Reaction to Houston’s chaotic start in 2023 free agency

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Cheers, Rockets fans, Welcome toThe lagger Line, an exclusive podcast from
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your source for analysis and commentary ofall things Houston Rockets basketball. As

(00:46):
always, I'm your host, BenZubos, editor of USA Today's Rockets Wire
and a contributor to Sports Talk sevenninety, the official flagship radio station of
the team. Today. On thisSunday, July second, the second day
of NBA free agency during the twentytwenty three offseason, I'm joined by my
good friend, co host and producerout of Portugal, Palo Alves. Palo.

(01:06):
This has been a whirlwind of aweekend. I think your emotional state,
in particular between Friday night, whenit initially looked free agency negotiations opened
on Friday, June thirtieth at fivepm Central, there were a few hours
that looked like the Rockets might loseFred van Fleet, who was clearly their
top target heading into free agency,one of three at the top of their

(01:29):
list, alongside Brook Lopez and DylanBrooks, but Fred definitely the highest in
terms of average annual value. Therewas a time period it looked like that
Fred might spurn them and go backto Toronto. Then there was a time
in which it looked like the Rocketsgot Fred, but it was at three
years, which I know you wereoutraged about because of what it would mean
for team building in the future.Then it came out that, you know,

(01:49):
it's not a three year deal.The deal had a team option,
so it's really the two year dealthat we talked about it all along.
Then I know, brook Lopez yourtarget. It looked late Friday at early
Saturday that the Rockets were going toget him and fill their need for defensive
big man who can shoot. Thenit didn't happen. Then there were some
curious trades apparently connected to that,offloading Usbang Gruba, ty Tie Washington to

(02:12):
Atlanta, Josh Christopher to Memphis,kJ Martin to the Clippers, basically taking
out a lot of young players whoseemed to be blocked a bit of a
log jam in terms of their development, and also to open up a bit
more financial space that ultimately you didn'teven need. That was a downer.
The Rockets signed Dylan Brooks, whoI know you had come around on,
but the terms eighty million dollars forfour years, no options were a bit

(02:35):
deflating. Then Saturday night, theRockets signed Jeff Green, who I think
it's the ultimate glue guy, thetype of veteran you want to add.
I think it's fair to say youremotions have been all over the map in
the last thirty six to forty eighthours, right, Yeah, it's been.
It's been a wild right, Iwent, I was, you know,
the first free agency, like itstarted right, and then it took

(02:58):
a couple of hours until we gotFred and League deal, and so the
tensions were building up. And thenwhen it dropped and I looked at it
and I'm like, no, we'renot about to play forty five million dollars
to Fred ventably don't have to playJailer and Jangun. And so I was
going off on that one um.But eventually later that night we found out

(03:19):
that we found out that it's ateam option, or the rumor circulating that
it was a team option, andthat changes everything to me, and it
never even crossed my mind that itcould be a team option, because it
didn't make any sense. The growingsense that we got from reports was that
as the night as the for me, the night, but three yea,
the evening, maybe the afternoon,I don't know. As it developed,

(03:46):
it looked like fred and Leet wascloser and closer to joining the Ruptors,
and so what it looked like wasthat, well, he was going to
join Interruptors, and the Rockets hadto do something, and so they overstepped
their budget and they offered three andthat's how they got him, and that
made all sense in the world.Nobody would have expected them to get a
better deal than the one they weresupposed to get in the first place,

(04:08):
because all the rumors said the Rocketsare going to get are going to give
them two years, two years eightymillion, right, right. Adding a
team option on top of that,that's a good thing for the team and
the team alone, right, becausethat he gives a team more control and
any case for it, what's thisperfect fit and there's no better alternatives.
They can extend that contract for oneyear further. And so it never really

(04:30):
made sense, which is why itwas such a huge shock when it came
through, and that to me turnsthe complete the deal completely around because Frevan
is the perfect with here leadership wise. Hold on, would you say it
turned the deal upside down for Yard? And when does he come back the
Yard to come back and beat theRangers? Unfortunately not for this series.

(04:54):
My guess is on the other sideof the All Star breaks. So basically
just one more week without it,especially against the Valdi is the one that
the Carters threw him right when inthe that was my first CBIs of playoff
baseball that I ever watched. Yeah, um so yeah, back and back
to basketball, and I think forevent Woods perfect with right there was there

(05:15):
was the comparisons whether they could havewon gone after Team Starden instead, and
just from a leadership perspective, rightfor He's a winner. He has won
an NBA Championship. He has beenon countless successful teams. He took the
Reins after Kyle Awey left. He'san enforcer. He's you know, great
on ball defender, which is somethingthat we that we did need and we
got bubbled in in Dylan Brooks aswell. But most importantly, and this

(05:40):
is the point, that actually Ruchemade last night on Rockets Walk, which
is it's a lot ea. Soif if your point guards is a really
good on ball defender and an enforcer, and your small forward next to you
is also really good on ball defenderand an enforcer, and then the other
the four is likely to be javarriAtari to defensive mind the guys. If
Keilen Green's not fighting through screams,if Ken Green's not trying on defense,

(06:03):
he's going to stick out like athird thumb um. As opposed to last
year where everybody was playing hit defenseand so you couldn't really pinpoint one person
that was you know the reason.That really puts a lot more weight on
killing Green's shoulders, and it makesit easier to figure out who the problem
is. And if Kaylren's the problem, than he's going to have to deal
with the consequences because it will beobvious that there would There will be no

(06:26):
option for him to deflect the blametoo, because it's on him. Every
single prim that defender on this teamthat's protected to start, it's going to
be really good. So from thatperspective, I really like fretently as a
prospect. He is a point guard. He has an elite sister to an
overaction, which hus something to Rocket'sneat. He's not the most efficient,
but as many have said, theRaptor's offense wasn't exactly the best. Nick

(06:48):
Nurs' not exactly an offensive guru.When the he won a championship, it
was because well, first of all, they had really smart pigs in in
Any Bacca and Marcusol, but theyalso had Kawhile Leonard, who's gonna make
something happen ure than nothing. He'san offensive option by himself. To me
at two years, the frevent Witis a home run, perfect fit for

(07:11):
this team. I expected shooting numbersto be better with us. He's been.
I mean, he's shooting as theclient ever since, like the twenty
twenty two All Star Break, whichis a really short sample size. Someone
who's been a great shutters entire careeron high volume. I expect the volume
to decrease when on a team withso many offensive options as the Rockets are.
I expect him to get more Cattishoot shots. I expect him One

(07:33):
of the things that we lacked inthese feions that I'll just go ahead and
say, is we act shooting,and we only go one guy that's respect
a respectable shooter, but that guyis rather van wait and I expect that
when he doesn't have the ball inhis hands, he will create space for
others. Because even if he shotthirty four percent of last season, he
did a round nine attempts ten attemptsthe previous season. He is a respected

(07:55):
clearer in the NBA. Teams arenot going to leave him open. Teams
are not going to sicked off ofhim. So I have any any trouble
or operning, any trouble spacing wise, because by the way, quick rant
that I want to throw in onthat, it really bugs me when people
on social media strictly judge shooting throughpercentages because it's so asinine. Fred VanVleet
is an elite shooter. Let's beblunt. I know the percentage last year

(08:18):
was what thirty four percent, butcome on, there's so many factors that
go into it, between usage patterns, shot selection, injuries. For starterage.
With Fred, we have a muchlarger sample that he's going to shoot
at a higher clip than that,and that last year was an outlier.
But even within that context, there'sso many factors that go into each person's

(08:43):
number that I think in our worldof social media, people want to boil
it down to something just one sizefits solid they can throw out there.
I'll throw you two examples from recentRockets history, Eric Gordon and kJ Martin.
Over kJ Martin's first two years withthe Rockets, he shot over thirty
six percent from three. Over EricGordon's seven seasons with the Rockets, he

(09:03):
shot thirty six percent from three.If you think that makes them identical shooters,
you are insane. Eric Gordon wasan elite shooter. It came down
to shot selection, the types ofthrees he was taking and needed to take,
given how he was used in thatoffense. Caitlyn Cooper, who we
had on the pot a couple ofweeks ago, did a great article in
late twenty twenty one and five thirtyeight about the value of Eric Gordon's gravitational

(09:26):
poll, referring to the fact thateven beyond twenty seven feet, defenders still
had to respect him. And ofcourse that meant a ton for the Rockets
as far as their offense to spacing. What it means for the other four
players that are playing alongside him inthose minutes so I do think that people
acting like Fred isn't a shooter simplybecause of last season's number. I'm sorry,

(09:50):
that's way too simplistic. Fred VanVleetis an elite shooter in the NBA,
and I also think, by theway to your point on shooting,
we'll see what they do the restof the off season. But I think
and hope that assuming Kevin Porter Juniorsix around and it seems clear that they
do value him on some level,that's why they didn't try to move him
in any of these deals to createmore salary cap space, then potentially you're

(10:11):
moving KPJ into less of a creationand more of a secondary playmaking and shooting
role. So I do think thatsome of the hope we've seen the catch
and shoot numbers for a couple ofyears now, but that in terms of
the spacing what you can do offball, I think it's not just Fred,
it's also moving KPJ into a bitmore of a shooting role, which

(10:33):
honestly is probably optimal for him anywaywhen you look at his skill set,
and so I think that's part ofthe shooting picture as well. So I
just want to clarify Number one Fred'snot a bad shoot at all. Anybody's
saying that based on lasting to hisnumber is just fundamentally not being serious.
And secondly, I do think there'ssome hope that Kevin in a different role
can give you a bit more shootingvalue as it pertains to you know,

(10:54):
the spacing for everybody else. That'sa really good point on because you're really
getting a completely you're basically getting adifferent player in KPK because you're you're kidding
his role so much, right,and you're leaning into him as a hut,
which we know is elite as longas it's not pulling up. I
mean, even even if it's pullingup. I think he hit like thirty
six or seven percent last season.Yeah, I think that's a really good

(11:18):
point as far as as wink shootinggoes, because he can play the wing.
Yeah. And by the way,I should point out that, you
know the converse of the Eric Gordonexample, even when kJ Martin was shooting
thirty six percent, defenders still saggedoff like crazy. They did not trust
that jumb shot. And ultimately,of course, and you're three, it
reverted back to what people thought itwould be entering the NBA low thirties.

