (he ended up improving his 3PT%) We're talking about a guy who was NBA All-Defense 2nd team and shot almost league average on 5 x 3PA per game. 29 years old, 3 years on a declining contract at around $22m. I swear he has 100+ posts of this nature if you dig. Like... what in the holy hell is going on here? You can just come out and say you subjectively despise him instead of parading stats around as though you've conducted an objective analysis. That's at least subjectively respectable. But hating him so much that you create a facade of objectivity. Dude it's just basketball he's bad at. He didn't beat a kid/woman, rape or kill anyone. He fights and fouls too much. Pretty crazy if you ask me.
Haha ya, i just think he sucks and all of the data matches what i think. I would still trade him for ben Simmons in a heartbeat, Simmons has 1 year vs 3 years left. I truly only hate draymond and kerr, the lowest of the low. Brooks i definitely dislike because i never like dirty players but my issue with him is mostly that he just sucks. Really cool post though man, good stuff
Nobody would say he is a starting level player so why has he been starting for the past 145 games of his career? Bro that's some high level delusion and copium. You don't seem to be living in reality when it comes to Brooks that's why you think nobody else would take him.
He’s like Dennis Rodman. He does a lot of things you need on your team. He’s just more of a final piece. On the right team, his contract is a bargain. I think he would do wonders for a team like the Hawks. The Bucks could probably use him, too.
Brooks: 0.038 ws/48, -3.5 bpm, -5.5 career vrop Rodman: 0.150 ws/48, 0.9 bpm, 21 career vorp some pretty serious disrespect at mr rodman, unless you’re only talking about the 38 year old mavs version
I’m just talking about their roles. Rodman allowed the team’s top offensive players to focus on the things they were elite at. He did the dirty work. And I don’t have a ton of respect for Rodman. He rode a lot of better players’ coattails to those numbers and the HOF. His role on those teams allowed him to be a zero on offense and focus on rebounding and defense. As long as the other pieces are in place, that is valuable. That’s the kind of player Brooks is. There are teams that could benefit greatly from his presence, just like we have. Especially teams a little closer to a championship than we are.
In what world is 43% FG, 36% 3 PT, and a 55% TS ‘HORRIBLE’? You can pretend those numbers are horrible….. Even then Brooks brings value that can’t be measured by numbers/stats. With everyone healthy next year and the emergence of Cam/Amen….. Brooks would be even less relied upon offensively.
Far more than I'd be willing to give .... and Ilike Markkanen, just not as much as I like the potential we'd have to give up to get him, and then there's Jabari who I think is eventually a better version of Markkanen.
His 54.9% true shooting percentage was actually pretty low. "Terrible" is an overstatement, sure, but definitely in the bottom third of the league. The other thing I want to point out is that he started the season extremely hot from three and cooled off after that. First 12 games, 51.2% from three. All remaining games after that, 33.9% from three. (Actually worse than his career average, which was already not very good at 34.5%.) That's a little bit of "arbitrary end points" stuff, but on the other hand, the more recent the performance, the more predictive it is. It's not like he was just hot for some random 12 game stretch that I cut out--the more the season went on the more he regressed to the mean. It seems like his real talent level as a 3P shooter is more around 34% than 36%. Even in a season with some early 3P luck helping him out, I still don't think he was a positive overall for our offense. At best, he was pretty neutral, and still projects to hurt our offense moving forward. The real question is whether his defensive contributions and contributions to the team "culture" are worth it. Personally, I think we got what we needed in that department and Ime will be able to hold the young guys to it, but I can see the argument for keeping him around one more year.
Keeping him around and using assets to dump him are two way different things which is what Astrosrules is supporting. If his ego will allow it, he would be a really good asset coming off the bench, especially if our starters come out lethargic. Now including him in a trade to get an upgrade should definitely be on the table.