Quote:
Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
Reminder: They lost by 40, at home, in a must win situation, against a team missing one of the top 3 players in the league. This is a team that barely plays any defense, the only way you can beat the Warriors. Getting George is not possible, everyone else can offer more and better assets. The Rockets just gave up all their tradeable assets in this trade. Best case is they can get Milsap, but even then that's getting in luxury tax hell, and that team with Milsap still has less than a 1% chance of beating the Warriors. There's the hope they maybe get Carmelo if he gets bought out, but I suspect part of the reason the Zen Master was shown the door was he intended to do that. Dolan won't let that happen now.
I think best case scenario for the Rockets is getting swept by the Warriors in the WCF. Worst case scenario is Paul and Harden don't mesh, and you're on the hook for $40 million a season to a player in decline over five more years, with a team stuck going nowhere. I don't think every team should lie down...just every team but the Spurs and Cavs (to become the Sixers next year). Everyone else should develop their young guys and wait for the post-Warriors world. But when your chances of winning it all hinge on Durant or Curry getting seriously hurt, it's a pretty poor strategy to win a title. Trading Harden now would have allowed them to stack up on assets for the post-Warriors world. Now they'll be lucky to not be crippled going into that world since they are now all in and will likely waste even more assets in a fruitless effort to beat the Warriors.
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You don't burn a 55 win, young team to the ground. The name of the game is competing to win and there is no way the Rockets were going to start tanking. That's not a realistic suggestion. Yeah they had a horrible playoff loss. So now they're doing their best to shore up the team and take some pressure off Harden who clearly was awful in game 6, but more importantly end of game 5. I won't be surprised at all to see them add George or Carmelo. Morey is not exactly afraid to make moves. Beating the Warriors is of course a long shot but tanking gets you no closer and yields no benefit.