(11:39):
I think just about thirty one percent, and I do think it was a
factor and why the Rockets ultimately movedhim to the Clippers. So the larger
point is that it's not just aboutthat number. It's also much more about
how those percentages and how their overallshooting profile makes other teams defend them,
and what that means for the offensewhen they're functionally on the court. Yeah,

(12:01):
I agree, And just to closethe loop on on friend end Wheat,
once again, he is overpaid fortwo years. But let's be honest,
the Rockets are taking advantage of thefact that six of their core players
that are going to be in arotation, or least five of them are
going to be in the rotation,are on rookie deals, and they are
on rookie deals for the next twoyears. So they this is a window

(12:22):
that they have to conventity of itthat you don't mind overpaying for these two
years because you're compensated for the marketfor the for the exploit are there are
rookie contracts right so for two years. I actually think that this is a
numb run deal. I think thisis an A maybe an A plus deal.
Because they got a team option thatI don't expect them to pick up.
But there are scenarios depending on howdealing green pends out or are operating

(12:46):
on pends out where they can't pickit up. But that optionality is really
important because if you're locked into itnow, all of a sudden, you're
forced to trade in and you're forcedto give up passage to do so.
So to me, this was,you know, a great way to start,
well, well not to start,but a couple of hours after it
started. Um. And the otherangle to include is there was a report
by Jake Fisher um that I thoughtit was really interesting that was and it

(13:11):
was that both Kate Vincent and Kylenot Kylarry and Fred Van Lead consulted with
Kyle Lowry to help them make thatdecision as far as free agency goes,
which I just I just as afan. It makes me happy that I'm
going to imagine that Kyle Larry toldFred Van Lead that Houston was a good

(13:31):
spot to go because Kyl Harry playedhere right um. And so I'd like
to imagine that that played a factorinto it, um. And I'd like
to imagine that I said, wemight have not gotten brook Lopez. And
because of that, and because wehad to overpay for for Dylan Brooks,
what people are going to say,Oh, this is what happens with every
rebuilding team. Oh no, becauseeven if you overpay, which is what

(13:54):
the Rockets strike to do with withbrook Lopez, guys can still not come
Fred and has been in Toronto forhis entire career. His life is right.
The Toronto Roptors were interested in bringinghim back. They put up a
competitive offer, I'm fairly certain.I mean they were a rumored to be
giving him thirty million a year forfour years, or even if you make

(14:15):
it three years. It's a closeenough offer to what the Rockets offered and
prevent it still chose to come herefor more money. That's correct. But
that makes me feel good about aboutwhere the steam's going in. And we'll
get into all of the stuff thatwent wrong in a little bit. Johann
m want to pro hope as ortto win Brooks next. Yeah, so
let me try and set up whatI think happened with those two deals.

(14:39):
By the way, today's show,we're going to be all over the place.
As always, this is the loggerline, your source for everything Houston
Rockets basketball served uccurneesy a clutch tothe logger a car back crewing. They're
beer developed in collaboration with the Rockets. Look, we're going to bounce around
because I think a lot of thisstuff is intertwined. We know going into
free agency they had three your targetsat the top of their list. From

(15:01):
everything I've heard, the Kyla Kuzmasmoke was just a red herring. I
think that was his agent linking theRockets for leverage purposes. Ultimately he resigned
with the Wizards. Clearly for theRockets. It was always for my conversations
and the way it played out Fredmun Vliet Brook Lopez, and Dylan Brooks,
they got two of the three.Perhaps the Brooks contract is a little
richer than people wanted. They didn'tget brook Lopez, and I think it's

(15:26):
fair to question if they should havestill gone through with some of the deals
they did after Lopez burned the Rockets. There's a lot of different angles.
But before we go into the particularsof each deal, I want to explain
why I think this played out asit did. Because one thing at like
a thirty thousand foot view that youneed to understand about the Rothelstone era of

(15:50):
the Rockets. They are focused verymuch on relationships and it is an enormous
change from when Daryl Morey was leadingthe front office, especially about ten years
ago. I think Darrell softened ita little bit in his latter years as
he saw where the NBA was goingwith the player empowerment era and players and
agents having more power and having andneeding to warm up to them. But

(16:11):
I think especially early on in Darrell'stenure, the Rockets were very cutthroat,
and that's when you started hearing allthe feedback about players used they feel like
assets. Basically, the Rockets feltlike they had such an organizational advantage,
which they did. They were extremelysmart as a front office. Also,
some teams weren't really all in onanalytics at that point, so it was

(16:36):
a bit like the Oakland A's inMoneyball in the early two thousands. For
anyone who's seen the movie, theA's were really good, even with insanely
low payrolls, but that they hadso much of a fundamental competitive advantage in
terms of their front office approach.What ended up happening, of course,
is that it eroded over the yearsas more teams used those principles, and
then it's like, well, ofcourse MLB does out of a salary cap,

(16:56):
but it's like, well, ifother teams are using the same principle
and they have more money than thecompetitive advantage that Oakland had when that movie
was made, and the peak moneyballyears ultimately went away. And so I
think when you look at the Rocketsover the last ten to fifteen years,
they started off being super cutthroat ata time in which they had a lot

(17:17):
more of an advantage in terms thatthey were one of the really smart phone
offices. There were also a tonof dumb front offices not using analytics at
all they could pick on take advantageof. And so between that and the
player empowerment era not being where itis today, then my strong suspicion is
that the Rockets said, you knowwhat, our advantage is enough that we're
just going to do the best wecan to put talent, to maximize the

(17:38):
talent you can have on the floor, and let the chips fall as they
may in terms of how players feelabout it, that they just trusted their
process enough that it was going tobe enough. I think now and this
is sort of culminated in the BrookLopez deal and some of the negotiations.
Actually it had to do with theFred van Fleet deal as well. That's
why I want to talk about ithere. They are very much relationship focused,

(18:00):
and I think there's a couple ofreasons for starters. The competitive advantage,
as I mentioned, is eroding.There's fewer and fewer truly dumb teams
in the NBA that you can justpick on, So it's not like the
analytics heavy focus can work to theextent that it did. Even if you
have the right people ten to fifteenyears ago, your competitors are much smarter.

(18:22):
And then secondly the player empowerment era. Look, you just don't want
to double cross many people in thisleague because it's increasingly a relationship oriented business,
and so I think we've seen eversince Roth Eelstone took the reins in
twenty twenty, and this is somethingI've heard in private conversations as well.
They are very much a relationship focusedorganization. This is a clear priority for

(18:48):
them. They follow through on theirword for better or for worse, and
this weekend there were sometimes it wasfor the better and others that it was
for worse. But I think that'sthe consistent theme, and they believe that
that level of trust is important tocreating not just a contender, but a
sustainable contender where the players they havein place want to be here and hopefully,

(19:12):
you know, it can work out, especially if the guys they draft
internally think you're Aman Thompson's, You'reCam Whitmore, Shabari Smith, Try Eeson,
Jalen Green, All Prens Andoon.If some of these guys pan out
as true building blocks, then yeah, there's always a challenge to retain them.
And I think Roth fel Stone inhis front office having this player friendly,

(19:32):
agent friendly approach. If it worksout, it can be beneficial from
the standpoint of keeping this group boughtin and hopefully locked in for a long
time. And so I think howthis goes into their free agency negotiations.
Look, everyone chats, let's justbe blunt about this. Conversations have been
had for weeks behind the scenes interms of putting financial parameters together for these

(19:57):
deals, and the Rockets thought theyhad an understanding with their top three targets.
Ultimately they did with Fred and withDylan, with Brooke, they thought
they had a deal. I've beentold that Friday night, the Rockets believed
he was coming, that he hadgiven them reason to believe that he was,
and ultimately Saturday morning, he decidedto circle back to the Bucks.

(20:18):
They matched or came close to matchingthe offer, and he ended up going
back. And I don't think it'san unforseeable scenario. It's happened before.
It's tough to pluck a player likethat, a key contributor to a legit
title contender. That's why when Idid my free agency pod with Jackson Gatlin
last week, I locked on Rockets. I predicted actually most of what had

(20:38):
happened. I said, I thinkthey get Fred and Dylan. I don't
think they get Brooke. I actuallysaid they'd pivot to Clint Capella as a
backup plan to be determined if thathappens. Will I'm sure to talk about
that in a little bit when wetalked about where they could go from here.
But I just always had a toughtime seeing Lopez leave a legitimate contender
like Milwaukee. That always screamed leverageto me. And there was always possibility

(21:03):
if the Bucks could cave at thelast minute and give him the type of
deal that he wanted to keep thatteam together. It's not like the Raptors,
who clearly as a team are nota contender anymore. They had maxed
out. But as far as theyapproach, well, look, I think
the Rockets had certain deals in placebased on the contingency of well, I
shouldn't say based on a contingency,because again they didn't think they'd need it.

(21:23):
They trusted the word that these guyswere coming, and Lopez more or
less went back on his work,as I understand it, and so the
Rockets had these deals set up otherwiseand they just said, you know what,
word is everything, Let's just pushthrough. It's not worth going back
on, and especially when the realityis the young guys they sent out guys

(21:45):
like us Bunkaru, but Josh Christopher. Look, we'll get into it,
but the odds are they're not goingto be good NBA players anyway. So
I think from the Rockets perspective,since it's not anything that consequential to your
long term future, they said,you know what, we may as well
honor our word and see what happens. But I think again, it's not
all bad. I do think withFred we were just talking about what he

(22:08):
brings as a player. Look,I do believe the reports that came out
Friday afternoon that the Raptors did givea fourth year when they met with him,
pretty much the second the clock turnedto five pm Central and negotiations can
start. They did make a largerbid at the last minute. They did
offer a deal that, at leastin terms of guaranteed money, was substantially

(22:30):
more than what the Rockets offered.They did pull on at his heart strings
to try and get him to stay, and yet the Rockets and rafel Stone
were still able to close the dealon basically the terms they negotiated and the
third year announced. The team optionis even more friendly to the team.
By the way, in terms ofthis building relationships. An example I think

(22:52):
back to in late twenty twenty onewhen the Rockets negotiated this non playing arrangement
with John Rich Paul actually went outof his way. That's Rich Paul,
the CEO of Clutch Sports Group,probably the most influential agent in sports right
now. He went out of hisway to tell Sham Shrania at the Athletic
that the way the Rockets were handlingthings with John Wall basically paying him not

(23:17):
to play, allowing him to workout staying in dialogue about what the next
steps would be. Was how hewanted Daryl Moorey to handle the situation with
Ben Simmons, which was a fairlysimilar standoff happening at the same time.
And I thought that was so tellingthat New Rockets GM is being cited as
an example for how Old Rockets GMshould be operating. And so I think

(23:42):
it speaks to this emphasis that Iwas just describing that really rough Helstone has
put into place ever since he tookthe job in late twenty twenty. But
I also think that it's interesting thatrich Paul was the person to make that
comp because, to spend it forward, who represents Fred VanVleet Rich Paul,
And so even after the Raptors camein for the last minute, offered that

(24:06):
fourth year hold at his heart strings. Ultimately Fred not only honored the parameters
that were in place with the Rockets, but he ended up giving them a
little something extra with that third yearas a team option that gives them even
more control. As you were describing, that's the good I think ultimately the
Rockets built a relationship with Rich Paul, and it paid off in these Fred

(24:27):
negotiations, not just for a fellStone, but new head coachmay Udoka clearly
prioritized Fred. I've been hearing nothingbut good things about him for a month
now. Love him or hate him, the Rockets absolutely believe in him.
They see him as the ideal fit, the floor general for this team at
least for the next couple of yearsand perhaps beyond that as they try and

(24:48):
transition this young group back into relevancyand eventually towards title contention, like what
we saw Fred do with the Raptorsin twenty nineteen. That's the good.
The ad is, of course,what happened with Lopez, and that sometimes
if you're too trusting, people cantake advantage of you. And I think
Fred and his agent ultimately use theRockets to get the deal from Milwaukee.

