Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Man Mocked by Two Women; Francisco Goya; 1819-23

Perhaps the most shocking move of NBA free agency this summer was Dillon Brooks signing a 4-year, $86 million deal with the Houston Rockets in the earliest hours of the official offseason. That Brooks ended up with the Rockets is not particularly surprising — the NBA’s newsbreakers telegraphed that move as it became clear James Harden was not opting out to sign with Houston. But the scale and speed with which the Rockets — a horrific basketball team over the past three seasons with historically bad vibes — locked up the beguiling Brooks to a huge contract was enough to put you back on your heels.

The Brooks contract was of a piece with a few other moves that help put everything into context.

• Hiring Ime Udoka as the head coach

• Fred VanVleet for two years, $83 million (plus a team option for $45 million in 2025-26)

• Jeff Green for one year, $16 million

• Jock Landale for one year, $8 million (plus three more unguaranteed seasons for the same salary)

• Trading out Josh Christopher (a 2021 first-round pick), TyTy Washington (a 2022 first-round pick) and K.J. Martin (a 22-year-old who is more productive than the other two guys mentioned in this bullet) as a part of the Brooks deal

You start with a team that has gone a league-worst 59-177 (.250) over the past three seasons. The top six players from last season in terms of total minutes played were all 22 or younger. The Rockets owe the Thunder their 2024 first-round pick, with it being top-4 protected. Owing a top-4 protected pick, you either need to guarantee you were one of the worst three teams in the NBA and pray for some luck, or you need to not be near the very bottom of the league.

So you hire a somewhat more experienced, hardass coach, one whose top achievement was turning a group of talented youths into a contender. (Boston’s talented youths were leaps and bounds better than what I think Houston’s talented youths current are.) You hire a lead point guard who is also a living grindset legend and, importantly, an Adult purported to offer up Good Vibes. You bring in Uncle Jeff. Everyone loves Uncle Jeff. First-ballot Vibes Hall-of-Famer. You add a center to trump Alperen Sengun or back up Alperen Sengun, depending on how the new hardass coach vibes with Alperen Sengun. You trade a couple of the kids that don’t look like clear NBA rotation players. You move on from Martin (who does look like a rotation player) before you have to pay him.

And you add … Dillon Brooks?

Here’s the case for Brooks:

Defense matters
Houston’s defensive rank the past three seasons (oldest to most recent): 27th, 29th, 29th. Brooks made second team All-Defense last season. There is some reason to believe Brooks is a little overrated on defense — his work is demonstrative and loud, so it gets more attention than better defenders who are more cerebral and smooth. But even if he is overrated, he’s still good on that end. He can guard three positions, and Houston desperately needs help defending at all three positions. Udoka, who was a cerebral three-and-D player in his day, will absolutely value Brooks’ best instincts on that end, and give him lots and lots of minutes to set the tone on that end.

Defensive improvement is attainable on the market
Related to this, the easiest path to massive improvement for a bottom-of-the-table team is to get better on defense. Acquiring high-level defenders is much easier than acquiring high-level offensive players. The Grizzlies were able to pry 2022 Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart from the Celtics. The Rockets were able to sign second-team All-Defender Brooks. Both have offensive limitations, and neither was exactly free or even cheap. But given the alternative — needing to acquire a high-end offensive player, no matter their limitations — it’s an easier path.

The Rockets had salary cap space to spend down. There were desperate few players on the market who could really rev up their offense, and of those candidates they’d already inked up VanVleet. (There is an active debate on FVV’s actual offensive impact. My position is that he is a floor-raiser at worst, and the Rockets’ floor was exceptionally low.) Brooks was one of the top candidates to fuel a defensive rise for Houston, and they got him.

Brooks’ usage rate isn’t that crazy
Brooks, a bad shooter, shoots less than you think. He kind of went wild there for a couple seasons, and had some memorable bad nights in recent high-profile playoff series. But he dropped his usage rate below 22% last season despite stretches without Ja Morant, and he consistently features very low turnover rates.

He probably steps in as the worst shooter in the Houston rotation, assuming some second-year growth for Jabari Smith Jr. But figuring that he’ll play lots of minutes with FVV and Jalen Green, and that Udoka will not be shy about MFing Brooks if he’s getting too trigger-happy, it should be okay. You’d prefer Brooks to have the conscience or self-awareness to shoot even less than he does, but if that were the case he’d be more in demand, and perhaps Houston couldn’t have signed him.

The one red flag here is that JSJ needs to get lots of reps on offense, and you want rookie Amen Thompson to have the ball a lot, and Brooks will detract from that compared to a less shot-happy wing. But overall there should be enough ball to go around. Brooks isn’t prime Westbrook or Harden in terms of usage.

