I see the same thing with the Spurs next year..... Julian Champagnie? Vassell? Keldon Johnson? Castle? Bryant? Cason is RFA in 2 years, and OKC could still match. Forgot mentioning he still has a contract.
Wiggins plus one or two 2026/2027 OKC FRPs for the Rockets Tate or some such. Wiggins is owed three more years (about $9M + $8M + $8M). Wiggins is a career .380 3 point shooter. OKC traded for Jared McCain might indicate that they are ready to move on from Wiggins?
Jabari definitely improved. Not sure if you're projecting your feelings about Sengun into the whole roster or what
They are stacked with young players and draft picks. They will just sign everybody and be over the 2nd Apron until they unload Fox. OKC might let some of their guys go, if they execute well in the draft. Injuries are the only thing that can de-rail either team.
For certain, Twitterverse including media are wanting both teams to break it up so that their team can have a chance, understandable.......both teams are conservative minded teams. That includes some Clutchfans.
I think a team who has the cap space can steal Lu Dort away in free agency this offseason. They're dealing with a precarious cap situation over there. I also think they'd be open to trading one or more of their draft picks in this season's draft. They just don't have the roster space. But I don't see them letting go of Cason Wallace or Ajay Mitchell when they have a few more years of them on their rookie deals. Those are exactly the kind of contracts they need to continue competing.
I don't know if Wallace is the guy we would be able to get, but I think OKC will have increasingly little leverage in any trade(really just competing against the market because they have to make several moves regardless) and several OKC role players and potentially even one of their budding stars might be available soon and OKC isn't taking more money back so they have to trade picks and expiring cap filler to get value from any of those moves because the last thing they can do is take more long term salary. They have 3 guys on max deals including SGA's super max deal - SGA will be making $60mil/yr next year(35% of cap)+Jalen Williams & Chet at $45mil/yr(26% of cap for each). That's 87% of their cap for 3 players and in the new CBA you start losing draft picks if you are into the 2nd cap for several years which is where they are about to be. They also have Caruso committed to long term money through 2029 at 12% of the cap so now they are at 99% of the cap on FOUR PLAYERS. ....they can't afford to retain all of Hartenstein(probably makes $30mil+ on the next deal), Dort(at least a $20mil guy), Isiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins, Jaylin Williams, Cason Wallace, Ajay Mitchell, or Jared McCain for very much money and Mitchell, Cason, and McCain are probably going to get BIG pay days soonish meaning in the next year you can expect there to be deals for most of the guys on that list. I also wouldn't be terribly surprised if they consider trading Jalen Williams a la the James Harden trade because of how dominant he team around him performed while he wasn't playing this year. If they can let's say get McCain and Mitchell for $50-$60mil combined - I wonder if that's a better financial option than Jalen at $41mil and having to watch two key rotation players and potential budding players leave. If the OKC gameplan is get SGA the ball in ISO - it begs the question of whether you need a max contract secondary player with only one ball. I suppose Dort will be gone soon and maybe Williams is the new defensive stopper? Not sure there - OKC can take this a number of directions but the only thing we KNOW is they can't afford to stay on the current path so something has to give.
He improved from his disastrous rookie season but nowhere near the player he was in college. In fact all the stories of Jabari he works hard so much, he attached himself to KD "on the hip" and the Rockets staff had to stop him and Amen cuz they were practicing so much. But even after all that Jabari barely improved from last year, from 33% to 36%. Yippee. So much effort for so little gain I think our dev team is so ass.
The only critical players on OKC are SGA, JDub, Chet, Cason Wallace, Ajay Mitchell and Mccain. The rest can take a hike they have Sorber, Topic, 12th and 17th. If they need to cut even more salary they can prob trade Chet for Walker Kessler or something.
...that's a $250 million+ team (at least and likely more) once you pay those guys a conservative market value and give minimum deals to 10 other roster spots AND we haven't mentioned Caruso is under contract for $20mil until the 2029/2030 year - that pushes that number into $270mil conservatively - well beyond the 2nd apron even if the core team is "just" SGA($61mil), JDub($44.5 mil), Chet($44.5 mil), Cason(call it $20 mil), Ajay(call it $20 mil), and McCain(call it $30 mil). San Antonio beating this version of OKC was really eye opening - not sure what OKC does with the roster next. It would seem like they need to retain all the key contributors of this year but it would hurt them in future drafts and limit their ability to do much roster tweaking on the margins so it's a real commitment AND saddles ownership with some pretty expensive tax bills that would even make the Warriors blush.
I expect them to do what they can to keep the majority of this team together next season. It's easy to convince yourself that they just didn't have a healthy J Dub or Ajay Mitchell for the series, and talk yourself into that being the difference. However, if they can't get passed the Spurs next year, I would imagine we're going to see some Celtics like salary dumps.
Are we going to keep salivating on Thunder and Spurs players? I'm quite sure that if any of our young guys played for these teams, we'd be saying they'd fit perfectly with the Rockets. LOL.
Yeah but let's see what happens because okc is going to decide who they are going to keep or move on from.
