Harden Traded to the Rockets!

[inquisitive]

John Schumann on twitter(so lets give Harden some credit here that it wasn't the other two guys who made him):

Total minutes played last season with neither of the other 2 on the floor – Durant: 38, Westbrook: 13, Harden: 464.

[Mr. E]

Big picture guys. Read my last post and this one...nobody was coming to play with Lamb.

Jonathan Feigen @Jonathan_Feigen

Hearing a lot about Lin, Asik contracts. Keep in mind, Rockets still have room for another max FA next summer, even after Harden gets max.

Of course, many still think that the Rockets are going to be paying Lin & Asik 30M in three years

Lin and Asik WILL get paid 15M a piece in three years, won't they?

Or did you mean the cap hit?

You're right - should have said "cap hit."

Here's the thing for Houston, tho - Cap Hit is all that matters. This franchise is in great financial shape and has been for years. The actual payments coming out of Les' pocket is inconsequential compared to the impact on the franchise.

[spolgar]

What 'cap hit'?

Despite the back loaded contract, both Asik and Lin contracts count 8 million per year for this one and the next 2 against the cap. It's just a detail of the Gil rule. Not even a bad deal. Money is Morey's forte.

[moofs]

I like what Houston is doing, instead of sitting back, taking solid picks in the draft and having a good overall team, you guys have went out and got IMPACT players. Hardin is a #1 option, once Lin gets better he probably won't be near what he did for that special stretch but he should be solid and Asik, who can dominate the defensive side of the court and turn a team like Miami into a bunch of jump shooters.

The NBA is won by impact players and Houston now has 2(Hardin, Asik) and possibly 3 if Lin can be near what he once was.

YES.

Lamb "could" be good... then again, Lamb may just be a solid player. Houston will be a very fun team to watch.

My expectation for Lamb is that his ceiling is somewhere around Rudy Gay or Kevin Martin - perfectly average or so, good at scoring and not much else (until Gay finally improved a bit last year, anyway, which I also expect to have been his career peak).

For anyone who's somehow upset that Harden interrupts our rebuilding... WHAT? Harden is a 23yo superstar. He's better than Westbrook by far, ranked behind only Wade among shooting guards, and was one of the primary drivers of OKC's success the last few years (imho, overpaying Westbrook caused them to temporarily lose their damn minds). He's not QUITE a top-tier player (Howard/LeBron/Wade/Paul/Love), but he's just a hair under them (and 3-7 years younger than all but Love). We still have max cap space. Per the chart that was posted, Harden was better when NOT playing with Durant and Westbrook (http://i.imgur.com/5TZhN.jpg - this actually surprised me, I was also expecting to need another 1st option).

For our tanking camp, think of it this way:
The goal of tanking is to move up in the draft
The goal of moving up in the draft is to increase your odds at being able to draft a young superstar
Once you've moved up, you still have to get lucky, since there's still only about a 30-40% chance of getting a superstar with the #1 pick!
Then there's this...

After four years — the amount of time on rookie scale contracts — about 31% of teams with top three picks hadn’t made the playoffs even once.
Almost 26% of these teams’ best showing was only the first round.
A further 22% of these teams topped out in the second round.
Only 17% of these teams have managed to do better than the second round
Only five players taken in the lottery have ever won a championship with the team that drafted them (Duncan, Milicic, David Robinson [11 years], Sean Elliott [9 years and after being traded away and reacquired], and Jason Kidd [16 years and after being traded away and reacquired])
Only two teams have managed to win an NBA championship within four years of drafting their top three pick (Tim Duncan and Darko Milicic, who barely played during that season

(If you saw my statement on Aldrich, consider it retracted. Early morning grogginess. You'll understand.)
So we've GOT our superstar, we've got two borderline all-stars (well really just one now... since they got rid of the C position on the ballot..., and maybe none if Lin doesn't recover, but he should), an exceptional utility guy (Parsons), one guy who looks to have some definite serious potential (Jones) and two that still may conceivably have potential (Patterson, White). We got rid of our major cap hold (Martin) for a cap hold that's S.I.G.N.I.F.I.C.A.N.T.L.Y. better (Harden) and I believe cheaper, too! Some of you think Motie can pan out (I don't). I don't know what the restrictions were on the two draft picks, but remember at least the Mavericks one as being heavily protected for several years. From what I know now, I'd say they were probably a fair addition from our side.

This trade was like... THE BEST CASE scenario I saw for us over the offseason. I can't believe a) it actually fell into our laps, b) that Morey actually did a trade that I'd thought of for once (he's usually about 200 moves ahead of me). My mind is blown.



I guess now we get to see whether this was accurate:

5.Omar/Motiejunas|Aldrich
4.Jones/Patterson
3.Parsons/White
2.Harden/Livingston
1.Lin/Douglas

That's a pretty good team that is a hair less than San Antonio and on par with Dallas. We certainly match up well with Memphis. It's a 50+ win team. Other than cap considerations, why is this a bad deal? This is a team that can go big or small. It's actually pretty versatile.

Actually, on further consideration, the bench is sorta weak with Douglas and Livingston at the back court, but if we sign Machado we'll look okay. Not the deepest team, but could be really interesting in a years time when we start attracting veterans after some success.

It's not a total crap team. I could see that team winning 35-41 games.

Then again, it's hard to say given that almost all of those guys are completely unproven.

I could actually see as much as 46 or so wins, but think we still need a few more pieces and better depth before being any kind of contender. The playoffs might not be out of the picture this year, though.

HOLY CRAP WE JUST GOT A SUPERSTAR FOR KEVIN FREAKING MARTIN



p.s. I'm waiting for Max to show up and declare his hate for this trade.