(25:11):
I'll be interest to see if theRockets push that angle. I suspect they
won't because I went and looked itup. I'm blanking on the name,
but the agent for Brook Lopez hasenough lens. Yeah it's from if it's
from Wasserman and his name is Canfully, I guess a little bit. I
looked it up on real GM andhe has a number of clients. One

(25:32):
of his clients, by the way, is Clint Cappella. So notice that's
cy Yeah, amazing how it works. But the point is I highly doubt
the Rockets want to air the dirtylaundry, because again I think from a
philosophical level, this player agent friendlyapproach still very much applies. But I
do think they feel a little bitburned, and ultimately they chose after things

(25:57):
went south. In theory, surethey could have said, hey, Atlanta,
this doesn't work for us anymore.We're paying a slight premium with us
bug Garuba and thy Tie Washington,two guys that were recent well late first
round picks, but still first roundpicks, including a couple of seconds to
offload them into salary cap space.Now the Rockets are getting a second back

(26:18):
for taking on and rerouting Hattie Mills, and of course they're getting two seconds
for kJ Martin. So at theend of the day, the Rockets actually
net a second roun pick out ofall of these dealings. But in terms
of actual agreement with Atlanta, yeah, they easily could have said, you
know what, this deal was notgreat for us, but we felt we
had to do it because we desperatelyneeded that space. Now we don't really
need that space, so we're goingto go back. No, the Rockets
ultimately chose not to do that becausethey value their word with players, with

(26:41):
Asians and with other teams. Theywant to be seen as a trustworthy organization
and they ultimately think that that's goingto pay dividends in the long run.
Time will tell as to whether they'reright, But for me, again,
it's just very revealing about their organizationalphilosophy. That's with most things. There's
pros and cons to every approach.I'm not saying that the Daryl Mori approach

(27:03):
from ten to fifteen years ago,and even to an extent what we saw
with the Ben Simmons standoff in Philadelphiais wrong again. Ultimately, the Sixers
got pretty good value, even thoughit looks like they're going to lose James
Harden. They got pretty good valuefor Ben Simmons at the time for handling
it the way they did, andobviously Darrel's results in Houston speak for themselves.
I'm not saying that even though theRockets are doing it differently now,
I'm not saying the more approach wasall bad. No, clearly there were

(27:26):
merits good things about it. Andconversely, the Rockets, now, look,
we talked about the virtues, andI think certainly it played a role
in them getting Fred, even whenthe Raptors were trying to pressure him at
the last minute to stay. Butthen there are downsides too, and that
you know, the Rockets were verytrusting, didn't really seem to have that
great of a backup plan in placewhen it came to the brook Lopez role

(27:49):
for a defensive minded big and they'rejust sort of in this no man's land
now, at least with that salarycap spot where they haven't really replaced.
And again, it's not anything likethat devastating to the long term future.
Again, brook Lopez is thirty fiveyears old, so he's a type of
guy unlike Fred, who theoretically couldbe around in three or four years when

(28:11):
you think this team can truly contend. Brook Lopez was always going to be
an extremely short term bridge, Sonot getting him, it's not as if
it's devastating to your long term formulain any way, but it does seem
like at least Ber now there's nobackup plant, at least no direct backup
plan now, Judos, none ofthese deals can be made official until July
sixth, when the moratorium ends,so there's things the Rockets can do with

(28:34):
that salary slot over the next fewdays. They can potentially expand some of
these trades. There's also the possibilitythat they could sort of roll over the
space into twenty twenty four, whenKevin Porter Junior's contract could potentially if they
want it to come off the books. So you could perhaps have a bit
of salary cap room next summer,not nearly to the extent you did this
summer, but try and make aplay on the market then when at least

(28:56):
as it stands now, the twentytwenty four free agency market look spot better
than twenty twenty three. Of course, some of those players are going to
go off the boards when they signextensions with their own teams. But the
point is, at least for now, there was not a direct backup plan
for Brooke, and I think that'swhy a lot of fans are confused again
based on his age. I don'tthink it's anything crippling to the long term
future, but I think the Rocketsultimately put a lot of stock in his

(29:19):
word and it backfired, So forme, it's still a fairly successful free
agency period. I think they pivotedwell in terms of Jack Landale on a
four year deal, but only thefirst year guaranteed. I actually thought that's
an underrated quality move. He clearlyhad some moments in the playoffs. Phoenix
and Montie Williams clearly trusted him whenthey felt that DeAndre Ayton was getting a

(29:42):
bit too soft, and so Ithink he actually could be a decent buy
low as far as a defensive guyto compliment Alperin Shungoon. Unlike Lopez,
you won't be competing for starters minutes. In terms of the hierarchy, Shongoon
would still be the guy, sothat could work out. And if you
have a ton of team control overthat contract, Jeff Green feels like an

(30:03):
ideal vet. As far as DylanBrooks, I know that eighty million.
There's some sticker shock associated with that. The popular question is who were the
Rockets bidding against? Again, whatpeople do not realize about the free agency
landscape now in the NBA is thatevery team, or nearly every team has

(30:25):
access to the mid level exception,which is enormous. A mid level exception
now basically, lets you offer fouryears fifty five million, fully guaranteed.
That's a lot of money, andthe Rockets, for reasons we've discussed in
the past, there's typically a losertax. You have to pay a slight
premium. So all Dylan Brooks andhis reps needed was one team willing to

(30:45):
throw their full MLLE even if hedidn't have any cap room teams interested,
which I don't know to be thecase. All it would have taken is
one team to offer their MLLE,and the Rockets, probably given their situation,
would have needed a bid four yearsfor sixty or sixty five to make
the math work, or Dylan totake a chance on this situation. And

(31:08):
you know, eighty is still alittle bit above that, but the delta
is not nearly as big as Ithink some of the initial outrage and the
sticker shock would lead you to believe, and maybe some of the slight bloat
to eighty million dollars is because theRockets are getting him on a descending salary
figure once they didn't need brook Lopez. We know that again, the cap
space wasn't going to go be allocatedthis offseason as intended, So perhaps you

(31:32):
give Dylan a bit more money onthe front end, which the Rockets are
doing in exchange, should get himon friendlier terms as you get to year
three and year four. Again,the descending salaries we know courtesy of Adrian
Wochnarowski if ESPN we haven't seen theexact figures yet, but descending very similar
to the j shn Tate deal.So perhaps you had to add a little
bit of average annual value to gethim to take a deal with that type
of structure, which long term isfavorable to the team. But look,

(31:55):
the bottom line is for those askingwho were they bidding against, again the
entire league, once you can offerfour years fifty five million dollars through the
mL Again, four years eighty millionis not dramatically different when you can start
that context, especially with the Rocketshaving potentially that loser tax applied to them
after three the worst years Enfranchise history. So I'll know, well, look,

(32:19):
the Rockets are better team now thanthey were a week ago. I
think you're starting five is going tobe Fred Jalen Green, Dylan, Jabari
Smith, all pren Shungoon. Yourbench is gonna have guys like r Eason
and Kevin Porter, Jr. Playingkey roles. I think Aman Thompson starts
out as your backup point guard.Hopefully Cam war can work his way into
the mix a small forward. We'llsee what happens as far as Jay schun

(32:42):
Tate, Jack Landale, Jeff Green. That those guys can compete for spot
minutes in the front court. Butit's a better team than you had before.
It's just not the perfect offseason,and so I think I would say,
all in all, I give ita B B minus. There were
opportunities missed, certainly with Brock Lopez, and it's not fun to see young

(33:07):
players go, especially if you're attachingassets, in this case a couple of
future second run picks to offload themwhen you don't fully use that space,
at least not immediately anyway. Butat the end of the day, I
sort of understand how it came tobe, and so I guess my mood
on all of this is a littledisappointed, but also fairly understanding if this

(33:31):
is how it went down. Andwhile the Rockets have not made their case
yet, I'll be very interested tosee how Rothelstone approaches this when he's asked
questions on the record by the media, But just in terms of reading the
tea leaves, while it wasn't aperfect weekend, I sort of understand why
it went down the way it did. And while I do think, you
know, you made the point onTwitter, Palo that it reduced their margin

(33:52):
of error a little bit because theydidn't fully maximize this cap space, this
huge window of sixty million dollars inflexibility that we've all talked about for a
couple of years now, at thesame time, look, it wasn't a
total waste. They got two oftheir top targets. They continue to add
with two true blue chips in thedraft between Am and Thompson and Cam whitmore
So, again, there's absolutely waysthis can work out. The margin very
slightly reduced because at least as ifnow, the cap space has not been

(34:15):
totally maximized in terms of what theycould do with it. But at the
end of the day, I'm alsolike not outraged the way some are because
I do sort of understand how wegot to this point. Does that make
sense. Yeah, Listen, I'mgonna be a little bit more negative.
I'm not I'm not like all gloomand doom, like like bo on Twitter
are I'm sort of somewhere in themiddle. Um, I'll start with the

(34:38):
Brucopus sta Listen, if if thiswas the case of they've been fostering eclat
relationships for a while, and theyhad they had Brucopus's word that he was
coming, and then he turned aroundand he took our offer and took it
to the books and said, hey, matthet a nice day, and I'm
leaving. It sucks right, it'sit's a little out call. It a

