KD is stuck playing with players that aren’t good enough to win a championship. Above average players but not good and certainly not great.
KD needs a better bench. You look at some Free Agents this off season you can bring in : [Unrestricted] Norman Powell (SG, MIA): Had a 2025-26 breakout, shooting ~40% from 3 on high volume. [Unrestricted] Anfernee Simons (SG, BOS/POR): Elite combo guard shooter. [Player Option] Zach LaVine (SG, SAC): Shot over 44% from 3 in 2025-26. [Unrestricted] Coby White (PG/SG, CHO): High-level 3-point shooter. [Unrestricted] Kevin Huerter (SG, SAC): Known perimeter threat. [Restricted] Bennedict Mathurin (SG, LAC): Improving shooter/scorer. [Unrestricted] Luke Kennard (SG, LAL): Elite 3-point percentage potential. [Player Option] James Harden (PG, CLE): High-volume 3PT shooter and playmaker. [Unrestricted] Quentin Grimes (SG, PHI): Reliable 3-and-D option. [Unrestricted] Buddy Hield (SG, GSW): Potentially available depending on team options. [Unrestricted] Khris Middleton (SF/SG, MIL): Veteran spacing. [1, 2, 3, 4] Could these be 2-3 players that would take a vet discount to play around Durant? I think Middleton + Hield could be had for cheap for shooting off the bench. Grimes come home for discount? I think those 3 could really top off the bench, to form a championship squad. The rest of the bench needs to go, DFS and Capela i guess stay, since DFS was technically playing thru a injury.
Trade Sengun/Jabari for Giannis Sign Quentin Grimes and Collin Sexton Our starting lineup: Giannis KD Amen Grimes FVV Our bench: Adams/Capela Tari (resign team friendly deal) DFS Reed (needs to play as sg) Sexton If there is any way to get Dosunmu, we could use Reed as a trade piece to move DFS and keep our draft picks. Otherwise, only way to move DFS is to attach a draft pick to get him traded
yea to first trade no to the signings. Sexton is erratic and doesn’t play defense. Grimes is a very average player. Don’t get the fascination with him
We had PG’s, Ime just chose not to use them. If they had FVV, he probably wouldn’t, but then we would have been just as sucky as last year with him in charge.
Sexton can break down defenses and get to the paint. He would be our best ballhandler on the team...Grimes fits Udoka's system, can switch on defense and hit open 3s. Who would you sign instead given our salary cap restraints?
I have another trade proposal: FVV/Reed/FRPs for Josh Giddey Giddey averaged 17/8/9...we keep our young core and get a better ballhandler. We can easily replace Reed with a backup point guard and focus on building our bench with better 3pt shooters. Thoughts?
If Chicago would do it, I would be willing to take the risk. Giddey almost averaged a triple-double, and he's a decent shooter these days. If he can improve a little bit more, he's an all-star, and I'm not sure Reed Sheppard will ever match that at this rate. No more than one draft pick if they're getting Reed, though, and probably a Rockets pick or maybe a pick swap, not a Brooklyn/Phoenix/Dallas pick outright. A lot of these trade scenarios I keep feeling like "but can he play next to Reed and you still have any kind of perimeter defense?" So, kudos for including Reed here. I've been thinking more and more we need to be willing to trade him if it's any deal where we're getting back another negative perimeter defender. Obviously the value has to justify it though.
Its kinda hard to determine Reed's ceiling because this was his first NBA season of him getting true minutes and then the ask of him was to play point guard which is one of the toughest positions to play/learn in basketball given his optimal utilization for him to play off-ball. However, I think Reed is replaceable based on the role he serves this team. Its glaring that we need a true point guard and better 3pt shooters on this team. My gut feeling is saying we're not gonna make any major moves until we get a good look with our full team back healthy: FVV will be on an expiring contract KD will be on an expiring contract Jabari and Sengun's is contract is good value Amen will be in last year of Rookie contract From a financial standpoint, the Rockets will have great moveable assets next season...
They Rockets tried to make KD play like Bron and he's not. KD is more play finisher vs play starter. I don't have the stats, but just watching, I'm willing to better he dribbled more this year than any year he's ever had. That's not his game and I will continue to say Giannis coming downhill and KD flanking is pretty much unstoppable. Giannis getting the team in the penalty and KD closing games is the formula to me. People are artificially elevating FVV as if he didn't play the 2 yrs prior. He couldn’t beat anyone off the dribble, now he's a yr older and he's going to start doing it? I'd rather have Sheppard ready for some of those kickouts and pnrs.
How many frp’s? I think Chicago sees Giddy as the guy they are building around. He has a great contract as well (less than Jabari). I would think it would probably take 3 good ones. Not sure Giddy is worth that.
2 of our least favorable first round picks and some second round picks. I was sitting back thinking and just evaluating our season...If we had some solid ballhandlers/point guards to mitigate times when our offense collapsed we would've made a deep run. I looked up the top assist leaders this past season and maybe we can sign these 2 players to fill in our gaps: James Harden (8 assists per game) Russell Westbrook (6.7 assists per game) Hear me out on this: Harden will make life easier for Sengun and KD. Westbrook can replace Tari as our energy guy off the bench - only if we let Tari walk...also, Westbrook can pair well with Reed in the backcourt with the 2nd unit for defensive purposes... I'm not sold we'll get a good version of FVV when he returns next season. Before injury, he was barely getting by his defender and just watching FVV on the bench this season man he got fat as f¿ck this year...we need to use some of our least favorable draft picks to get out of the bad contract of DFS
I agree with a lot of this. If Kevin can make things right with his teammates and be a better one I really would welcome him back. I don’t even think his extension is that expensive relative to the type of player he is. Disappointing that he wasn’t available in the playoffs, but we know that our strategy was off anyway. We have to hope for adjustments. Durant Is very good in the mid range, but to be part of our future, he will Need to push out to the three point line more often and then save the mid range game for when Thompson is on the bench. He can still be a valuable shooter and play finisher. I tend to think we should move on, but I could see it go either way. Who’s to say the original injury didn’t occur in a playoff practice with him practicing as being the lead ball handler. Thompson/Smith/Shep/Durant/FVV/Adams Needs to be supplemented with two other high-level players and an augmented approach to encore strategy. But I still think that that could be highly effective.