Also, I am 100% in agreement with this:

If the Rockets do not have Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill & Frank Beard on hand to introduce James Harden as the newest member of the Rockets then they need to fire their entire PR staff.

[Aaron Brooks]

i like this trade as well, lamb's ceiling is still worse than current harden

[TMU]

[zapatasblood]

Hmm I don't know about this trade.. I wish Morey's impatient ass would have just waited longer. I mean I really thought we were finally gonna do an appropriate rebuilding phase. We as fans deserve a superstar that we drafted and groomed. This past draft was nice but there was only one clear cut superstar. The next two drafts could be special. Especially 2014. Ah that draft could have 3-5 superstars. I'm pretty sure everyone has heard of Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins. Those guys are super legit. Now I feel like we won't suck, but we're still not good enough to compete. We still need that superstar to lead us. Morey has been trying the past few months, but Lin and Harden are not gonna cut it. The team is still mediocre.

But even if you bottom out completely is can take years to draft a true superstar.

As one of those true fans I am willing wait. And it is not like we got a superstar on this team

[j0r0d]

OMG.

I'm soooo excited that I have a Harden

[RYgoBOOM]

Hello from the Magic board

I will be hanging around these parts more often as the Rockets are my team in the west. I've been a fan since Parsons got here and it seems like deep playoff runs are what there is to look forward too soon!

Harden is going to go elite mode......he could easily go off for 24ppg, 5rpg, 5apg, 48%-40%-88%.


Amazing pickup.


Cook is also very underrated

[Effigy]

John Schumann on twitter(so lets give Harden some credit here that it wasn't the other two guys who made him):

Total minutes played last season with neither of the other 2 on the floor – Durant: 38, Westbrook: 13, Harden: 464.

464 minutes isn't much over an entire NBA season. In fact, it's only 23% of the minutes Harden played. 77% of the time he did have one or both of those guys playing with him.

[moofs]

Cook's OK. I'm wondering how Aldrich will pan out. I'd been psyched about getting him for a minute this morning before realizing that he's only played about 340 NBA minutes for an average of 7.3 mpg over 22 games per year.

Then again, Omer'd only played 13.2 mpg, but that was over four times as many games.

[tha_rock220]

So I just got home to read this, and my cousin called me to tell me about a minute later. He said losing Lamb hurts, but at least they didn't trade Royce White. To be honest, I don't know who either of them are or if losing White would have been worse.

Given my ignorance of the current state of the Rockets' roster I'm against this trade. They gave up the Toronto pick which was going to be a lottery pick. There's a good chance they won't be drafting anyone better than Harden with it, but I'm not convinced James Harden is worth max money.

Toronto is an 8th seed this year. With Lowry, Ross, Derozen, Bargs, and Valc they will be IMO. IMO it's basically Lamb and an expiring for Harden at 14 mill. Not bad at all.

Honestly I hope things fall into place so that the Thunder get the Mavs' and Raps' picks this year. The only way this trade works out is if the Thunder don't use those picks to get somebody better than Harden.

I'm still not sold on this. In 2015 the Rockets are going to have $45 million in cap room tied up in Harden, Lin, and Asik. I can't convince myself that's a championship caliber core.

[moofs]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx09_zUJTkk

[Mr. E]

Nope - around 31M in cap room tied up in those three.

[Vator]

I'm still not sold on this. In 2015 the Rockets are going to have $45 million in cap room tied up in Harden, Lin, and Asik. I can't convince myself that's a championship caliber core.

Not entirely accurate. The cap hit for Lin and Asik will be somewhere upwards of 16 million combined because their contracts are divided equally over 3 years in terms of how it effects the salary cap even though in real life they get their big ballon payment in that 3rd year. Plus they expire after the season if the experiment fails. Also consider that the Rockets still presently have enough cap room to sign a max free agent this summer to add to this mix.

[No-Man]

I'd love the roster and the look of the team... but I don't like Lin at all, and I dislike him more with Harden around...

Just with Lowry instead of him..

[MaxRider]

are we giving up too much for Harden?

Martin is good as go, don't care
Lamb was supposed to be our future starting SG
i know Harden is a better player now
but without flopping is Harden really better in 3 years? (also expect Rockets to give him the max 60M 4 years extension)
a lottery pick from Toronto -- don't really know now
late 1st round pick from Dallas -- yea don't care much
early 2nd round pick from Charlotte -- well, Morey can always buy it back

[tha_rock220]

I'm still not sold on this. In 2015 the Rockets are going to have $45 million in cap room tied up in Harden, Lin, and Asik. I can't convince myself that's a championship caliber core.

Not entirely accurate. The cap hit for Lin and Asik will be somewhere upwards of 16 million combined because their contracts are divided equally over 3 years in terms of how it effects the salary cap even though in real life they get their big ballon payment in that 3rd year. Plus they expire after the season if the experiment fails. Also consider that the Rockets still presently have enough cap room to sign a max free agent this summer to add to this mix.

Did I have it backwards??? I thought Lin was going to make $8 million a year and it was going to count as $5, $5, and $15 against eh cap.

Which max free agents should they target???

[moofs]

This might be Morey's best trade yet...

I am so psyched right now.

[Vator]

It amazes me how some think we gave up too much. How many late lottery picks and late 1st rounders do people want to draft? We don't need more Chase Budinger, Patrick Patterson, Marcus Morris, Chandler Parsons, etc. They are decent in their own right, but come on. Morey stockpiled all these picks in order to trade them for proven commodities, not to have 3 or more rookie projects on the squad every year. Lamb will be missed, but he has a ways to go before he is on Harden's level. He needs to develop better handles and passing ability to create offense for himself and others before they are even in the same conversation.