(35:00):
a bit naive to be, youknow, because even if you, even
if you trust your word with everything, you should still have somewhat of a
backup plan in place. And Ibelieve they had. I believe maybe Acupoto
was the backup plan, but hewas signed by the time broke up as
may best decision. Maybe maybe quintCapello was the other backup plan, but

(35:20):
in the in the in between time, atlant that already got the capital if
they were looking for when they dealtyou on Collins, And maybe quint Capella's
price is not the same that itwas when they first had it as a
backup plan a week ago. UM, so I can understand why it happened.
I still think that it's bad jobto be able to bounce back from

(35:40):
a situation like that and make decisionson the fly to correct what went wrong.
And they do some extent, butI still think it was underwhelming,
and maybe they do more over thenext few days again, and it's howtil
the moratorium. It's not over.Bima on Twitter had made made them like
currently the numbers. And if theyare able to move Tomates somewhere in this

(36:05):
sign and trade deal for the onebroker that it is Memphis or a third
team for free and Patty Meals,who is already expected to be moved,
then they can get any if theycan get. If they can shift the
Jaco Landale deal from a free agamcydeal for four years, we only want
to guarantee to a room exception dealthat's only three years. So it's actually

(36:28):
a better deal for Jock because he'sgiving up one last year of team control.
They can get up to I thinktwenty twenty one million, right,
so they can still bring in Capella. They can still go after a Guyac
mouse Turner, which were the twonames that they were tied to. Um.
They can still try and go geta defensive pig to play with Apprentchingu

(36:49):
no whither or to either backup toapprent Chingoon or to fight for starter minutes
Indian between time they got Chaco Landale, who I think it's it's an okay
backup up hip, right, Idon't think idea elite. He's the guy
would bring off the bench. Buthe's good enough to do that. He's
also to me, if he tookthe deal that he took, he's also
okay. Or he doesn't have tobe okay. He's under team under contract

(37:09):
with the arditeam control. But it'snot start under the realm of possibility to
if you bring him someone better thanhim, that he just doesn't get minutes
until you know, someone gets hurting, because I mean, he got eight
million a year, right, eightmillion year one and then he got all
of that team control. I don'tthink he would have got him that the

(37:30):
eight million in one year anywhere elsehe might have gotten over a longer deal.
But you know that's that. Umso I think it's not over yet.
They can still they can still correctit. And then that's what I'm
trying. That's what I've been sayingafter that, that's what I want to
see you know, they got bunchedlindthe gut by brook Opez. They got
betrayed, That's what happened. Um, now they've got to, you know,

(37:52):
get back up and go fight againand go try and get someone to
fill the role that they wanted brokeup as to do or if you do
want to potentially roll over the space, start telling the fan base that again
there is some merits and saying,you know what, we're not in love
with our options this summer. Sowith that slot that clearly, even if

(38:13):
they don't want to say the nameon the record, we know it was
earmarked for brook Lopez. If partof the plan is to sign guys that
will do super contract friendly deals likeJock Landale and sort of retain some optionality
going into the twenty twenty four offseason, whereas if now the free agency
class is a lot better, youcould have Kevin Porter Junior roll off the
books. If you want, thencome out and say that. Just tell

(38:36):
the fan base and again, maybesome of this is resolved the next few
days. We haven't had any officialcomments yet, but tell the fan base
what the plan is, because itwould be a lot easier to sort of
get on board with it if itfelt like that, you know that there
was a potential backup plan that everyonecould get on board with. Yeah,
it's also nothing that I'll mention theycan get that. So the way they

(38:58):
can get that twenty one million capspace number this year is because they will
involve Deshanta and Patty Meals into asign and trade, and so they will
submit that sign and trade after theyspend a cap space in that sign and
trade. Since it's a trade inour into cap space, we'll take them
over the cap once they're ride upagainst it, right, and so which
means that taking this space into thetrade deadline is not an option. It

(39:24):
is an option to take it intonext season because by next season you can
get rid of Chacoline because he's notguaranteed if you want to end. Jeff
Green expires, right, and soyou can open up the space again next
year come come. Combined that withwith salary cap going up, but there's
no point in leading the space upin not using the space at least,

(39:45):
and at least if you can getan expiring deal there at the very least,
it would make sense, just evenif it's for free or if it's
a salary dump or something. ButI will say so the RECOPA situation,
I understand what happened. Still,I'm still disappointed because, as I said,
I do think it's their job toadapt and and they still have a
couple more days or until the endof moratorium to do so, and I

(40:08):
think they somewhat did right. JockLaindale to me strikes me as a product
of them adapting on the fly.It's just not what people expected, especially
when the first the timing it's alittle underwhelming. Yeah, and the timing
wasn't great either, because you builta lot, You build up a lot
of tension with that Atlanta hawkstel whichlooked awful. And I'll get into it

(40:30):
because all of a sudden, wellyou had twenty six million available and you
made the DEALI you gave up toofor Shunk to pass for some picks who
are not obviously not worth of aShoum pick right now to create We spent
the whole afternoon talking about, youknow, could they expand it to get
Clint Capella. We talked about thembeing able with up to thirty million dollars
in flexibility, could you get someonelike DeAndre Eton, like just based on

(40:52):
the way it went down. Wewere talking about these like top ten centers
at least in terms of salary,big names and everybody guys, and then
it's like, oh, Jack Landale, even though he's actually a pretty promising
young big going into his third season. Again, just the way it went
down from a PR perspective was especiallytough. Yeah, because as I said,

(41:14):
you don't make so looking from lookingat it from the outside, you
don't make it feel like the onethey deal with a plan to work then
just get already five million unless youhave something else down the pipeline. And
so people expected that to happen becausethey'll just make no sense in a vacuum.
And so the expectation was really high. And when you hear when you
hear that it's just Penny meals andand Jack Landale, it all comes crashing

(41:37):
down. And then you finish thatup with that huge Living Books contract and
people are just, you know,the weakly heartbroken, just because of the
way the moves were ordered, andthe fresent week team often kind of softens
the ball a little bit that thatthe news came out at the same time.
But by the way, yeah,very wink. They expect thanks to

(42:00):
its just we're just still high.And I think I think it's interesting the
timing of being waited a day torelease the information on the on the team
option. You just mentioned the relationshipswith agents. I think that was something
that was to foster a better relationshipwith with Quote as well. You know,
Quote got the first twenty four hourswhere everybody's paying attention to the deal.

(42:23):
During those twenty first twenty four hours, everybody felt hat right, then
we just got a steal, likenot not a steep, but he's got
a huge deal, the best dealever for an instructed free agent. And
you know, Quote looks really good. But then when you actually strip it
down and you take all the hypeout, the Rockets actually came away with
with a better deal than they evenexpected in the first place, and which

(42:45):
is what matters to them. Right. We can we can care about public
opinion of the team. We cancare about public opinion of the TM,
but public opinion is a lot moreimportant to the agent than it is to
the team, because the team onlycares about a TM that they getting the
best contract possible, even if everybodythinks they're needed, as long as they
go as they got the contract thatthey wanted. That's what matters um and

(43:07):
so I think it was convenient thatthey spent it to twenty four hours without
saying that, and then eventually thenews came out after nobody was talking about
the deal anymore, kind of asa footnote on the entire three again.
See they I would actually guess thata lot of you know, casually NBA
fans don't know that that's a nameoptions still, and it doesn't matter because
it's not about whether they know ornot. Their opinion matters a lot more

(43:29):
to someone that's an agent than tosee. I will say, though the
title Washington and Lose Money group adeal, right, We've got to talk
about it because the only way soback what it happened, I thought something
has to be imminent, and theyoverpaid on dumping these salaries because they need
the deal to get done now andthey're afraid that the deal may fall through
if they take two one. Butthen I started connecting the dots, and

(43:52):
Lose one group of tweeted out thetwo eyes that like the eyes emoji a
couple of days back, which makesme think that it was already in place.
You know, you're saying that thatdeal was already in pots of Atlanta,
and it made sense if they gotproklow pest. But doesn't really make
sense anymore now that they didn't.But they already had given their worth and
they wanted to stand by it.That makes sense to me, doesn't seem

(44:15):
the fact that it's horrible value.Jill Harris a nineteen million dollars salary who
hasn't played more than half the gamesin the season, like two or three
years. It's not athletic. It'son the wrong side of thirty. Right.
A nineteen million dollar expiring Saudi dumpcosts two second round picks. Yeah,

(44:36):
the Rockets dump five million worth ofsalaries, both expiring forgetting that their
root, that they're young players.Let's just throw that out of the way.
It's it's it's it's a big partof the deal. But let's just
throw that out of the way.From a market value standpoint, two second
round picks to dump five million isnot good value. And yeah, well,
I think the more appropriate parallel.So I think the Harris Steel with

(45:00):
the Nets and Pistons was a bitof an outlier, and maybe the Pistons
still season value him in him asa shooter because I was stunned by that
as a valuation. I don't thinkthat's typically what at expiring salary dump would
go for. I think that's sortof an extreme example the other parallel,
but I do think, you know, the more appropriate would actually be from
the same web of transactions with theRockets, for them taking on Patty Mills,

(45:22):
who's an expiring salary at six pointssomething basically the same general ballpark as
Gruba and Tie Tie, who wererecent first round picks, and so I'm
sure you'll get into that as well. But Mills in the same ballpark,
the Rockets got one second round pickor taking him on as opposed to Atlanta
getting those two. Again to thevalue is a little out of whack,

(45:45):
but I think happened to sort ofpeel back the curtain. It's a little
bit like the scenario where you know, the Thunder. This is a huge
example, but the Thunder did thePaul George trade. When to the Clippers,
they were not just getting Paul Georgebut Kawhi as well, so they
were willing to overpay because they feltlike they had them over a barrel.

(46:05):
I think from the Rocket standpoint,because they were so close to going three
for three and having a perfect offseasonrelative to expectations. Then Atlanta sort of
had them over a barrel, knowingthat Houston desperately needed this space to make
it to make the math work forall three of Van Fleet Brooklopez and Dylan
Brooks, and Houston said, Okay, we'll pay a site premium because at
the end of the day, theydon't really believe in these guys anyway,
and it's not like second round picksor that big in the grand scheme.

