THE ELITE EIGHT
Morey believes this rotation can compete with anyone
“I’ll put that group up against anyone in the league.” — Rockets general manager Daryl Morey
The deal for Chris Paul was complete when the Rockets happily plotted their first freeagency moves with the pursuit of Paul out of the way early. General manager Daryl Morey gathered the opinions of coach Mike D’Antoni and his two stars, James Harden and Paul, already knowing what they would say. They described P.J. Tucker. They might not have been that specific, though Tucker said on Thursday after he had signed his four-year, $34 million contract with the Rockets that Harden had told him after the season: “You’re coming to Houston.” But they each described the general qualities they wanted. The Rockets believe they got it. “Just what this team needs,” Morey said. “We were able to talk with (Paul) and James and coach D’Antoni and say what do we really need for this team. Unanimous (opinion) was we need toughness, we need defense. P.J. brings that in spades.
“We’re trying to get our defense into the top 10. Obviously,
our offense was historic. Getting Nene back, getting P.J. are two huge steps in that direction.”
He went one step further.
With the addition of Tucker and the re-signing of Nene on Thursday, the Rockets have an eight-man rotation Morey said can compete with any.
“We really like our eight we have right now,” Morey said. “Coach doesn’t play much more than that, anyway. We really feel like we have a group we can go to war with right now. If something comes along, my job is I have to look at it. Our rotation … I’ll put that group up against anyone in the league.”
With that in mind, he signed Tucker and Zhou Qi with his mid-level exception, making the Rockets hard-capped if salaries reach $125 million. The Rockets still have their biannual exception, worth $3.4 million, but Morey said this week he intends to hold that rather than continue this month’s freeagent spending. The next additions would be with minimum contracts, with players unlikely to rush to sign on for minimum contracts and limited minutes in a rotation Morey believed would be tough to crack.
He can consider eight enough because Tucker offers the defensive versatility in the frontcourt that has gone from fashionable to a necessity to counter the way NBA offenses have evolved.
With so many teams using range-shooting power forwards, players must often defend from the post to the perimeter. That need has taken the 6-5 Tucker from being labeled “a tweener” to coveted.
“That’s like gold now,” Tucker said. “You can be a tweener and guard different positions. If you watch Golden State, they just switch everything. When you can switch on multiple positions, it kills a lot of offense and makes it tough. It’s always funny to hear that term.”
More than emulate the Warriors, at least some motivation for the move is to improve the Rockets’ chances against the NBA champions and their ability to cause matchup nightmares with small lineups.
“One of the great things about his ability is his ability to guard multiple positions, probably one of the very few ways to guard Golden State is to have different guys who can switch on to different guys,” Morey said. “P.J.’s ability to do that was a huge priority to us.
“Defenses are a little bit catching up to a lot of the offensive evolutions the last few years. Players like P.J. are a lot more (valuable), in their ability to guard teams that have threats all over the floor, multiple ballhandlers. Someone with his skill set is almost required. His ability to guard threes, fours, multiple spots. He can guard out in space and guard in the interior. That skill set is hard to find.”
Morey would not say that Tucker joining forces with Harden and Paul, Tucker’s childhood friend who helped lead the recruiting efforts, had erased the gap with the league’s Golden State standard. But he believed the Rockets made strides in that direction.
“They’re one of the best teams ever,” Morey said. “We obviously felt we needed to close the gap. We felt we have closed the gap. They’re the ones with two rings in the last three years. You have to say they’re going to be the favorites going in. We feel like this is a group that can compete with them.”
Tucker went a step further.
He did not predict a championship, but just as the Rockets believed he brings what they require, he needed to be with a team he considers a contender.
“Free agency, a lot of times, a lot of people chase money, chase situations,” Tucker said. “To get in a great situation where you feel like you can really compete for a championship, that’s everything.
“For me, I want to go to a team where I know people are going to try to win every single game and try to reach the pinnacle and win a championship.”
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