Fred VanVleet Restructure: Houston, We Have A Payroll Problem

Is that true that if they extend him, they can't trade him until 2027 mid-year?! That doesn't sound right. How many times have teams done sign/trade deals? Assuming you are wrong (or I am misunderstanding what you are saying), I think they should re-negotiate to bring his annual salary down as I think that makes him more tradable.

Agree to disagree that extending FVV was "stupid". Having FVV available last season would have been beneficial, IMO. The fact that he got injured doesn't make it was a mistake as he wasn't injury prone. Since we can't play the alternate universe game where FVV played the whole season, we'll never how that would have turned out.

You may be of the opinion that FVV is a bad player but your opinion, or my opinion, is just that. How would he have meshed with KD? What we do know, is FVV's performance sucked when teams didn't need to guard Green, Amen, Alp, and Brooks on the perimeter. What would that have looked like if KD legit demands doubles/triples leaving a healthy FVV wide open? We may never know.

 

Fred did his job here. His contract is tradeable and he can provide stability to a team that needs it. All of FVV/Adams/Tari/Durant need to be gone and we need to get guys in here that will defer to Sengun/Amen/Jabari/Reed.

Stone has the perfect out for moving on from him and should "do right by him". Durant as well. Just get on with it already. The issue is that maybe Stone knows that Ime can't run a team if someone like FVV isn't there to figure it out for him.

 

Injuries always involve luck. But different players recover from injuries differently. Some slower than others. Are players like AD, Embiid, and Kawhi just unlucky or are they injury-prone and take more time than others to recover from their injuries?

And more importantly, the older you get, the longer it is to recover. That's just basic medical science. So it's commonsense that if you take older guys who have long recovery histories, you are taking on higher probabilities of missing games.

 

Why are we pretending like we are some outlier with several players in their early 30s or dismissing that the NBA has a greater injury problem that almost impacted MVP race and All NBA. SGA and Luka barely made the minimum games played to qualify and they ain't old. There’s body type as AD and Embiid are giant men and centers tend to wear down more due to their size. Kawhi has a medical issue with his quad.

The problem with @Nook is he's giving a lot of numbers without any context.

And him and many others are just hand waving away the difference between missing an entire season or like 20 games, in the case of FVV. When we resigned FVV he was 31 years old in his 7 year career and only cracked 25 MPG in his 3rd season.

 

LMAO..... 32 years old is the downside of a career now?

Do you even watch basketball? Like how could you not see that the team struggled to do the basic offensive sets with FVV. It's not FVV worship... it's just understanding basketball.

 

yes I watch a lot of basketball. Stop being rude. Fred had one good yr and looked like he was declining that second yr. His numbers were terrible and he only played 60 games. Now he’s coming off ACL surgery at an age where there aren’t many examples of successful recovery. It’s a fair take. Get over yourself.

 

Then stop being such a doomer and using hyperbole to make an argument. It's not FVV worship as your said, it's needing a steady hand on offense with low turnovers and playing good team defense.

I'm not sure why you and others use the 24'-25' season as a reason why he's declining.... He was clearly overmatched and played a bit out of his role as Green's role was supposed to be the scorer at the end of the shot clock.

I certainly don't mind trading FVV, but a lot of y'all underestimate what he brings.

 

I didn’t use AI - but maybe should have?

As far as removing time for rehabbing injuries - if my aunt had balls, she would be my uncle. The time missed rehabbing is extremely relevant.

As for Luka, he has a known history of conditioning issues and injuries centered around that - so if he misses a lot of games or is not in shape, the Lakers knew when they got him. At least he isn’t old yet.

DFS, Capela and FVV are all contracts underwater. KD isn’t underwater, but with his extensive injury history and age - that is a risk. If the Rockets want to try and recoup the lost lottery pick, this would be the off season to move KD.

 

Unfortunately a FVV restructure likely has little to nothing to do with the basketball side of the house. Considering FVV is the president of the players association could potentially impact the Rockets for years after he’s gone. I wouldn’t expect any “hometown” discounts, “aging player” discounts, or anything of that nature.

 

Let's just hope FVV has a great year and we either draft a young PG or Sheppard takes over in 2028.

 

Fred has the pedigree and work ethic to risk restructuring to a 2 year deal worth a total value of about 5m more imo. We probably lost 6-8 games because he was injured

 

Extending Fred this summer would be insane. He was a mediocre player last year and that was BEFORE he blew out his knee. The Rockets have no idea what he'll look like next season as he approaches 33. They could wind up with another DFS situation where they're stuck with a scrub whose contact they can't unload.

Why not just let him play out this season, see how good he is, more importantly see how good the team functions with him as the PG(Ime will undoubtedly go right back to playing him 35+ minutes a night), and THEN figure out whether he's worth extending? That way if it turns out he's washed up, they have the ability to either let him walk next summer or dangle his expiring contract at the deadline.

 

I like FVV, but the extension talks are scary. They are likely doing that only if they are planning to do something win now that requires flexibility. I'm not opposed to see how things go and then adding if things go great, but I am not for pushing more long term chips until we see them play well to the deadline.

 

Restructuring the contract could turn out good, or it could turn out bad. We don’t have all the information the Rockets have. They should know how the rehab has been going. The Rockets also should have a better idea how a restructuring can be combined with other moves to benefit the team.

So, I’m not sure which way the Rockets should go. It don’t know what other moves the Rockets would combine with the restructuring.

However, I have a hard time seeing the Rockets as a true contender with or without FVV in the near future. So, I suppose I would lean into doing something that could help us become a contender down the line. That would probably involve doing a lot more than just dealing with Fred’s contract.

 

33 ain't old. . . . If you're LeBron.

 

It's what I used to check your math and it also conveniently came out in a similar format.

That wasn't my point at all. I can arbitrarily pick 3 years and show how KD missing 45 games over 3 seasons is pretty inline with games missed by players.

Or I can actually look at the injury history and see FVV's game missed isn't reflective of some injury plagued player, especially looking at this from when we gave him a two year extension before he had a bad luck ACL injury. Nor is FVV some high mileage player.... being undrafted and not cracking +25 MPG until his 3rd season (out 9 season).

Let's have some context please.

Look across the league... there's a big issue with injuries right now. How many players younger than 30 are having Achilles now? Tatum kept his conditioning up.

As of today, FVV and DFS are both expiring contracts so I'd argue they are treading water. Capela I would agree is underwater but is still useful in aggregating contracts. All these contacts are useful in aggregating which is important for cap implications (which is a large reason why Stone signed them).

I've generally agreed with Stone's thesis for the current window, doesn't mean I think he's great or it wasn't without severe risk. It makes sense to pair several vets (early 30s) plus KD to this current young core that has trouble scoring, shooting, and executing offenses. If there was no cap penalties then Stone wouldn't go for cheaper vets like DFS or Capela to add depth to the end of the rotation. Like I've argued, there's a big difference between withstanding FVV missing 20/30 games vs an entire season and playoffs.

 

Or Old Man Curry.

 

As with everything, the devil is in the details. Extending FVV because you think he needs to play a prominent role in the teams success moving forward is scary.

FVV has been the Rocket's security blanket and it's unhealthy and unproductive if other players aren't able to step up at this point.

 

I wouldn't given Fred any new contract unless we can confirm he is 100% recovered from injury.

Stone will make stupid mistakes again.