(46:29):
But then it feels especially horrible whenyou do that, and then you don't
keep Proklopez anyway, so it's like, well, why did you follow through
on it? Yeah? I juststill I just have a tough time believing
that no other team in the NBAwould have just taken them for free.
I understand that, you know,and if they were, trip can get
of it in a rush. Ican understand it. But it's really tough

(46:52):
for me to believe that a teamlike the Spurs, or a team Mike
Porton who's just going to a rebuild, or a team like any other team
that's free building that doesn't have,you know, fifteen roster spots filled with
young guys like the Rockets had justso to believe that nobody would take them
for free that you actually had toadd second on picks on top of it,
and especially the second on picks thatthey added. I don't even the

(47:15):
twenty twenty four ones where they onlyhave four and they're going to lose value
on them if they the longer theytake to deal some of them, So
including that, to me, it'seven tougher I think that deal is I
don't think. I don't think it. There's a way to spend that deal
in in a way that's positive.It was just a matter of, Hey,
they had a deal agreed upon ona completely different outlook of an off

(47:37):
season, and they didn't want to, you know, go back on their
world just because Bruklopus went back ontheir world. Whether that's the correct de
season or not, I don't know. I don't know what I would have
them. And by the way,another interesting thing about that deal that I
think we need to talk about,they easily could have kept all three of
the young guys Gruba, Tie Tieand Josh Christopher who went to Memphis in

(47:59):
a separate deal. Looks like it'llall be one deal. At the end
of the day. But in termsof the agreements the way it was reached,
they could have kept all three ofthose guys and traded Jayson Tate and
opened up pretty much the identical salaryslot, and they chose not to.
I sort of understand. I guessif you don't believe in these guys and
there's a bit of a roster logjam already, how are they going to

(48:19):
play or how are they going todevelop if they don't play. You know,
that's a fair consideration. But atthe end of the day, I
also don't know how Jayson Tate's goingto play. Because you look at the
front court. You know your startersare going to be Dylan Brooks at the
three, Jabari Smith or Chari Eastonat the four, and all Prension Good
at the five, and then yourbingch whoever doesn't start between Easton and Jabari,
you're gonna need to play Kim whitmoreat least a few minutes, and

(48:40):
increasingly more. You hope you're goingto have Jack Landale Jeff Green As far
as backup bigs, there's somebody elseI'm forgetting. I'm sure you'll throw kpj
into the small forward mix as well, so you're gonna be using him more
as a shooter as we described earlier, So you already have a lot of
up the pieces that need to play, so you sort of kept it clearly

(49:04):
the Rockets. Again, they basicallychose Jay Sharon Tate over all three of
those young guys combined, which Iguess you can make the argument for it
because at least Tate has shown atthe NBA level that he can be a
functional, rotation quality player none ofthose other three have. But then you're
keeping him and I still don't exactlyknow where his minutes are going to come
from. So it's it's very interestingto be that this is the route.

(49:27):
You know, clearly they're making abet on Tate, and yet I'm not
even sure where the minutes come from. Am I missing anything? I think
there's there's two things that could that. It could be. It could be
that they think that it's easier tomove in the signing trade. Um maybe
that that may do now. Andit could just be that for some reason
they want the roster spots. Uh, It's it's three verses one. But

(49:50):
that would imply that some of thedeals coming or some of the fregiency signings
are coming and assuming that they hadto deligree the point before, maybe they
already had green and chocolate and theywind up I don't know, but maybe
it's it's tough to figure it out, but it could be a roster spotting
because as we know, we havethe six the six main young guys,

(50:12):
we have two new free agents thatwere already going to come. You had
book Loops on top of that.That's that's nine. You had Kayla Martin,
who you even eventually dealt, andthen you have Tashan Takes. It's
I'm not sure. I'm not surewhy it would warrant that. I don't
think it's roster spotting, not thinkingabout it, because you have twenty roster

(50:34):
spots until the beginning of the season. You could have time and kind to
do this before. They've had superbig rosters in the offseason during the RTL
Stone era. So I don't thinkit's really that. It's not it's not
roster spots. Well, I don'tknow, but as I said, I
think it's just it was just terriblevalue and in the grand scheme of things,
right, probably in five years willlook at this and it's unlikely that

(50:54):
Side I will be an NBA player. It's unlikely that Rosmanica Ruvers will be
an NBA player, so likely thatJessh Christopher's going to be an NBA player
in five or six years because lateswith perstound picks rarely pan out. At
the same time, they are valuablelate for Tom picks are valuable for a
reason because even though the most likelyoutcome is that they don't turn into anything,

(51:15):
that's the less that they do,and for that opportunity, you'll pay
whatever it is, even if it'sa second or pick for now that they've
been drafted well, and I thinkwhat this underscores is that that's basically four
late first two I suppose second roundassets if we throw in kJ Martin.

(51:37):
Now individually, I think the kJMartin deal was fine getting two second round
picks. I never bought in givenhis contract situation and everything else. So
the rockets we're going to be ableto get a first for kJ Martin.
I just didn't think it was realistic. So I'm okay with that in a
vacuum. But at the end ofthe day, the combination of the move
the puzzle as a whole look youtrade it out kJ Martin, Josh Christopher

(51:59):
Usvangaruba, TI Washington, and youbasically netted one second round pick. So
for the most part, it feelslike those players were basically just thrown away,
and thus the asset involved to getthem. In the case of three
to four, a late first roundpick went just completely unspent. It's like

(52:20):
you forfeited it. I do thinkthat again, it's important to underscore the
expectations are fairly low at that slotanyway, but it's about the totality.
Yeah, any individual first round pickin the twenties, the odds are more
likely than not the players not goingto be good. But if you have
three or four chances, it doesultimately hurt you if you can't make any

(52:43):
of them turn into a rotation caliberplayer for you. And I think it
goes back to the broader theme thatyou brought up earlier, Pollo. The
margin of error is a bit reduced. I'm not saying that, oh,
this is a fiable effense. Farfelstonejust made a mess of this, said
he needs to be gone today,that this is inexcusable. No, not
saying that at all, because inthe grand scheme, you look at the

(53:05):
Rothelstone draft history, so ultimately whathe's going to be judged by most are
the picks at the top of thedraft and how they pan out Jalen Green,
Gary Smith, Junior, Aman Thompson. It's still way too early to
have much of an indication on anyof those and whether the choices are going
to age well or not. Inthe middle of the first round, I
think he's actually done amazing work allfor in Shangoon, Tari Easton, Cam

(53:29):
Whitmore. That's out kicking your coveragein a big way when it comes to
expected return at those draft slots,So there is a little bit of a
buffer from that, and that youknow, you can have some missus late
in the first round in the secondround. If you're substantially out kicking your
coverage with guys like Shangoon and Esonand Whitmore in the mid first that's absolutely

(53:52):
a fair argument to make. ButI also think that by wasting and that's
effectively what's happened with discarding all ofthese young guys and basically saying we don't
believe in any of them. Imean, that's the high level takeaway the
Rockets are saying yeah, we wethink these guys aren't going to work out.
It reduces your margin of error becausethose are guys that, at least

(54:12):
in theory, you have as anoption to maybe develop into a rotation caliber
player or more down the line,and it's an asset that ultimately went unused,
that didn't pan out, or inthis case, accommodation of assets.
It's the same way with the salarycamp room when we talk about it,
they only signed two of the threethey're big three targets, being Fred and
Dylan. If you only get twoof the three, then what happens with

(54:35):
that other salary slot that was earmarkedfor brook Lopez. Maybe they can do
something in this window leading up tothe moratorium ending on July sets. Maybe
you roll over the space and itcan become something down the line in a
trade or next offseason in twenty twentyfour free agency. But again, if
it doesn't happen, then you're decreasingyour overall margin. Now that's not devastating.

(54:57):
Again, like they've gotten the biggerpicture decisions right and ultimately, if
you know two or three of whatI would consider the core six Jalen Shongoon,
Jabari Tari and now Thompson and Whittemore. If even two or three of
those six turn out to be thebest or second best type player on a
good team, then you're going tobe cooking with gas. You're going to
be in a great spot long term. But if that doesn't happen, then

(55:20):
these little things like the Atlanta trade, like the combination of everything that went
down over this weekend and with freeagency, it just reduces the outs you
have to prepare for other scenarios.I guess that's the way I would look
at it. It's not indefensible.It's not like any of these moves are
just depressing and franchise crippling. No, you can absolutely still be fine and

(55:47):
the big picture and more than fineif some of these young prospects really pain
out the way you hope. It'sjust overall, it's a consistent theme of
not maximizing your return at the margins, and potentially, you know that could
have some effects in the years ahead. Yeah, but that's exactly my point,
right to me. They to me, the outook of the team for

(56:08):
next year is basically the same youlost. You lost on roops, which
is a big loss. You gotlack Glendale instead as Ken gonna become,
and we were going to be overpoweredthat the center position because you'd have to
start in MIFL guys and now youonly have one and you have a backup
level guy as a backup. Theyhave the opportunity if they go after Quint
Cappella or Miles Turner or even DanielGaffer the Wizards who are rebuilding, so

(56:31):
he may be available. You havethe ability to go get a defensive big
because that's what you doka wanted.Jack Glendelle is okay, but it's not
that um. The overall to workfor next season's basically the same. What
you did is you lost well threeyoung guys that could have been used to
grease the wheels in a bigger tradeif you ever needed to. You lost
kJ Martin, but that was largelyexpected. Listen, the Katie Martin deal.

