ImNotMcDiSwear wrote:BobbieL wrote:Ghost of Kleine wrote:Just 3 more losses to go for the Rockets to wake up to the reality of desperately needing KD at nearly any cost.
I don't think I want Green in a Durant trade. Smith, Whitmore, cap filler and expirings plus a couple Suns picks back
As far as I'm concerned, if HOU is willing to send all three of our picks back, they can send us whatever contracts they want in exchange for KD.
If they would only give us our picks back for Booker, then sure, insist on Cam Whitmore. But the bottom line is that this franchise can't move forward unless we get those picks back. There's just no point drawing a line in the sand when the alternative is basketball purgatory.
Booker to HOU for the picks and Whitmore
KD for picks and whatever
Talent, shmalent. There is no hope without the tank.
But that is still drastically underseelling Booker's value in a Houston trade man! At minimum, it should be some combination of 2-3 young athletic core players AND the 3 1sts back! Maybe only two 1sts IF the 25' Houston pick jumps into the top 3. Not getting back Ameeen Thompson or Sengun is understandable. But Booker's current consensus value is around 2-3 promising, exciting, young, athletic, high potential talents, and 3-4 quality 1sts (at least two solid lottery of the 4). Don't let anyone mislead or convince you that it's less.
Suree the picks are very important, but the pick swaps that Jones imbecilically gave away like freakin "Oprah on her talk shows" make it eextraordinarily difficult if not nearly impossible to initiate a proper rebuild in even years, as multiple other teams hold control over our picks. UNLESS we do one of two things:
1- We accumulate young talent/ fillers (trade assets) towards either acquiring other teams' picks for the 26' and 28' draft??? This is still difficult as we'd have to try and accurately project a team's likelihood of collapse, resulting in a premium pick outcome. But if Ishbia hires the right legitimate GM and front office personnel, we should be able to do it. Also, pouring money into the acquisition of top-tier scouts and actual talent consultants. In successfully utilizing this strategy, we'll not only sidestep the poorer " least of" late firsts by drafting from the other teams' acquired premium 1sts, but those late "Least of" 1sts can be used to target supplementary depth or utility pieces.
2- We make sure we actually
do get some combination of young, athletic core players on cost-controlled contracts to build out our roster around Booker and then utilize the accumulated cap space from the KD trade, etc to add higher value free agents now and espeecially in 2027. Or possibly even trading some of those acquired pieces for key players/other draft assets (for even years, to offset those pick swaps while additionally working towards being more competitive in the process??
