Even in stealth mode, Morey remains vigilant
The satellite trucks that once rushed into place to herald the return of Jeremy Lin stayed in garages. The throngs celebrating the arrival of Dwight Howard stayed home. Even the shock and disappointment that marked the Rockets’ initial decision-making last summer was absent, replaced by lessons learned and playoff series won.
With the NBA moratorium lifted and teams free to complete the deals they spent the previous week putting in place, the Rockets made the quieter moves expected all along. Klieg lights were not necessary. After a run at LaMarcus Aldridge that ended as the season had — the Rockets finished third — the team turned to keeping some of its own free agents.
Point guard Pat Beverley signed his four-year, $23 million contract Thursday. Sixth man Corey Brewer will soon follow, signing a three-year, $23 million contract as early as Friday.
Though the Rockets arrive at this point differently from a year ago, when they surprisingly opted to let Chandler Parsons jump
to Dallas, they are in a similar situation, choosing to be patient and looking to be in position to make upgrades as available.
“We don’t have the perfect roster, or we would have won the championship,” general manager Daryl Morey said. “There are areas we can continue to improve, and we’ll work to address them.
“I don’t ever worry about having a great offseason. That’s never a goal. We’re worried about being a better team in April. We have the flexibility to add free agents. We have the flexibility to make trades if they’re available as well.”
The Rockets still hope they can sign Jason Terry and Josh Smith, but the next step is expected to be to match an offer sheet KJ McDaniels might sign and to position themselves for trades, an individual with knowledge of their plans said last week after Aldridge committed to sign with San Antonio.
Improving from within
Smith remains a long shot to return. The Rockets are over the salary cap and have their full midlevel exception of $5.464 million. But much of that is earmarked to match a McDaniels offer sheet and to sign second-round pick Montrezl Harrell.
Smith could accept a non-Bird tender offer of up to $2.49 million, but there is little reason for a player of his caliber to rush to take that, even with Detroit also still paying him.
Smith has received interest from “multiple teams, including contenders in each conference,” a person with knowledge of the talks said. Nothing is considered imminent. Another individual familiar with negotiations said there has been little recent dialogue with the Rockets, given their limitations.
The Rockets hope to add another playmaker at point guard or another position, but no deals are considered close. If anything, for all the attention placed on the start of signing Thursday, the Rockets were not close to a trade and were not rushing to add one of the unclaimed free agents, focusing instead on developing the young players already on the roster.
“We have a lot of places we can improve,” Morey said. “We have a lot of young players I think will be better this year. Nick Johnson. Clint Capela. Obviously, we have (draft picks Sam) Dekker and Montrezl Harrell. Terrence (Jones) and Donatas (Motiejunas) are going into their fourth year, and both had abbreviated seasons, so it is very reasonable to expect they’ll be continuing to improve at their age.”
Welcome back, Pat
Beverley might fall into the same category, having yet to play a full NBA season after signing in January 2013 as a free agent and then playing just 56 games in each of the past two seasons as he battled injuries.
“Pat’s a key part of the team,” Morey said. “If you go back to our team that made the Western Conference finals, who knows where we could have gotten with Pat? Obviously, we feel like we’re a much better team with Pat. We’re excited to have him back. That’s another area we can be better in the playoffs next year than this year, to have Pat and Donatas.”
That did not inspire July fireworks, but a year after Morey said he would look beyond summer signings and was rewarded, he is willing to keep a better team together and continue looking.