Welp. Can't win'em all. Onto the next season.

Who are the realistic options out there to add to this team? Dumping Anderson and is $18-20 million salary to someone would be awesome and getting a legit 4 that can help on the boards.

unfortunately that player decided to go to the spurs

Saw this coming a mile away and didn't watch the game. I'm going to pretend it didn't happen and just quickly transition over to the astros.

Cap will be 102-103 by most estimates.

Harden 28.3mm, one more year plus one player option year
Anderson: 19.6mm, two more years
Gordon: 13mm, two more years
Ariza: 7.4mm, last year
Lou: 7mm, last year
Bev: 5.5mm with 5mm unguaranteed next year
Capela: 2.3mm, RFA following year
Dekker: 1.7, team option following year
Trez: 1.3mm, RFA following year
Onuaku: 1.3mm, one more year
Wiltjer: 1.3 unguaranteed
Taylor: 1.3 Unguaranteed

Free agents:
Nene UFA (3.4mm cap hold)
Brown RFA (1.5mm cap hold)
Troy Williams RFA (1.5mm cap hold)

87.5mm - Not including the two unguaranteed contracts or the three free agents for 10 players. Bump it up to 88.7 for two min salary cap holds.

Gives about 14mm in space, assuming they let Nene, Brown, Williams, Wiltjer and Taylor walk. Keep those guys and you are likely working with a MLE-type room.

If you wanted to clear space, Ariza, Lou, Bev, Capela, Dekker would all be easy to move. Gordon might be easy to move as well, but he does have a history in NOLA of having a bad attitude. Didn't see any of that this year, though. This is a pretty excellent system for him and I would assume MDA would want to keep him.

I don't see Nene coming back. He contemplated retirement last offseason and to tear his adductor muscle is a scary injury. Depth at the 4 and 5 needs to be a priority this offseason

Did he tear his adductor muscle or the adductor longus tendon?

Rocks will make a run at Griffin or Hayward

Tier 1 Options: Hayward, Ibaka, or Gallinari

Other options, if we move Lou then I could see us going after Reddick. Korver may be a nice option too for a 3 point shooter off the bench.

I think they should bring back Nene, add 1 more big to the rotation and make another run with this current group. They won 55 games their first season with MDA. Give it some time.

Edit: Also hope Golden State has a non-career/non-life threatening injury-riddled season next year.

Forum Troll said:

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I think they should bring back Nene, add 1 more big to the rotation and make another run with this current group. They won 55 games their first season with MDA. Give it some time.

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What I would be worried about is a continued Trevor Ariza decline. That may be offset by Trevor Ariza in a Contract Year, though. He breaks the 1000 total NBA game plateau next year. If you can upgrade SF, you have to do it. Ariza would probably shoot a lot better as a backup with less demands on minutes.

Guitarsoup said:

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Forum Troll said:

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I think they should bring back Nene, add 1 more big to the rotation and make another run with this current group. They won 55 games their first season with MDA. Give it some time.

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What I would be worried about is a continued Trevor Ariza decline. That may be offset by Trevor Ariza in a Contract Year, though. He breaks the 1000 total NBA game plateau next year. If you can upgrade SF, you have to do it. Ariza would probably shoot a lot better as a backup with less demands on minutes.

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Legit concern. He plays a ton of minutes. Who is out there except for Hayward?

Guitarsoup said:

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Hayward would be perfect, but I think he either stays or goes to Boston. White guy in Boston averaging 20ppg? He'd be a god.

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Boston has the coach (Brad Stevens) who coached Hayward at Butler when they made those impressive runs to the NCAA title game.

Hayward was only a part of the first one but they have a close relationship obviously. I think the C's have to be the front runner. Also looking at the second Butler roster just makes me have that much more respect for Brad.

Not a lot.

Gallinari
Otto Porter
Rudy Gay
Iggy
PJ Tucker
Bojan
Joe Ingles
CJ Miles
Jeff Green
Omri Cassipi

I feel like Gallinari is the only one that'd be an upgrade. Yes please.

I'd roll the dice with Otto Porter. Guy hit 43% of his threes and is 23.

Stop me when you have heard this one before, but I wish Morey could convince Llull to come over

Not very familiar with him but sounds like he'd fit in with this system. Sign me up as long as he's not 20mm/year.

I don't really see why the solution has to be bringing in some splashy free agent this offseason. I know it's fun to play armchair GM, but in all honesty, is it too much to ask that the organization coaches up a few of our weak links?

I think we would all agree that one of our biggest weaknesses is defensive rebounding. We ranked #21 in the league in Defensive Rebound %. The two players that stick out in my mind as really needing to improve in this area are Ryan Anderson and Clint Capela. Let's take a look at these guys.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/anderry01.html

Ryan Anderson just had the worst rebounding season of his entire career. Click on the link, go down to "Advanced" and look at his numbers for ORB%, DRB%, and TRB%. His offensive rebounding numbers were far and away the worst of his career, and his defensive rebounding numbers were just barely the worst of his career. I thought that maybe this was because he was probably being asked to shoot more 3's than ever before but that's not true. From 2009-2013 he actually attempted more 3's per game than he did this season while rebounding much better than this year. Now, maybe he's being coached to run back on defense more this year or something, I don't know. But here is actual evidence that he CAN be a better rebounder.

