The Rockets head into the offseason with most of their core under contract, but general manager Rafael Stone will have to be precise with his decisions. Houston’s roster has 10 players under contract and just under $22 million in room below the projected first-apron payroll threshold. Yet, this Rockets roster could get very expensive in the coming years after adding an Eason extension to the other big contracts already on the books. Bringing back Eason could potentially put the Rockets in a position to have five players on next year’s salary cap making north of $20 million and eight earning at least $10 million annually. That doesn’t even include the lucrative extension young star Amen Thompson is expected to sign this summer, potentially a five-year deal worth more than $250 million.
Whatever competent decision regarding the roster we are hoping for, expect Stone to do the exact opposite with the same smug confidence.
Nah bro he's the best defender on the planet, best athlete in the history of basketball and a future megastar remember?! If we pay that much money to Amen we may aswell just not bother suiting up for the next 5 years. Idiotic.
The Rockets need to get out of the Amen business, but they won't. To the contrary, I expect them to overpay him. For the life of me I can't understand how everyone on the board complains about Stone, Ime, and our complete lack of shot-making outside of KD, but at the same time want to entrust over $200M and our future to Amen. You think Stone is clueless and Ime can't run an offense, but you're right there with them in the Amen fan club. You will never build a contender playing a wing who can't shoot.
Never ever forget that a lot of the people on here don't watch basketball, they just read catch all metrics and run around ironically calling everybody who doesn't agree with their nonsense casuals.
The article said he could potentially get a rookie max extension, not that he is expected to. Granted, Sam Amick is foolish for even suggesting that Amen could get the rookie max, but that was just him pulling something out of his ass. He doesn't have inside info on what the Rockets are expected to do when it comes to Amen this offseason.
The narrative around this guy is just insane. He won't make either all-defense team this year. He had less steals and blocks than Reed this year despite playing 10 minutes more per game. He's not even the best defender in his family. For this and a complete lack of a shot outside the paint we will spend $250M.
Same characters always coming out of the woodwork in this thread. If it's Stone doing the extending, I wouldn't expect Amen to get the rookie max extension. He's shown no propensity to overpay on these deals with the young guys. My expectation is something in the vicinity of Sengun's extension, or possibly Jalen's. (They may let Amen decide which structure he prefers.)
Signing Amen to an albatross of a contract is exactly the kind of thing I could see Stone doing after he did the same with Ime.
"Coming out of the woodwork" lmao, dude I never stop posting. Let's stop with the bullshit narratives just because your faith in this dude is misplaced, absolutely hilarious lmao. Acting like we're making up the contract when we're talking about numbers widely expressed across the league media? Y'all are tragic at how hard you reach tbh.
God I hope Stone is fired this off season, but i just doubt it because damn Tillman dgaf. Stone has had every opportunity for the last 6 years to rebuild this team...which included fully tanking and having high draft picks but he's failed to turn that into anything. Any other team, and that GM is gone.
Absolutely pay him what the market would pay him. Don't even think twice. More importantly, put him in a 4-out offense so we can see his offensive production side by side with his historically elite perimeter defense. Whatever our young guys are producing, I'm now 100% certain they'd perform better in an average offense. I'm accounting for the Udoka offense-choking effect moving forward. People on this board will have you believe it's plausible that we drafted like ten underperforming offensive players in a row. Stop being an idiot. The trend across two franchises is too big to ignore now. Udoka is shaving offensive production from our roster and that's also dropping everyone's trade value. Keep all our assets. Can't keep bleeding assets to cover for Udoka's flaws. We're supposed to build a team that covers our key players flaws, not the ****ing coach’s flaws.
Some shortsighted viewpoints here. Amen was slid over to PG last season. Keep him as a forward and he is a great defender. He "took a step back" thanks to exigencies and poor roster management.
Just crazy talk. "Historically elite perimeter defense"? Per Bobby Marks at ESPN, "Defensively, opponents shot 42.8% when Thompson was the closest defender, per GeniusIQ. That ranked 15th among 188 players who defended at least 500 attempts in the regular season." 15th is not bad. But "historically elite"? Madness. Amen won't even make either all-defense team this year. And it's impossible to build an average offense in the modern NBA playing a wing who can't shoot over 35 minutes a game. You're building a fantasy projection on top of a sunk cost.
I'm not going to play the cherry picking game because I can pull infinite mini stats too. What he's already achieved without a rim protector is mind blowing. You don't have to build an offense to suit only one player and there is no problem whatsoever with a forward who can't shoot if they're the only one who can't shoot. If one of these shooters is Kevin Durant, then he doesn't have to be the top scorer. Just has to be a 1B.
He isn't worth it.......we are locking into players who can't win or lead because they can't shoot. DD
You bring him in the gym and tell him, you make 10 3s in a row you get 250mil … for every 3 you miss you lose 25mil
