Per @TheCat Ben DuBose: Rockets wouldn’t have made KD trade if they knew FVV would be out for year

It's clear this front office overvalues FVV. I think they value him as an all-star caliber player. So of course they're not going to trade for a 37-year-old star if they know one of their most important players is going to be out for his whole first season here. That's just common sense if you start from the assumption that Fred is very valuable.

I think the disconnect is that a lot of posters around here think FVV is just a mediocre roleplayer. I don't think that's quite right either, personally. I think he's a very good roleplayer who is better and more important than surface-level stats would indicate. So from my perspective, we have a situation where the front office overvalues him and Overly Online Rockets Fans undervalue him.

 

He wasn't even the fourth best player on the team, dude.

 

It wasn’t a big trade, we gave up almost nothing. It was worth taking the shot. Didn’t work because fvv got hurt but the minimal gamble was easily worth it.

 

I agree the trade was worth it. But I don’t agree that we couldn’t have picked up another ball-handler in the back court. It was our biggest weakness last season. And we lost our starting 2-guard. But we did nothing to shore up the backcourt this offseason. It was a bad decision to ignore the backcourt this offseason. And we are paying the price.

 

Some random crap was not gonna make a difference, rockets had no money

 

we had our entire mle. What are u talking about?

 

To sign who? Whoever signed was gonna sign as a backup and also be competing with reed, so rockets would be the last possible choice for anyone.

 

Rockets are run by tards from the GM to the HC so no surprise.

Fred is Ime’s crutch & sexting buddy

Rockets view Franchise Fred™ as
•the best player on a championship contending team
•irreplaceable
•Fred will return to play & reclaim his 40 minutes

Funny they didn’t want Harden because “iso ball” and “Harden is the system and we want team ball!” …when they spam Durant/Sengun iso and their “season was over before it began” because “Fred is the system” lol


“In the weeks leading up to the June 22 trade agreement, we all debated the various financial pathways to a deal. I was told at the time -- and I can show you from my podcast archives, if you don't believe me -- that including Fred was a non-starter because they didn't think they were good enough, without Fred, for a KD deal to be worth it. And ultimately, not only did they end up with KD without Fred, but KD without Fred and Jalen/Dillon. Bitter pill to swallow.

Spoiler: June 18, 2025 post

Now, once Fred went down right before training camp, they did try PR spin in the opposite direction. They certainly didn't want the narrative to be that they were cooked before the season even began, that's bad on many levels. But based on what I was told in June, I suspect they pretty much knew. They viewed Fred as the most valuable player on last season's team. So, in terms of the whole "add KD to the No. 2 seed" formula, it all erodes if you take out the best player from the No. 2 seed, and then two other starters, to boot.

With that said, can you disagree with them on Fred's value? Sure. To each their own. But this whole idea that it's "just" Fred VanVleet is misguided. To them, he was their best/most important player on that No. 2 seed. They don't remotely view it as a scenario where you can get, say, 90% his production by acquiring the warm body of a "traditional point guard," or whatever. If you disagree with that, fair enough, but that's where the disconnect comes from. To those acting like acquiring KD is incompatible with this deadline's approach, I can promise you that they wouldn't have acquired KD in the first place if Fred wasn't on the roster. Tough situation.

I think the root of the disconnect is the Rockets internally view Fred as a far better player than a lot of fans do. You can certainly disagree with them, but I think that's what it all traces back to.”

 

This is just somebody saying out loud what was already obvious.

To the folks who say Fred wouldn't have mattered: the vast majority of our team's dysfunction this year is symptoms of lacking our starting PG. We had the same headless possessions last year when Fred was off the court. (The rest IMO is that we've lost the fire Dillon brought)

As to our not grasping for another guard at the trade deadline: We capped ourselves into a position where we pretty much had to rely on the roster we had. It's just crappy luck that the guy whose body gave out was the PG and not one of the many wings.

 

I can see how you feel that way and I did too at first, then I realized something:

All those guards that were traded fore 2nds were also traded for expiring contracts or players with upside - all we had to offer was DFS and it probably takes a #1 to move off of that contract in itself.

I can see why Stone didn't pull the trigger on a deal if that is the case.

The other problem being Fred's NTC .... that is 16% of the cap gone on day one of the season - that's tough. Throw in Adams at the half way point and 25% of the cap is on the trainers table for the duration.

Talk about a competitive disadvantage ....

 

Well if this is a lost year then start Reed, give him 30-35 minutes a night and live with the results. That is the only way for him to get better and learn from his mistakes, and the team in the long run will be better for it.

 

Who do these clowns think they’re fooling?

Can we just cut the bullsh*t already?

even if FVV wasn’t out for the year, he’s not even that good to begin with

They think they can just trot out a mouthpiece for the organization and it will be believable? Get real…

 

The Rockets are forever stuck on IPhone 4...... while the NBA moves onto IPhone 17 and IPhone 18.

 

This is what they’re going with to hide Udoka’s ineptitude? That FVV is out?


Do we need Fred to be back for Udoka to understand that good 3pt shooters need to be in the game over some of the worst ones…when you’re down by 3 with 2 seconds to go?

the only thing keeping me rooting for this dogshit of an organization is that it’s already been almost 30 years what’s another couple

 

PR damage control, I remember vividly they tried to get rid of KPJ but way too little too late.

They still cannot decide whether to develop or trade for Giannis........facepalm.

They just cannot decide. A direction. Like a directionless teenager. Can't be greedy and have both, not rudderless like this.

 

LOL They got plenty of mouthpieces in the media and “social media influencers” who will do their bidding.

Just prepare for it: they’re gonna sell Fred & Steven coming back, a “full healthy offseason” for DFS, and new uniforms (if those rumors are true). BTW, don’t let shiny, new uniforms distract you from Udoka being an awful coach.

 

I don't think I under value him, there is no one on this roster who can do what he does, I just think that he could be upgraded - at a significant cost.

 

Really disagree with the tweet's take.

One of the hardest things a GM has to do is evaluating the progress of young players on a tanking team. As a bad team is recovering to a normal team, and rookie contracts coming to a close, a GM has to make decisions at this checkpoint.

When a tanking team was bad: are the prospects slow in their progress, because the prospect has hit a ceiling or is it bad because the system, or synergy among the teammates are the cause of the losses. How to accurately assess a player without being trainted by the environment he's in.

As team grew, coaches got replaced. Stone shed some of the young mouths: (Christopher, Garuba, Tyty, Whitmore, Jalen). As you surround the prospects with more competent NBA players: FVV, Adam's, Holiday, the excuses for the young guys become less. It makes it more clear if the prospects are worth extending (and how much).

We know the franchise player(s) on this team are not obvious because we have people arguing about in hundred pages of threads. Rockets franchise debate is closer to a Franz or Paolo, than Cade, Wemby and Cooper. As far as Rocket's young talents, this team is an ensemble of several good players, but maybe not an obvious great player.

The tweet emphasizes the urgency of the window, whereas some of us have been saying KD is a bridge to another phase. We got lucky on KD, a HoF not of a heliocentric, but a plug-n-play type. When playing around actual good players, you're getting a look at how good (or bad) the young core actually yes. If answer is humbling, it's best to know early than wondering and stuck with a bad contract or fit.

Magic added Bane, Pistons added Tobias, and Duncan Robinson, Spurs added Fox and Barnes. When getting a KD and not pushing all the chips on, it's an affordable way to test your ceiling. Of course you do the KD trade, you do it whether or not FVV got injured. You do it even if FVV never signed here.