(56:53):
Two second round picks, not alot, right they could. They
can say all they wanted. Theyhave a first stadium and have a first
That's what every team says. Whena player can when a player can be
conceivably overpaid for with a first runkpick, every team says they have a
first round pick for him. VictoriaPeoples. The prime example of that.
Eric Gordon eventually got it a veryfirst RUNP pick value. But I would

(57:14):
beg you for the longest time theydidn't have a first Trump pick that they
found suitable enough, and they saidthat they did. That's all average play.
I think kJ Martin de kJ Martindeal is okay, right, people
are going to people who have kJMartin. Truth is, he was not
a good defender last year. Heis not a good for space that he
is an excellent cutter, and hehas a He's a guy who has a
great deal for the game offensively offthe ball, but let's be honest,

(57:37):
dude, has one more Your understealingis wh would be an undrestricted free agency
and whatever team gets him now welikely want to. It's likely wanting to
get him because of his really keepdeal this year, but then and which
means that next year they won't beas available to pay him what he wants
to stay, and so this couldvery well be a rental. And it's
not only that the Rocket on ina position where they have no Levertly,

(57:58):
they were always going to have noleverage on these guys because they have six
top ten worthy for shrunk picks onthe roster. They have three vets coming
two vets, two big time vetscoming in, and the wing, the
position kJ Martin plays is overcrowded.They teams know. Teams look at the
Rockets roster and they know, hey, you're not going to be able to

(58:20):
play kJ Martin. So I don'tneed to pay full value because you want
to get rid of them anyways.And if you don't and you keep him
on the roster and he doesn't play, he's always going to be even lower
and you'll have even less leverage atthe deadline. So that was whartually expected.
But from an from my um anoverall like point of view, alto
a little bit on Tilin Brooks aswell before before we move on, Yeah,

(58:44):
it's it's it's an overpay, right. I don't want the one Brooks
in the first place. I wasokay with the Colin Brooks for two years.
I didn't want them for four years. But they did get the contract
peta sending, which means, asI said before the next two years,
they're basically playing playing on I'll callit not borrowed time, but I'll call

(59:06):
it borrowed money, right because asI said, first run picks are comprising
like seventy percent of the rotation,and so you can afford to overpay other
guys to feel roles and to gofor the best talent, even if you
have to overpay, as long asit's short term deal. So for the
next two years, it's basically aslong as Dylan Brooks doesn't get into a

(59:27):
Christian Who type situation where he thinkshe's the man and and it will actually
be better to not have him thanto have him at all. Less he
becomes like a natal negative for theteam, it doesn't matter if he does.
It's going to be really it's goingto be port the one impossible to
move them, and they might justsend them home if he's typing of a
new stance. Because nobody's treaming forthis contract in the first two years,
it's a given. And as heoverperforms, at which point you don't want

(59:49):
to tread that contract um. Andthen after that, by the time we
have to pay Chillon Green and apprinChingoon. This isn't the same thing as
Fred and Free because fres And wasgoing make forty five million in that year.
That completely cripples you. Yeah,contrails in the high teens. In
that environment when the NBA is gettingits new TV deal and the salary cap

(01:00:12):
is exploding, come on like it'ssalmon. Alie a foun nation Hoops had
a good breakdown this morning of howthe percentage, by a percentage of the
cap, Dylan Brooks's contract is fairlyanalogous to when they signed Trevor Reza in
twenty fourteen as a backup plan toyou know, Chandler Parsons and Chris Bosh,
and he plays a somewhat similar roleas well. We'll see how Dylan
Brooks functions as a player, Buti'd a percentage of the cap, especially

(01:00:36):
with the descending salaries and we're talkingabout high teens. When the cap is
exploding, the new TV deal,all the revenues that come with that,
come on. It's not that bad, Yeah, especially so because because of
what you just said, because ofthe descending deal, I think Maitland Fogg
was full made the calculations on thisaccording to projective cap space, which I
don't think includes our projective salary cap, which I don't think includes the new

(01:00:59):
TV deal yet because we don't knowhow much it's going to be even with
cap smooth Like people say, oh, it's not going to be a big
deal because of cap smoothing. Well, even with cap smoothing, it makes
it so it's not a twenty millionjump, but it'll still be a fifteen
million jump instead of a ten millionjump, which is the norm. So
you know, stuilding, it's stillgoing to be and it is a big
bad in his overall character. Imean, if he flames out altogether,
then yeah, that's still significant.Yeah. And so by the time you're

(01:01:22):
going to pay Daylon Green, he'sgoing to be making nineteen and then eighteen
million dollars a year roughly. Wedon't know the exact nor much, but
it will be about that. Itwill start like twenty two and it'll go
down to eighteen and at that timeit will be roughly thirteen percent of the
cap, which is what Robert Covingtonmade when he signed this deal or when

(01:01:44):
he was with us. It's youknow, I still don't support a long
term commitment because I don't rate DylanBrooks that much. But they clearly do
and hopefully they are right. Andit's one of those situations where hey,
they're the ones making the decisions.Not us. They're the ones who have
their asses on the line, andthey should go for the guys that they

(01:02:04):
believe are better. And I'd loveto I'd love to sit here and oh,
I will tell you that I wouldrather after him that money have at
Bruce Brown, who got up worsestill than that. But yeah, if
they believe, if they believe DylanBrooks is better than Bruce Brown, and
any Femaletka believes that he can't gethim to play the role that he should
play to be successful, then atthat point we just have to trust it

(01:02:29):
and hold him accountable if it doesn't. Yeah, And by the way,
on the subject of holding them accountable, one narrative I'm getting really annoyed by
on Twitter. This is getting soold as whenever anything goes right from the
perspective of fan expectations and desires,it gets attributed to email Ujoka because of
course there's a halo effect around thenew coach that most people are excited about,

(01:02:52):
and whenever anything goes wrong it's putexclusively at the feet of her fell
Stone, when in reality it's apart ownership. Look, I'm gonna be
blunt. People attributed a lot ofthe Dylan deal to rufel Stone, but
Udoka had a huge part in thatas well. He fits the defensive culture
that the Rockets want to set nowthat he is in place. The rumors

(01:03:15):
about the Rockets and Brooks it startedsure shortly after Memphis exited the playoffs in
the first round and the Grizlies basicallysaid that they didn't want him back.
But that was also right around thesame time at the Rockets hired Emai Udoka
as their head coach. So forpeople attributing and I don't think it's fair
to say that Udoka played a rolein the Rockets pivoting from James Harden to

(01:03:37):
Fred Menfleet because they think Fred isa better fit both offensively and defensively and
in the locker room with how theywant to develop their young guys. Yes,
Udoka had a role in that,I believe that. And there's a
lot of people that are anti JamesHarden. I think, as I've said
in the past, a lot ofthat is overly emotional. But whatever,
whatever the reason, people are antiJames Harden by and large, and so

(01:03:58):
when the Rockets made this pivot toFred van Fleet, and I think most
of the fan base is on boardwith Fred, especially after we now know
the third years a team option,then everything gets credited to Emay. Look
as far as the brooksteal, I'mnot gonna say it's all Emay, but
he is very much on board.Clearly he believes that this is a guy
who fits the culture, the typeof hard nosed, tough defense that he

(01:04:20):
wants to instill, and so thisis his bet as well. I'm not
guaranteeing that it's going to work out, but I do think there's just a
little bit of sort of oversimplifying whenit comes to oh, if it's bad,
then it must be Rafel. Ifit's good, it must be Emay.
No, this is a partnership forbetter or for worse. They're all
in this together, and you know, you can throw ownership in that bucket
as well, between the Fatidas,between ropfel Stone, between Emay Udoka.

(01:04:44):
This is an the line team.They talked about that alignment for months really
ever since they hired Emay in lateApril, and so it's not just one
of them, it's all of themcollectively that for better or for worse,
we need to be analyzing, youknow, when we go into the pros
and cons of these decisions. Yeah, I agree and so and so moving
on, I think the reason thatmakes me a little bit, you know,

(01:05:05):
even lower on Dylan Brooks especially isbecause it's a big commitment and likely
it will be a good contract bythe last two years, and they overpaid
a little bit to get that contractto be good the last few years.
The only think that makes and bythe way, I do want to I
do want to emphasize one more timeas far as the four fully guaranteed years,
I think one distinction between Dylan andFred. I'm sure some are saying,

(01:05:28):
Look, I mean, Freda isclearly the higher priority target. How
were you able to get him foronly two guaranteed years and Dylan for four.
Look, Dylan is twenty seven,so you can say, at least
from a basketball standpoint, he shouldbe in his prime for all four years,
as opposed to fred being twenty nine. Once you get past thirty one,
and he's a slightly undersized point guardat six foot one, there's some
questions, but how he's going toage. So ultimately, I think,

(01:05:49):
you know, Number one, theRockets gave Fred more of a bloat in
terms of the max salary. Thefirst couple of years. And secondly,
there is some risks. I'm sureFred and his agent Rich Paul have to
understand that teams have to take intoaccount given the age you're three and year
four, Dylan, there were fewerheadwinds at least in terms of age,
which is why I think he hadthe leverage to get a four year deal.

(01:06:09):
And also even if we're talking fouryears fifty five million, again,
all it really took or would haverequired, is one team being willing to
offer it's for your mL and allof a sudden, the Rockets, at
a bare minimum probably have to bidfour for sixty four for sixty five if
they want to get it. So, while it's a little bit of an
overpay, I don't think it's asdrastic as a lot of people made it
initially seen. Yeah, it's justa big commitment. And then it's not

(01:06:32):
so much about the av per se, it's about the number of years.
And then yeah, yeah, thenit kind of upset. Upsets with what
I'm about to say, right,because the contract being long term hurts you.
If it's a really large contract likePreventley, this is a role player.
This is roleplayer of money, right, right, Dylan Brooks might not

(01:06:54):
be that level of role players earnedthis much money, but it is still
a role player salaries flow long term, as long as it's still a real
player salis story slot. The dealis going to get better as time goes
on from a value perspective, becausethe cap is going to increase more and
the deal is going to decrease theflip side and why I'm so worried about
it, or why I am worriedabout it or not so, but is

(01:07:16):
the fact that Dylan Brooks is somewhati'll call it mercurial. It has a
mercurial personality, and so he's nota known quantity like Bruce Brownis. He's
not that stable and not only personalitywise, his game as well. You
know, he is someone who hasa terrible shot selection even though he's a
great defender, kind of like MarcusMarta also has a little bit of a

(01:07:40):
terrible shot selection. And because ofthat, and because of what we lived
through with Christian within his shot selectionand his attitude, it scares me to
have a long term deal because eveneven though it's a the deal gets better
value wise throughout throughout it. Ifyou need to get out of it early

(01:08:00):
for an issue that's related to hisplay or two personality, or because some
relationship is not mendable. You can'tget out of it because nobody's going to
trade for that deal until the lasttwo years left, and so it's it's
a big commitment. And then that'swhy that's why it's scary. I don't
think it's bad value for the longterm on a per year basis um,

(01:08:21):
and we'll see what he made,can deal with it. That's that's what
I would wanted to get into nowthat a lot of as as we just
talked about, a lot of alot of the margin of error is gone.
That only really matters if you commiterrors. So if we come into

(01:08:41):
the season and he made it okay, can get these guys to play,
at the very least play in levelbasketball and can get them to thirty five
wins perhaps or get them into aplaying game, then nobody's going to care
about what just happened. Um,it will be it will be just the
cost of doing business. And sometimesyou know, and being in business means
that sometimes you win and sometimes youlose. And they lost on some of

(01:09:04):
these deals, but they want enoughto get the goal that you were trying
to get. And so while itmight look negative right now and it could
still get better and could also stillget worse. We don't know what they're
going to do with the right withthe extra money. The truth is it's
up to them. It's like allthat on Twitter. I hope I'm using

