NBA fans often want their general managers to make decisions that, if they were in the same shoes, they may not make themselves.
It’s human nature. If you’d been there, he wouldn’t have gotten away with it. You’d have done the brave thing. If I were in charge, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Until you’re there, and you don’t, or you are, and we are. For example, NBA fans love the idea of “selling high”. If you were the general manager of an NBA team, you may not be willing to specifically move a player
because he’s playing well. When your job is on the line, high-risk profiles lose some appeal.
So I wrote that if I were Rafael Stone, I’d split Alperen Sengun and Amen Thompson up this summer. That would mean either moving Sengun for pieces or Thompson for a high-volume three-point shooting star. I will not lose my The Dream Shake position if the Rockets do that and it goes poorly.
Stone probably won’t trade either of his two highest-performing young draftees to date. That’s defensible. That doesn’t mean he should sit on his hands this summer.
So, once again, as someone with minimal skin in the game, as a guy whose life is not affected by the Houston Rockets to any more than the extent to which I allow it to be, I have a plan. If Stone isn’t going to make franchise-altering moves, he still has to tinker on the margins.
He has to do the bare minimum. Here’s a two-step plan for him to do exactly that.
1. Trade Clint Capela for a combo guard
Were you expecting Dorian Finney-Smith?
Again – bare minimum. During the Rockets’ exit presser, there seemed to be a sentiment that Finney-Smith will have a chance to bounce back from an abysmal season with a summer to rehabilitate. To paraphrase 90s Australian pop sensations Savage Garden:
“Oh, I want (him), I don’t know if I need (him), but, oh, I’m (probably going to) find out”.
Yet, there is no reason to keep Capela. He was Steven Adams’ insurance. Adams got hurt, the playoffs came, and Ime Udoka didn’t trust Capela to get on the floor anyway. If nothing else, it was a realistic facsimile of how insurance typically actually does shake out.
As such, Capela will have minimal trade value. Still, the Rockets should be able to fetch someone with his modest contract and some second-round draft capital.
Leading candidates include Tre Mann (who, as an aside, always makes me think of a superhero whose superpower is cashing treys), D”Angelo Russell, Cam Spencer, and Bradley Beal.
Decidedly unsexy names. Still, each would bolster the Rockets’ ball-handling and floor spacing without stepping too firmly on the toes of Reed Sheppard and Amen Thompson with a returning Fred VanVleet in the fold. Flipping Capela for a guard would balance the roster:
But we still need that Adams insurance.
2. Sign Andre Drummond
Not a player like Andre Drummond. Not a player with a comparable skillset:
Very specifically, Andre Drummond.
Drummond’s development as a floor spacer has quietly been a watershed moment in the development of the center position. This was one of those guys who was just never going to shoot the three-ball.
How about 35.6% on 1.4 attempts per game? Nobody is mistaking Drummond for the omnipresent Myles Turner, but those are solid apples. He’s a floor spacer now.
He also remains one of the single best rebounders in the history of the NBA. He didn’t play enough minutes to qualify for leader boards, but his 17.5% Offensive Rebounding Percentage would have ranked second in the league, his his 29.8 Defensive Rebounding % fourth, and his overall Rebounding Percentage first in the entire league.
On a related note: Ime Udoka.
If you hadn’t heard, he likes rebounding. Moreover, Drummond’s newfound floor spacing ability should make him a more viable dual big pairing with Sengun. The Rockets need to trade Capela, and then, they need to sign Drummond in free agency to replace him.
It’s the least they can do.
