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Rockets’ New GM: We’re Still ‘All In’ To Contend

November 8th 2020 at 9:55am CST by Arthur Hill

The Rockets have undergone a leadership change in the past month, hiring a new general manager and coach, but it hasn’t affected their commitment to being a title contender, GM Rafael Stone tells Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle. Stone, who had been executive vice president of basketball operations, was promoted when Daryl Morey parted ways with the organization last month. He said the team remains “all in” in its quest for a championship.

The makeup of Houston’s roster explains the commitment to trying to win right away. James Harden and Russell Westbrook are both 31 and can opt out after the 2021/22 season. Rotation members P.J. Tucker, Jeff Green and Eric Gordon are all over 30 as well.

“The good news is we have really, really good basketball players. I don’t view it as perilous. I view it as a unique opportunity,” Stone said. “I’m getting a talented roster that has already won; not to the level we want but won in a big way. It’s about being very smart to keep the good stuff and be additive. You don’t want to do anything rash. You want to see if there are changes that will help. You don’t want to ad hoc make changes here and there. It’s a really cool opportunity because we’re going to win basketball games. That’s a great place to start.”

Stone touched on several other topics in the interview with Feigen, including:

The decision to hire Stephen Silas as head coach:

“We have a lot of similarities, educationally, background; we’re basically the same age. Even though this is our first opportunity, him as a head coach, me as a GM, respectively, we’re not getting it early in our careers. … He emphasized he wanted to be collaborative. I emphasized I wanted to be collaborative. We’ve been extremely collaborative. That’s great. That’s naturally how I go about things and I think how he goes about things.”

How personnel decisions will be influenced by the luxury tax:

“There are perhaps benefits to avoid it, but we’re planning to be in it. We were planning to be in it two years ago and I think last year. A lot of this is just what happens circumstantially there. There was a deal we for sure would have done last year at the trade deadline that would have had us well, well over the tax line. A team called and we said ‘yes.’ They chose not to do it. It’s not the cash-based decision people think it is. It is more the framework for how you build your roster. That’s still where we are. We’re certainly planning to be in the luxury tax this year. If a great deal appears and we end up shedding salary, we’d do that deal and then probably try to re-spend the salary. There’s no pressure whatsoever to not be in, but real pressure to win.”

Plans for the mid-level exception (projected to be about $5.7MM for taxpaying teams):

“We think we can bring in guys that can be very helpful there. That’s a way of getting depth. And, is there a guy we think we can get at mid-level we think is really good value? If that’s the case, we’re just going to do it, period. It’s all about talent. If we think a guy is better than the market thinks he is, we’re going to want to go get that guy. Mid-level is the best tool we have. We’re just going to be aggressive to try to get talent. Last year, we used it for Danuel House. We didn’t use all of it in that situation. It’s largely based on the market.”

 Whether the Rockets, who don’t have any picks this year, will try to trade back into the draft:

“We certainly wouldn’t mind getting into the draft, particularly if somebody becomes available we think will help us win now. We’re still in the win-now more than the develop four or five years from now mode. There are guys in the draft I think can play right away. We’ve had teams tell us they would be open to (a trade). I think we probably can get draft picks if the right guy is there.”

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