2019 NBA Free Agency Southwest Primer: Analytics, upstarts and perennial contenders
Houston Rockets
Situation Entering Offseason:
With Kevin Durant hobbled and Houston playing on home court, the Rockets had every opportunity to step up and do what they loudly proclaimed was within their grasp a season prior if not for a Chris Paul hamstring.
Instead, the team seemingly melted within the moment and left the court having lost again to their nemesis and their two stars feuding.
Now they mired in salary purgatory with just five of their players (James Harden, Chris Paul, Clint Capela, Eric Gordon, and PJ Tucker) eating up $113,959,803 million putting them over an expected salary cap of $109M.
Salary:
Cap Space: $ (53,480,142.00)
Floor Space: $ 30,894,527.00
Max Space: $ (15,944,469.00)
Projected Space: $ (50,367,690.00)
*as per Keith Smith of Real GM
Key free agents to re-sign:
Seemingly out of the mix to recruit free agents, leave it to Daryl Morey to announce his intention to gun for Jimmy Butler (a long coveted asset). In order to obtain Butler, however, the GM will need to create space which means he’ll either need to trade existing assets or convince Butler to work a deal with his existing team for a sign and trade.
Suffice to say, Eric Gordon, Clint Capela, and PJ Tucker’s names were all tossed out as trade fodder to make Morey’s desires come true.
Reporting w/ @ZachLowe: Houston’s offering Clint Capela, Eric Gordon and PJ Tucker individually to teams w/ space to absorb salary. Rockets trying for best available first-rounder for any of those three, hoping to redirect pick to Philly in pursuit of Jimmy Butler sign-and-trade.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 26, 2019
The issue moving forward is if Morey can’t trade those players to create the space or spin a sign and trade how will this news affect those players who Morey is so willing to part with?
What made the 2017-18 version of the Rockets so special was their defense and having already lost Trevor Ariza the season prior how would losing the highly underrated Tucker affect next season’s team?
2019 Roster Depth:
- Clint Capela
- Chris Chiozza
- Gary Clark
- Deyonta Davis
- Michael Frazier
- Eric Gordon
- James Harden
- Isaiah Hartenstein
- Chris Paul
- P.J. Tucker
Draft Picks:
- None
2019 free agents
Nene Hilario (Officially opted out)
Gerald Green
Vince Edwards (Restricted)
Danuel House (Restricted – team extended qualifying offer)
Kenneth Faried
Iman Shumpert
Austin Rivers