(01:09:26):
the expression correctly, but put upa short up time. You know,
now you have to like you now, you have to show what you're going
to do with these players and thesebests that you made, and if you
are successful, then nobody's going tocare and everybody's going to be happy.
And the racers made the leap thatthey were looking for. They didn't it
didn't go through the path that theyexpected, but they got there anyways,

(01:09:48):
and that's what will matter in theend. And so you can be frustrated
and you can dwell on the factthat we didn't go perfectly, which is
what I was doing tomorrow last night, the entire night, and then I
I woke up today and I kindof realized, Hey, what's done is
done and going and nothing nothing iscompletely lost going forward. The franchise not
doomed. We still have six topten value picks with I don't need to

(01:10:12):
say the names again. We stillhave a great, fat point guard in
Fred Venley, perfect fit. Westill have a guy that has the potential
to be a great today and dowin. A great on both offender and
an enforcer's going to help change theculture. Now. It's about putting those
tools and using them correctly. Andyou can shift your focus from off season
mode to the fact that summer weeksin a week, you can shift your

(01:10:33):
focus from offseason mode to the factthat, Hey, how exciting is it
that for the first time in fouryears, we're actually going to go into
every game trying to win. We'reactually going to go into every game not
carry I'll speak from a personal level. I was going into games hoping that
he'll in Greenwood play well, hopingthat Appranchingwood play well, hoping that your

(01:10:54):
boy Smith would play well, ratherthan hoping that we'd win the game and
go And sometimes I'd go as faras, hey, if shots being taken
by Garrison Matthews, there were timeswhere I was like, please, don't
make the shot. That's not that'snot you know, there's not there's no
um like multidirectional goals right now,now, there's one goal. It's win
games. If it's Killen Green makingthe shot or Fresent Fleet picking shot of

(01:11:17):
Dylon Brooks making a shot of jockoland they'll make making the shot. It
does not matter as much as itgoes as well, as long as it
goes in, as long as wewin the games. And I don't know
about you guys, but I missrooting for my team to win basketball games.
And we're going to go back that. And we have a lot of
talent, and we didn't commit.You know, sometimes when when teams that
are rebuilding committed a lot of money, people say we're committing to mediocrity.

(01:11:40):
We're not. Six We have sixguys that should have been top ten picked
in their drafts that are all ofthem under twenty two years old. Half
the ceiling is still through the roof. We just increased the floor a little
bit. And so going into it, you know, I'm sad because it
wasn't perfect, but I'm still veryvery excited to watch this team play basketball

(01:12:04):
under me Judoka and try to wingames like this is what basketball is about.
We're finally about to exit that stageof our rebuild. You know,
it's it's not that, but Itkind of feels like when your team's going
into the playoffs, you know,and you're like, Okay, now it's
time. They're going to walk in. You know, this is the important
game, so let's fucking do it. That's why I'm feeling about this entire

(01:12:27):
season because the Rockets the goal isn'tto get to the playoffs. The entire
regular season is our playoffs. Weneed to show improvement in every single one
of these games, and we needto start winning every single one of these
games. We want, but weneed to start trying to. So that's
really exciting for me. That's mypositive myself to close it out, And
I'll just say one last thing becauseI cannot go the entire podcast without mentioning

(01:12:48):
it. It made me feel reallyreally good as a fan, and I
am glad they did it as afan, massive fan of Jeff Green,
massive fan. I mean, we'redistint with us, and I'm still a
game too. He's still good,right, He's still a good player.
He played a role for a championshipteam. Yeah, he is a champion.
Now he's going to be a VEThere and I'm just really happy to

(01:13:10):
see him in a Rockets study again. You know as a fan, right,
no, no, not everything hasto be a like analysis. As
a fan, I'm really happy tohave to bring back as a used a
rocket. Yeah. Absolutely, andhe could fit into the backup five mix
as well. I don't know he'san undersized five, but he's filled that
role in Houston before, and soyou could see a situation where, you

(01:13:30):
know, I know some people,including our friend Edemara, were very concerned
about if you signed brook Lopez,what does that mean for all Prince shanoons,
since the center spot would be atime share. I was personally with
you, Paulo, and that Iwas fine with that. Have that basically
be reading competition, and if Lopezis good enough that you're limiting Shoon,
then that's fine. That fits withthe spirit of what you're ultimately trying to

(01:13:51):
do. Now, clearly Shoon's goingto be the guy, and you can
sort of mix and match Landale forsome of the matchups where you need a
true defensive big Jeff Green if youhave a bit more I guess, small
ball versatility. If those are thingsthat you need, perhaps you can experiment
more with Jashon Tate at the fiveas well. The way they did a
couple of years ago. Last yearbasically a lost season for Tate due to

(01:14:12):
some injuries. They have options,and who knows, maybe there's something else
they do this offseason. Maybe theyget back into trade talks for a Clint
Capella type to fill that role externally. Maybe they do something in this window
before the moratory amends that you know, they can potentially expand this mega deal
involving all these smaller deals and thatDylan Brooks sign and trade. You know,
maybe they end up filling a biggername. But as it stands now,

(01:14:33):
as the roster currently is, thenonly is Jeff Green the type of
vet that you want to bring in. I think part of the rationale for
moving those young guys if they wantmore of a balance in the locker room
instead of having all twenty and twentyone year old you want to have certainly
a lot of those who do haveyour core six as who reference, but
you also want to have not justsay one or two vets like a Bobon
and Eric Gordon for half the season. No, you want to have much

(01:14:55):
more in terms of an overall balancethroughout the year of guys that have been
there, done that and learn fromand so Jeff Green, certainly, he's
a great guy. Everyone speaks wellto his leadership, his voice in the
clubhouse, but he can also playa little bit. Assequently constructed, he's
not a bad backup plan, youknow, sort of Jack Landale, Jeff
Green and tandem, and you cansort of mix and match depending on what
you need in a given game.Yeah, I really like it. To

(01:15:16):
me, that's a nice pivot,and again it sort of goes with the
overall theme of this episode. Ithink for me, if I were to
grade everything that's happened in free agencyand independent from the draft, I think
we all agree, like the draftwas an AORA plus hands down. They
just knock that out of the park. Free agency, it's frustrating because they

(01:15:36):
were so close to getting another Aor A plus if they had gotten all
three of their big name targets.But it's not like all is lost.
They did get a lot better.They did have at least some semblance of
backup plans when the obvious Plan Adidn't work out, and so it's frustrating

(01:15:58):
because they were so close, andsome of these little things, the moves
at the margins, what they endedup doing with Atlanta and attaching a couple
of second round picks to move Garubaand tie Tie. It's frustrating. It
does take away your margin of error, your buffer a little bit, but
it's not like all is lost.They still made this team a lot better.

(01:16:21):
They got two of their three bigtargets, and so I think it's
easy to be frustrated because it wasso close to you checking all the boxes.
But I still think overall, youknow, B minus if you want
to be really pessimistic, I thinkyou can argue for a C plus.
But there's no way you can sayit's a d r n F. There's

(01:16:41):
no way you can say it's afailure. You know, I would go,
you know, I don't want toput a final grade on it yet
because some of it's going to dependon exactly how the next few days progress,
What do they do with regards tothe little bit that's left of their
cap room? Do they potentially expandthis deal? But I'd say somewhere between
a B and a C plus,it's still all in all a decent off
season, even if they didn't hita home run. That's the way I'm

(01:17:03):
looking at it. Hollow Any closingthoughts on your end. Yeah, I
think it's I think in a lotof people's minds. You know, the
as I said, the order ofthe deals created insane expectations. The four
frequency even began. Brook Lopez wasyou know someone that mostly everyone was was
was excited about that, would youknow, increase the part of this team

(01:17:24):
a lot? And right now,the truth is there's a brook size.
There's a brook Lopez sized hole inthe Rockets offt season and and and people
can are stroving to focus on whereeverything that went right because that's a pretty
massive hole. And if the Rocketsare able to go and get the guy,
and I couldn't Cappella, for example, the fact that he's the next

(01:17:45):
rocket that everybody loves, the factthat he feels and that feels the same
role, same salary. It's it'sa very similar situation if they if they
go and get him, even ifthey have to overbeyl a little bit for
him. I think I think alot of people will jump from a C,
C minus C plus C or justa C and call it a N
A. I think that's the bit. I think that's how there's a lot

(01:18:11):
of people on the extremes of aC or you know, that would have
given it an a if we hadgotten Bruklopez. And I think while bruk
Copez is awesome, I think ifyou can at least fill that gap for
fans, and I think for theteam it makes sense as well. I'll
saying just do it for the fans, that makes no sense. But if
you can fill that gap on theteam as well, and you go and

(01:18:32):
get someone who can give I'll besome competition and give email a guy that
plays defense or the plays defense,Susquest, that's a remprotecting big that's going
to fill the void for a lotof fans that people will actually be really
excited. And if you don't evenhave to that that doesn't happen some re
leagues around the corner if they playwell there and when when people get over

(01:18:56):
the fact that we got dumped byBrukkopez and they actually start looking objectively at
the team that we have and therotation that we're going to have, excited
and most excitement will start building backup. And then by the time the
season begins, everybody will be happyto start to watch us. And I
think also as far as like againthirty thousand foot few to spend it back

(01:19:16):
to how we started this podcast.I also think where we're looking at sort
of the long term vision and theway this plays out over the next few
years as the Rockets try and puttogether a championship puzzle. It is important
for the Rockets to acknowledge, andhopefully they will. Again, they haven't
made any on the record comments.We'll see what they say. I do
think there were some mistakes made relatedto inexperience. This is the first time

(01:19:42):
that rough Elstone really had a tonof cap room. I know he's been
on the job for three years,but the last couple of years they had
zero financial flexibility at all. Weall know they were waiting for this pivot
point for so many of the baddeals, the bad money to roll off
the books, most abably what wasinitially the Russell Westford contract than the John
wall contract. This was always thefirst opportunity to have all that money,
and I do think that maybe theywere a little bit naive assuming too much.