The other thing I want to see from him, is to ball-fake and drive when his shot isn't falling. In one of the games of the OKC series, can't remember exactly which one, he started out like 0-6 from 3. Instead of shooting his 7th three-pointer, he ball-faked, drove into the lane, dished to Capela, and we got a layup. Why doesn't he do that more often, and why does he wait until he's 0-6? Can we not coach him up to do that more often, especially if he's starting a game slowly like 0-3 from three?

Now for Capela. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/capelca01.html

For those arguing that we have to have another superstar, have a look at his PER numbers compared to our last superstar Dwight Howard. Capela's PER for the 3 seasons he's been in the league are 12, 18, and 21. Dwight Howard's peak career PER numbers were 25, 24, 26, 24, which were his last 4 years in Orlando. His 3 years in Houston were 21, 19, and 18. There's certainly merit to the argument that he was no longer a superstar by the time he made it to Houston, but it's not crazy to think that Capela could be entering a 3-5 year stretch where he puts up PER numbers of 20-25.

The 3 years that Dwight was in Houston, despite his lower PER numbers, he was still a pretty elite rebounder. His TRB% numbers were 20, 19.5, and 20. Capela's TRB% numbers are 22, 18.5, and 18.5. He was actually an amazing rebounder that first season (probably because he was playing against the opponent's 2nd unit). We supposedly have this amazing analytics department. Can we not leverage that to break down plays and show Capela how to improve as a rebounder?

I actually tend to think that rebounding doesn't really even need analytics as much a pure effort and hustle. Can we not just make that a point of emphasis going into next season?

Look at Jonathan Simmons. His numbers for the last 2 seasons are very, very pedestrian. But he out-hustled every single player on our roster and made a big impact on the Spurs series. I would love to see our front office bring these kind of numbers to MDA, and see if he can't coach these guys up next year.

Guitarsoup said:

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I'd roll the dice with Otto Porter. Guy hit 43% of his threes and is 23.

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But is also a restricted FA. I know DM can do some crazy offer to hit the Wizards cap hard, but I just don't see the Wizards not matching a reasonable offer for Porter.

Improving through free agency - something Morey clearly shows he is interested in doing - and improving current players through coaching are not mutually exclusive things.

Ariza sucks and we should upgrade SF. Ryan Anderson is what he is. He isn't going to turn in to Rodman on the glass. The man's been in the league for a decade. Lou is a good spark off the bench and was a big pickup, but having someone more consistent that could help push the offense while James rests is pretty important. Rockets need to add some depth so they don't look worn out 10 games into the playoffs.

Iowaggie said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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I'd roll the dice with Otto Porter. Guy hit 43% of his threes and is 23.

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But is also a restricted FA. I know DM can do some crazy offer to hit the Wizards cap hard, but I just don't see the Wizards not matching a reasonable offer for Porter.

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I totally missed that. Yeah, I'd assume they would try hard to keep him.

Washington has 8mm in cap space, but Trey Burke, Otto and Bojan as FAs.

NickNaylor said:

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Ariza sucks and we should upgrade SF. Ryan Anderson is what he is. He isn't going to turn in to Rodman on the glass.

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Agree on Ariza.

I don't think we need Ryan Anderson to turn into Rodman, we just need him to rebound like he did earlier in his career. And we saw this year that MDA successfully transformed Harden into one of the games best PGs, can he not get Ryno to rebound at a level that he used to?

My only issue with Ariza has been and continues to be how streaky of a shooter he is. Still a pretty damn good defender and he brings a Veteran presence to the locker room. Agree though that if they can upgrade the position you go for it and have Ariza come off the bench.

CFTXAG10 said:

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My only issue with Ariza has been and continues to be how streaky of a shooter he is. Still a pretty damn good defender and he brings a Veteran presence to the locker room. Agree though that if they can upgrade the position you go for it and have Ariza come off the bench.

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I also don't think Ariza sucks, although he's showing his age. If we could somehow upgrade his position and keep him to come off the bench that would be awesome.

I see one of Ariza or Anderson not coming back next year. Also don't think Nene will be back. He earned himself a raise and not sure if we are willing to pay that.

Which is a damn shame. The only real inside presence we had down the stretch. I know, Capela, but he just gets moved around too easily. And I don't know what we're doing with Trez.

Is this the thread where we point out Harden is being sued by Moses Malone Jr for an alleged robbery?

cr0wbar said:

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Is this the thread where we point out Harden is being sued by Moses Malone Jr for an alleged robbery?

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On one hand, I'm 99% sure this didn't happen. On the other, if it did then maybe Harden really does have a killer instinct.

k20dub said:

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I see one of Ariza or Anderson not coming back next year. Also don't think Nene will be back. He earned himself a raise and not sure if we are willing to pay that.

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He's 35 years old I doubt he gets a raise especially since he will most likely go to us or a contender.

Chris Bosh is leaving the Miami Heat. Remember in the summer of 2014 when he was so close to joining the Rockets after Lebron went back to the Cleveland Cavaliers?

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19452371/chris-bosh-miami-heat-agree-part-ways