Wall
Wood
Tate
Nwaba
Brown
Rookies
That’s who the Rockets should be focused on. Everybody else, do what you have to do
I think Nwaba and Brown are replaceable, but I like them being cheap role options going forward if we can keep them. Also adding Kevin Porter Jr.
Tucker, McLemore, Oladipo should all be gone by the trade deadline. Gordon is the only questionable piece. He has value and is under contract at a reasonable rate for his production and defense. I wouldn't mind keeping him or trading him tbh.
If I did the numbers right, you could theoretically create two max-salary slots (60-70M total, so it depends on who the guys are) to pair with Wood/Wall. I've mentioned this before, but I think we need to swing for the fences the next 2 years while Wood only makes 13M. once his salary jumps after this contract, it'll be hard to add talent around him. the problem is that there aren't great upcoming FAs, so we need to find some disgruntled stars or teams looking to sell.
Beal looks content in Washington but I think the formula stays the same. Find a team with youngish players that wants Oladipo, send the young players to a third team, third team sends us the player we want. For example, Dipo to Miami, Herro/Nunn/Olynyk + picks from Houston to Chicago, Lavine/Markannen to Houston. That would be the general framework imo. Other "bigger names" I'd love to see us chase would be Nikola Vucevic or Karl Anthony Towns. Alternatively, you add one max-slot salary and have Wall/Wood/3rd star, and divy up the rest of up the cap on above average players in the 10-13M range.
It's ugly now but the rockets actually have multiple options to diversify the roster now with no expectations to win + the influx of draft picks from brooklyn.
