NBA Off-Season Thread

The Draft is this upcoming Thursday. The Rockets are trying hard to get Dwight Howard. They now have the 14th, 16th, 18th pick in this years Draft.

They acquired the 18th pick today by trade with the Timberwolves.

http://tracking.si.com/2012/06/26/houston-rockets-chase-budinger-minnesota-timberwolves/

 

Good idea to start this thread.

There has been some Luol Deng trade chatter this week. Would be interesting to see if the Bulls move up on Thursday as they begin to build for two years from now.

 

What are the chances Howard signs long-term with Houston if he's traded there? Can't believe it's all that high.

 

So Minnesota traded for another young, mediocre small forward? Well, that certainly makes sense.

 

Just spitballing, but it seems like Chandler Parsons would be a very coveted piece in any Houston trade, no?

 

Houston doesn't really have a shitload of assets. The rumour is that it's Lowry for #5 and #14/#16/something else for #8, with a couple of pieces of junk...errr... prospects and the two picks for Howard. That clears their roster of the flotsam, and if Howard leaves the only anchor on the roster will be Scola, but Scola isn't good enough to win anything by himself, so in a worst case scenario they get one year of Dwight followed by rebuilding. In a best case scenario he enjoys himself enough to stay.

Scola, by the way, is largely untradeable. Scola's a roleplayer making 16%-17% of the salary cap.

 

Howard opting in for one more year guaranteed we were just going to have swallow another season of him telling every reporter in every road city that he'd "love to play with Player X."

Knicks had a beneficial ruling handed down by an arbitrator that allowed Jeremy Lin and Steve Novak to retain their Bird rights, meaning the Knicks can go over the cap to resign them. They also will now have their mid-level exception (which they otherwise would have likely had to use on Lin) to sign a veteran for up to $5 million, I believe.

 

I think the draft this year could be real interesting. After the top pick, there doesn't seem to be much difference from picks 2 to 10, and I think we could see some frantic dealing like the NFL draft as teams move up and down. Plus, the free agent market is allegedly horrible this year, so I think that will put more pressure on GMs to address needs via trade and the draft.

 

If Howard plus the supporting cast he's had in Orlando (Nelson, Lewis, Turkoglu, etc) wasn't enough to get to the promised land, I sure as hell don't see how he's getting there alongside Scola and the shit salad left over after the Rockets trade their future to acquire him. How would that situation be any better than what he's had in Orlando?

 

I don't think Howard is real interested in the whole "quality of team" aspect, but if he was, I imagine it's easier to believe that Houston knows what they're doing vs. Orlando. Despite not picking really high in the draft and dealing with things like the injury to Yao Ming, the Rockets have been a spunky, near-playoff team the past couple of years. They basically seem like the poor man's Denver to me, where I trust both front offices to compile good rosters, but they're lacking that Top 10 NBA talent to really build around.

 

I took it the other way. With the Rockets dealing Budinger, I feel like they're probably sold on Parsons being a cheap piece they can use in the starting lineup and grow with.

 

Call me crazy, but I could see Houston making a run at Pau Gasol if a Dwight Howard deal doesn't work out.