Trading Harden is the answer

If we flame out in the first round of the playoffs this year I’d consider trading Harden and rebuilding. Knicks might give up 6 first round picks for him.

 

You are Overreacting

 

We would still lose the trade.

 

yeah that’s a move everyone would regret. They don’t realize what the team would look like if he was traded.

 

As today it doesn't make sense, the Rockets still have a jolly to play with, if they can improve the roster with the picks left they'll have still a 2/3 years window with this team.

Regardless, for different reasons this is not happening, like others said Tilman doesn't want a tanking team without a star on it so having Harden helps him, and i also don't see teams with enough assets to match Harden's value as today outside of a couple of them, or maybe only Memphis, but you already know they aren't going to trade Morant for Harden.

 

Harden is the Fertitas' cash cow. They would never have bought the team if he wasn't here.

 

Getting picks back from a team Harden is traded to isn't that useful. Harden plus a bunch of average role players is a playoff team in the East and close to it in the West. You need legit players and other teams picks or that year's picks that yo know are in the lottery.

Harden/Tucker/House/Nene/Thabo for Ben Simmons/Tobias Harris/Thybulle/As many picks as possible.
Philly wins this trade... though if you can move Westbrook for something decent, and bring in a new coach and have a ball movement offense with a defensively led team, you can make a very solid squad out of it... but not a championship one.

Sacramento would be a decent trade partner in the offseason.
Harden/Tucker for Fox/Bagley/Bogdonovic/their pick this year
Again, you need to move Westbrook. Again, Sac probably wins this trade - Sac has these players and suck, no reason why adding them to Clint Capela is all of a sudden a playoff team win championship potential... but if you luck into a pick, get good assets for Westbrook, it's at least an approach.

You really can't get equal value for Harden... just like you can't improve the team much in other ways.
The time to trade Harden was a few years ago for Giannis (not that Milwaukee would have done it - though you never know - right @vlaurelio remember those arguments, lol) or for a bushel of picks that would have turned into Doncic - both things I "argued" for. But even though I still personally don't see it with Harden, I at least recognize that it is indeed possible with the right players around him (true for everone, lol) and at this point, that's what they got to try to do...

 

None of those trades are even close to being appealing. We are fcked if we trade Harden.

 

This is actually a rational approach but most people are too emotional. I would add that any trade of Harden also require we dump all our bad contracts and get 1st round picks in return ie kings ransom for an mvp

 

If this comes off as offensive, I apologize, but you are ignorant of Rockets history and ownership moves since the sale of the team. It's not a dichotomous situation where LT = winning and LTS = losing, but the criticism based on this situation is beyond justified. I'm being serious with this question: have you followed this team very closely over the last 3 years? Have you been following the breakdowns and analysis by pod-casters, sportswriters, bloggers, and cap knowledgeable posters here? I'm pretty swamped now, but I'll try to make a new thread with some team-by-team comparison of moves pre-cap jump, post-cap jump, then post-cap decline. But it's pretty established fact that the new owner has been cutting expenses since day one, and many of those decision have been at the cost of improving the team. Bringing in Russ doesn't cost more money this year, or next year, and saves in FRP guaranteed compensation, and brings in a marketable star. It's about marketing.

 

FIFY

Too Idiotic; Didn't Read

 

Of all the ideas that may exist to improve this team, trade Harden is the worst of all. I think we all agree that Harden is not a leader, and what this team needs is one. The best (and most realistic) solution is to find a coach who assumes that role (a Popovich-style coach) and who emphasizes discipline, team attitude and defensive scheme.

 

Lol you don’t mean to be offensive? It is what it is. Unecessary. I even said I’m no GM lmao. But go ahead enlighten me. Also But to be fair no I don’t listen to podcasts etc just through articles and I’ve studied morey’s draft and acquisitions since 2007. That is why I said if there’s any empirical evidence that supports these claims please list them because I’m quite curious what the reasoning is that you and others have come to this conclusion? In my opinion looking at my perspective as I’ve mentioned before the executive leadership made curious moves even in the Leslie years. A lot of the young talent or assets were traded. Terrible draft picks. Lack player development etc along with a obsession with analytics leading to an aesthetically unappealing style of play and problematic due to over reliance on 3s. Just in all threads I post on here I close with dude just my opinion. If you don’t agree say you don’t agree and state your peace.