The contract doesn’t matter … for now
Brooks’ massive contract doesn’t really matter until 2025-26. This year and next, no one expects the Rockets to compete at the highest levels. They just need to not be completing embarrassing.

Green’s second contract kicks in for the 2025-26 season. He can ink an extension as early as next July. An extension for Smith would theoretically kick in for the 2026-27 season, the final year on Brooks’ deal. Kevin Porter Jr., the player who actually stands to lose the most relevance from FVV and Brooks’ arrival, is non-guaranteed beyond the 2023-24 season. The Rockets will be able to make a decision on VanVleet’s 2025-26 contract in that preceding summer (unless they extend him a year from now, should things go well).

Concern about downside risk deep into the future is what keeps NBA front office executives and fans up at night. Concerns about process — for example, who the hell were the Rockets bidding against?! and did they have to lose three young prospects in the machinations?!!! — make fans and analysts itch. But every decision comes at a cost. The Rockets are betting that adding Brooks will help raise the floor of this team in the immediate term. The cost is the risk in the longer term. The upside (such as it is, and I understand why many people are skeptical there is any upside here) requires the downside.

For me, the cost is still way too high here, given everything. I don’t understand raffling off K.J. Martin as a part of the grand contraption instead of finding a separate deal for him. I think adding VanVleet, Udoka, Uncle Jeff and Thompson (not to mention Cam Whitmore), plus another year of seasoning for Green and Smith, would have given the Rockets a boost out of the cellar. I think that cap space spent on Brooks could have been useful in the trade market given that some team that expects to be good will actually be bad and need to cut salary. I’m a little worried about an emboldened Dillon Brooks on a team without a true superstar.

I would not be making this bet on Brooks. But I see the logic in it, and for the sake of Rockets fans that have been put through pure misery for three seasons, I hope it works out.

Links

On Tuesday morning I tried and struggled and failed to write a piece on the New York Times’ announcement that it would shutter its sports desk, replace it with content from Times-owned The Athletic in print and digital, and re-assign sportswriters to other departments. The hint of the thread in my brain is that this is the latest in a long series of planks walked by sports journalists, put to the sword by (broadly speaking) Corporate Management, trading prestigious unionized careers for much more precarious VC-funded gigs. (The Times is unionized. The Athletic is not. And the New York Times Co. has not promised to retain all the jobs at The Athletic. In fact, 20 staffers were laid off recently.) And the hint of the thread in my head is that this series of planks goes back first to the nationalization of sports coverage first via cable television (i.e. ESPN) and then by the internet, and the explosion of online sportswriting circa the 2000s (one I was a part of) that was supposed to be the democratization of the industry was actually another pod of sharks waiting to feast on the careers of the sports journalism lifers. And as I thought about all this (not for the first time) Tuesday morning, I felt sick to my stomach and I stopped writing for a minute. Anyway, here’s the incredibly clear-eyed Ray Ratto — who I read in an actual newspaper in the Bay Area as a younger person — on the situation at the excellent Defector.

Big Zach Lowe piece on the genesis of the Damian Lillard-Blazers break-up for ESPN+.

The NBA will penalize flops with technical fouls and give the oft-requested-but-not-really-needed second coach’s challenge (only when the first challenge is successful) this season.

Marc Stein says that energy around a potential Pascal Siakam trade is percolating, with the Pacers and Hawks considered the teams with the most known interest. I’m deeply intrigued in how Siakam’s career evolves from here! Sportsnet’s Michael Grange is also reporting some discord between Siakam and the Raptors, potentially over an extension offer (or the lack thereof).

Blazers GM Joe Cronin says that the team will not rush its Damian Lillard trade, and also laments the fact that there is a 1-team market for Dame right now.

David Falk, legendary agent to MJ and Ewing, complains to Howard Beck about how boring free agency has become and how the individual max salary has ruined a lot of things. I wrote at length about the lasting impact of the individual max last summer. In many ways the league has been trying to unwind the unintended consequences of that rule change without even considering eliminating the individual max since it was put in place 25 years ago.

Dan Devine on five guys who proved they are too good for Summer League.

Kyrie Irving inks a deal with Chinese sneaker brand ANTA. I will not be researching how the pro-Kyrie right is responding to this news, because I don’t care.

Four-year early rookie extension for Isaiah Stewart in Detroit at $64 million. If Beef Stew remains a rotation player, there’s not much risk here at $16 million in average annual value. That said, Jared Dubin makes some good points about Detroit’s odd dart-throwing with big men prospects.

Adam Silver says the NBA will consider expansion after the media rights deal.

Marc Spears with a profile of Wemby’s agent Bouna Ndiaye.

Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic on Anthony Edwards’ reflections after getting the max.

Jackson Frank on how Jaren Jackson Jr. can take the next step.

It sounds like there’s progress on a Jaylen Brown extension.

That’s all for now. Be excellent to each other.