(01:20:03):
With regards to brook Lopez, inmy opinion, it was always possible,
if not likely, that he wasthe type of guy unlike Fred,
unlike Dylan, who's attempting to leveragethe rockets and maybe he went a little
too far. Maybe he told himhe was coming and then he didn't.
But end of the day, Idon't think it's unprecedented that it's happened before.
And so yeah, Ruffel is arelatively new GM. This is his
first time with cap room. Itwasn't a total failure by any means,

(01:20:27):
but yes, some things definitely wentwrong and maybe they can learn from it.
I've made the point before. Youknow, Tiln Fertida has done a
great job in my opinion, thelast couple of years. He's been largely
patient. He's been willing to spenda certain amount of money to bring in
assets in terms of these trades wherethey net a second round pick or two
by creatively taking on certain deals.And I know that he cut costs a

(01:20:50):
bit, especially in the twenty eighteento twenty nineteen league year. But I've
said before, I think early onthings came success that is too easily.
His first year was the five andseventeen year where everything was absolutely perfect.
Everything he touched Turnigle right up untilChris Paul's hamstring in Game five against the
Warriors, and so I think Tullmantook it on the chin in terms of

(01:21:11):
the perception, and he learned fromit and he's gotten better. And you
know, as far as the luxuryattacks in particular, time will tell when
the Rockets get to that point.But I think in terms of the signs
that we've been able to see anddeduce to this point, yeah, he
has learned, he has gotten better, And there is a learning experience when
it comes to being a new owner, a new GM, a new coach,
whatever it may be. Keep inmind Udoka has only been a head

(01:21:33):
coach for one year in the NBA. There is a learning curve. It's
not like for the most part thatguys go in and instantly just hit a
home run on everything they try todo. There are going to be some
misses, and so I think it'simportant, you know, the Rockets internal
correct him. That doesn't happen unlessyour name is Kareny Bing. Oh God.

(01:21:58):
Although I will say there's been abit of a year to regressed by
him that yeah, after winning ALCSand Role Series MVP. Yeah, you
can regress all you want. Youalready brought the hardware that we need.
Look, I think the bottom linethings didn't go perfectly, but in terms
of like this supermacro. I don'tthink this is anything fatal. I think
you know, you can be annoyedby this, you can be frustrated,

(01:22:20):
but it's certainly not anything close toa failure by any means. Even if
there is no deal expansion or newplayers added the next few days. Again,
there is still a way that theycan leverage this cap room to their
benefit leading up to the trade deadlineand next offseason. There are options.
But yeah, just be honest,look back and learn from this experience and

(01:22:41):
perhaps have a bit more of ablend to that philosophy in the future to
where you know, you don't wantto go back to I suppose the early
Daryl Moore years in terms of theirapproach, but there are limits too,
you know, the relationship oriented approachas well, and you know it did
reduce overall their margin of error,maybe not catastrophically, maybe not a ton,
but definitely to some extent. Wecan quibble over exactly how much.

(01:23:02):
Yeah, I just think at theend of the day, you know,
the most important thing is just tobe honest. Let's not be over the
top. Let's not act like it'sanything catastrophic. It's not it was still
a pretty good off season, anda really good offseason if you include the
draft, which was always most important, along with the head coaching hire,
which I think we're all on boardwith. So all in all, between
Udoka, the draft, and freeagency, they did some really good things.

(01:23:25):
And so let's not be over thetop. Let's not act like heads
need to roll. No, it'snothing like that. But yeah, be
honest with yourself, and you know, let's talk about the things that went
wrong, and perhaps, you know, the next time they have these windows
or something like that, then theylearn from it and they're perhaps a bit
more crafty in their negotiations or abit more measured and a bit more I

(01:23:46):
suppose, just layered in terms ofhaving backup plans to plan a and maybe
not being as trusting with your toptier of targets even if they do tell
you that they're coming. I thinkit's just important again to say this within
the right kind x because you know, so much of the social media reaction
and it's just the climate we livein. People are so over the top
to any negativity and it's like,look, if if you're acting like that

(01:24:10):
this even just this free agency period, let alone the off season, but
just some catastrophic blunder or failure thatit's all bad, that head should roll
that this is just you're just fundamentallybeing un serious and people are going to
tune you out because they did alot of good overall in the off season
and even a lot of good justthe past two days in free agency.
This is not all bad. Ijust think that discussions like ours measured reasonable

(01:24:33):
criticisms of certain things. You know, just be honest and totally admit where
the mistakes were, and then hopefully, you know, you learn from it
in the future, as you know, we go about the next five,
ten, fifteen years and what theRockets are hoping to turn into a sustainable
contender. That's the way I'm lookingat this. Just try and try and
use this as a learning experience.That's saying you're gonna have sixty million dollars

(01:24:54):
in cap space again, but youare going to have some flexibility potentially issue
his next off season. And sohopefully, I think the way the Rockets
should look at this, and we'llsee over the coming days when they finally
take questions and talk to the mediaabout how everything went down, Hopefully they
can learn from some of these iffyexperiences and improve upon them in the future.
That's the way I'm choosing to lookat it. I think it's healthier.
I think it's also generally more accurate. I think a lot of the

(01:25:15):
way that Twitter is acting, atleast this morning and today is going to
be an interesting day because in thepast hour it looks like Twitter is finally
back up. So boy, thisis going to be interesting. At least
it wasn't up yesterday. That's theone silver lining as we close out this
podcast Fallow. Thank god Twitter wasnot fully functional when everything was going on
on Saturday afternoon. Right, Well, listen, I don't know why you're
trying to flex on me. Istill can't tweak shit. Oh I cannot.

(01:25:40):
I don't know. I'm for sotoday when you when you finish the
pod, don't plug at follow Elves, NBA. Plug at probably the NBA,
because I guess that's what I'm tweetingfrom now. I'm back off,
so I don't know, we'll see. Maybe maybe it just hit the reset
and so I haven't been rate limitedyet. I don't know, we'll see,
but yeah, ifs about Twitter isback to normal, you can follow

(01:26:03):
me on there at benju Bosa atPalo Alves, NBA. But yeah,
we maybe other places clutch Fins readit. Of course. For me,
you could read my work in RocketsWare, rocketspar dot USA, today dot
Com. We'll see. I thinkit's on point. Twitter will be back.
Elon mentioned that you know this rightlimb stuff is temporary. He won't

(01:26:24):
say it, but I think alot of it's related to their reduction and
headcount for reasons of course, relatedto Elon's temperament, and they don't have
the ability to fix some of theproblems on the engineering Siety referred to some
of the data scraping going on thatthey used to and so they're sort of
scrambling at the moment. But Idon't think Twitter being down is it's going
to be anything permanent. They've saidtemporary. I think this is just again

(01:26:45):
they're sort of scrambling behind the scenesin a way, the same way the
Rockets were this weekend to try andbatch things up and hopefully things are back
to normal on the social media sidewithin a few days. For me at
least when the last thirty minutes it'scome back to normal. For Palo not
so much, but knock on wood. Hopefully we all get back to functionality
soon, because boy, NBA freeagency without Twitter is really weird. An
NBA Summer League, which starts Thursdaythe seventh, would be especially frustrating to

(01:27:10):
not have free agency or actually,no, it'll be Friday the seventh,
that's right when Summer League officially kicksoff, and I'm in Thompson and camp
Moore will hit the floor in Rocketsjerseys for the first time. One plug
I want to throw out before weclose out or Rockets Twitter, I'm going
to be throwing a seven one threeparty with some support for the Rockets.
Is officially going to be an eventorganized by myself and a few other people

(01:27:31):
on Rockets Twitter, with support ofcourse from organizations like the Logger Line like
Rockets Wire, but the Rockets aregoing to be providing some content and some
giveaways. But we're going to bedoing it on Thursday, July thirteenth for
the Rockets Warriors game. It's thefourth that is scheduled to this point,
and it's seven one three day hereat Houston July seventeenth. Of course,

(01:27:56):
it ties in with the most establishedHouston area code, So yeah, seven
one three day watch party at BigCity Wings Marquee location. We're gonna have
some graphics in the days ahead.But yeah, if you're in Houston,
which unfortunately Paulo is not, buthopefully many of our listeners are come out,
I would love to chat with youguys. Then they'll be the fourth
game of Summer League. We knowI'm in Thompson and Camp what we're will
participating. It sounds like, atleast for a portion, Jabari Smith Junior

(01:28:17):
and try Easton's second year for wardswill as well. So there's gonna be
a lot to look forward to.And by the way, Paulo One's final
little silver lining that I do thinkyou can take out of this. I
do think one reason that the Rocketswere not very active with regards to undrafted
free agents this year was because theRockets were so deep in terms of young

(01:28:40):
prospects. There were a lot ofagents who steered their clients and other situations
because it's like, how the hellare you going to play? There's such
a long champ now that you don'thave guys like Garuba, Josh Christopher Tye,
Taye Washington from recent years, theremight be some deals, be it
undrafted free agents. Maybe the Rocketscan trade for guys who were blocked elsewhere,
but you might can over the remainderof the offseason sort of build up

(01:29:03):
your prospect stock pole, but simplybecause agents aren't going to see this situation
as capped the way they have inthe past. So that's something to sort
of keep your eyes peeled for it. There's at least some playing opportunities that
weren't there before the offloading of lateSo maybe the Rockets do have some smaller
moves ahead as they wrap up thisoffseason and get ready for again what should

(01:29:24):
be a really fun twenty twenty threeto twenty for regular season in which they're
actually trying to win. But anyway, that'll do it for today's episode.
We'll talk more in the days ahead. We'll be back this weekend to talk
about well, a combination of things. We'll talk about whatever happens in Summer
League, first impressions of I'm andThompson and Cam Womore, and then we'll
also of course reflect on whenever allof these deals are official after the moratorium,

(01:29:44):
do the Rockets add to them,what ends up happening as far as
getting these deals to the finish line. Do they expand it to take advantage
of the salary opportunities that are there? Did they try and roll over the
space? Is there anyone else thatthey trade for in the interim Again,
we'll have full reaction this weekend oncewe get to the actual finish line and
can truly grade what came in andwhat came out out of what's, quite

(01:30:06):
frankly, just a very complicated puzzle, as rawthel Stone in the Rockets try
and do a ton of different thingswith all of this cap room about sixty
million dollars give or take that theyhad entering twenty twenty three free agency.
With that, we'll bring this episodeto a close again. If you want
more content before our next episode,the best place to hopefully get it is
on Twitter. Benju bos is myhandle. Paulo Alves NBA is where you

(01:30:30):
can find Paulo and this show.The logger line is at the logger line
if you go to the Twitter bioagain, knock on wood. Hopefully Twitter
is up. When you're listening tothis, you can find your link tree
which has links to Carback Brewing,Sports Talk, seven ninety Rockets where all
of our friends, partners and sponsorswho can access their content through the link
tree, along with all of ourindividual distributors Apple, Google, Spotify,
so on and so forth. Orif you want to listen to the show,

(01:30:51):
you can find it at our linktree for the Logger Line again for
Paulo. I'm then thanks for listeningand please come back soon for another new
episode of The Locker Line.

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