 

yeah remember that

what I don't understand people are proposing harden to be traded first because he has the most value? so people are saying everyone else is pretty much worthless. why not trade/fix the worthless things first then?

Honestly I think Harden & Tucker are overworked and Harden is over doing things. That points to the GM and HC.

Because I wouldn't trust both Morey to build and MDA to coach a championship team from scratch.

 

I know this was said in jest...but its almost certainly true. Unless there were some time willing to give us a boatload of draft picks, and they all panned out...with one of them being the next Harden.

It's VERY hard to trade superstars in the NBA and get like value back.

 

But here’s the thing....If we fail this year in the first round we still have no money to go and get good role players, we have almost no draft picks and the only thing we will get is older.

There comes a time when you have to realize that the decisions that have been made by the Head coach not developing players, the GM signing awful role players and the owner throwing away future assets to save money have made this team stuck with nothing to do. Getting 5/6 first round picks for Harden is a way of getting back on track rebuilding.

 

Actually not a bad idea depending on how the season ends. If Harden has another disappointing performance in the postseason, we gotta get rid of him and Morey. I'd actually like MDA to stay & implement his REAL offense, not the one Morey's forcing him to run now

 

You can assign a return value from star players, and I believe it was recently mentioned Harden's $200mm contract is worth $400mm+ in value to the franchise. It just doesn't make financial sense to pay $2.2b for a team with two stars locked up long term, just to trade them away for guys that bring the value of the franchise down significantly. My guess is Tilman would keep a disgruntled Harden on the team vs trading him to make him happy.

 

You are fair to criticize Morey for his misses, or even his overall strategy. Most have a problem with the ownership because he's a two-faced liar. Just wanted to point out that you are factually incorrect about Ariza in the sense that the only impact on the cap is that the Rockets chose not to pay the luxury tax the off-season after being a 65 win team and making to game 7 of the WCF. That was the opportunity cost. There was no other cost. Ariza's market value was what he made for the Suns and then traded for Kelly Oubre (and Austin Rivers iirc). So we could have had Kelly Oubre (no picks were involved).

You are correct when you say "those moves were made from a business standpoint." This owner cares about business first, and that's fine. It just pisses a lot of people off that he talks like a used car salesman and lies about caring about winning first.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles...willing-to-pony-up-for-a-rockets-championship
B/R: You bring up the luxury tax—is that something you're willing to pay?
TF: When you start looking to the future and into keeping this team together, if that's what it's going to take then I'm going to leave it to the basketball people and look at their recommendations. These guys are smart, they know you don't want to be in the luxury tax unless you think you have a team that can take you to the Finals—if that's the case then who cares about paying that tax? You do whatever you have to do.

B/R: So if you feel the team is championship-level, you're open to paying that price?
TF: Absolutely.

So he stated that before the Rockets won 65 games, went to game 7 in the WCF against one of the greatest teams of all time, and then he did everything @Corrosion pointed out:
-let Ariza (Kelly Oubre) walk for LTS
-traded away Ryan Anderson and future draft picks for LTS, while making the kool-aid drinkers believe that the Knight/Shumpert salary slots would be flipped for another player*
-didn't use all MLE money
-didn't expand Westbrook trade (another thing ownership supporters were hoping would happen at the time)

The Luxury Tax history is weird and kind of tied into the NBA Union, new money, and lack of cap smoothing. Everything was about 2016 when the cap jumped like crazy, and so did the Luxury tax threshold. In years afterwards, the jumps would be much smaller and sometimes even less in line with the standard salary raises. So the Rockets in the year of the jump, spent all this extra cap money on Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson (not horrible considering the FA class and dumb money out there: https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...where-players-are-going-whos-still-available/ ). But ever since Tilman took over, all they've done is work towards eliminating those salary slots by breaking into smaller slots, trading them away, and letting them expire, all while losing draft picks to facilitate the moves. So all they have left are 2 max players, 3.5 tradeble players, and the rest on minimum contracts. They've intentionally screwed their roster flexibility for business reasons. It sucks, but we're just the dumb fans.

 

Never would trade Harden unless we are stuck in no mans land. But I'm curious to what type of package even makes sense. Bradley Beal and 3 first rd picks or something like that.