Reading their boards lately has been entertaining. Dont like the team, style of play and all the flopping, but the fan base is pretty knowledgeable. They watched their best shot at GSW slip away. They saw first hand the decline of CP3 this year and know that his contract was a huge gamble that looks like it will backfire on the team. Most interesting part is the trade that brought CP3 to them, if you recall. To make the math work, technically CP3 was traded for Beverly, Montrezl Harrell, Lou Williams and a first round pick. Rockets fans are now bemoaning that trade, given Harrell's development, Lou's continued high level offense. It certainly looked like a flotsam and jetsam trade at the time. Just illustrates again though that you cant judge a trade until a few years later.
word is morey is going to try to get jimmy butler using the same strategy. this time, it would probably take gordon/tucker/capela (or whatever they fetch from a third team). anyway, i'm not sure the trade was a fail--the extension was. paul is the difference between them being an also-ran like utah and an actual threat to beat gs, imo. they tried the harden and hardenettes routine, and harden can't carry the burden. those teams flamed out spectacularly against top competition, if you recall. so, they got two years of contention out of paul that they wouldn't have had otherwise. and yeah, they'll have to pay for it on the back end. welcome to our world. we're still paying off the mortgage on the 2008-10 team, really. but we got rings.
they ran harden into the ground this year, he and cp3 are gonna be a year older, and even without KD the warriors will still be the team to beat they can try to get butler but they'd have to give up some key pieces from their current team to do so. they'll still be a top 5 team in the west for another year at least but this season was their best shot at finally dethroning GS
I'm not one to whine about officiating, I figure it all evens out most of the time. But Harden is a different story. He gets alot of calls during the regular season that dont happen in the POs, at least at the same frequency. That leg kick thing he does taking 3 pointers is so obvious but still draws the call. Point is, if Harden were officiated the same way in the regular season that he is in the POs, I am not sure that the Rox are a top 4 team in the West.
Wouldn’t surprise me if some team out there is desperate/stupid enough to take CP3’s contract on in a trade to land a name, and the Rockets somehow still find a way to improve. I love how their season ended, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to breathe easy entirely until Harden ages, retires, or the NBA changes the rules to shut his bs down.
I can't stand Harden. He is single handedly ruining the game as we speak. While "experts" praise his craftiness and "ability to get to the line", I think it's the most disgusting form of basketball. It's cheap. It slows the game down and it can take players out of the game for playing good defense because someone flopped or initiated contact that was called incorrectly. There's a reason why this guy has more made FT's than he does FG's, because he doesn't know how to play any other way. I would hate this type of player on my team. It bleeds out to the rest of the team and now their entire team looks for fouls. There are times to draw fouls, but he just blatantly looks for them and gets support for it. No one mentions the leg kicks on his "natural shot", no one mentions his arm underhooks, but when he gets breathed on, there's "controversy". And since the Rocket's fans seem so adamant about his "greatness", for that reason and think he deserves the calls he gets meanwhile complaining about calls they don't, there is no respect.
The calls aren't because he can't be stopped; they're why he can't be stopped. Antithesis of mj and Kobe, imo.
There were some Houston Rockets fans in the game 7 thread that were complaining about CP3 foul hunting. Especially in the first half. I didn’t read any real complaints about Harden though.
Some absolute moron (forget which it was other than a man and not Tania ..... at least for even suggesting it might be looked into) in an article yesterday in the Times or the day before was talking about LeBron's short window to win now and CP2 being a possible option to trade for. Guess that is a harsh assessment of the writer if not making adjustments for the Lakers' current FO situation he was writing about. Whatever.
Funny, the Rox fans are bagging on everyone on the roster not named Harden right now. Capela is this week's whipping boy- overpaid, limited O skills etc etc. They cant seem to accept that the roster is constructed a certain way with specific skill sets; those players just arent talented enough to overcome GSW. Rox fans look at the roster, the cap situation and know though that the window is closed/ closing fast and that they are screwed very soon.
If rather lose for another 5 years than take on that contract and the douche attached to it in order to be a decent team.
i can't see why a team takes on paul at this point with his contract. when he's healthy, he's still very effective (and annoying as s***), but banking on his health is crazy at this point. and he's going to be making 40 million+ per. i don't think they can move him without taking on serious dead weight salary in return. they *could* move capela, gordon, and tucker, imo. and for decent value. gordon and tucker have short deals and could be valuable to teams with playoff aspirations in the short term. capela's adequately paid for what he does--though he really needs the table set offensively. so, no, i don't think they're finished being a pain in my a**, but i do think their window is barely open and requires lots of bad things happening elsewhere in the league to open wider.
No one is taking on Paul's contract given that amount of money, his age and history of choking and fragility come playoff time.
OK Dan Woike was the moron two days ago that suggested the possibility buried in this article. https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/la-sp-lakers-frank-vogel-whats-next-20190513-story.html "If Davis ends up elsewhere, the Lakers could shop the rest of the trade market. Could a new regime in Washington want to move forward by moving Bradley Beal? Would the Lakers value a Mike Conley-James pairing more than Ball’s continuing development? What about Chris Paul if Houston is ready to make changes?"
Looking at the Rox 2019/20 payroll, 4 players will take up almost 85% of the cap. If anyone can work around that and field a competitive team, it is Morey. No question they will be in luxury tax hell after this year and going forward. We'll see how the owner really feels about paying it when the big dropoff in production happens with Harden and Paul.
To quote that great philosopher Michael Ray Richardson, "this ship be sinking". https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...ckets-plans-to-complete-final-season-of-deal/
We want to keep you coach Mike, but we’re firing a couple of your key assistants, and want you to accept an incentive based coaching contract even though you’ve won an average of 58 games over 3 years. But we really want you back. I swear. But the whole roster might be traded.
