2019-20 Finish: 35-47

Season Highlight:

This one has to be the arrival of Nikola Jokic! This guy is such a great representation of how GM Vitticus sees as �the right way to play basketball� and having this guy as his leader, I�m sure puts a smile into his face every time he looks at that roster. Jokic is probably the best fit of a superstar and GM out of any team in the NSL. Jokic is probably not done developing too, which is crazy.

Season Lowlight:

The on-court performance of this team was sub-par. At one point, he was actually a possible playoff team, but things never evolved to a point where they won games consistently. The team�s perceived lack of a clear-cut #2 has been appointed by pundits as the main reason for the teams performance last season.

Best Trade:

The Houston Rockets send Karl-Anthony Towns to the San Antonio Spurs. The San Antonio Spurs send Nikola Jokic to the Houston Rockets.

The Houston Rockets trade -15 GM points.The San Antonio Spurs receive 15 GM points.

This one is a bit controversial, and got a lot of people talking around the league saying that KAT was so much better than Jokic in 2k, or in real life even, and I agree with that assessment on the 2k part of the deal more so, by the way. As a counterpoint to that, Vittcus accomplished exactly what he wanted out of that deal and change the way he plays while bringing that magic aspect he brings to game to the NSL world. For that alone and because Jokic will be great for them for a while, this takes the best trade.

Worst Trade:

There aren�t really any to say anything bad, because Vitt doesn�t really trade much, but the ones he did weren�t really bad.

Other Notable Trades:

The Houston Rockets send Georges Niang and Jevon Carter to the San Antonio Spurs. The San Antonio Spurs send Juan Hernangomez to the Houston Rockets.

The Houston Rockets send a 2nd-Rounder (Mem) to the San Antonio Spurs
The Houston Rockets trade -4 GM points.The San Antonio Spurs receive 4 GM points.

Smaller pieces going both ways and Juancho looked like he was kind of a bust early, but the guy had a resurgence in his career, now he�s set to start for the Wolves in NBA. On the Spurs side, Jevon is a guy I like, but nobody stays on the Spurs for long.

The Phoenix Suns send a 2nd-Rounder (Mem) and 2nd-Rounder (Utah) to the Houston Rockets.
The Houston Rockets trade -24 GM points.The Phoenix Suns receive 24 GM points.

Seems like a good deal right now, but we just finished draft time, so when it�s all said and done, this will be fair value for the picks.

The Houston Rockets send Rayjon Tucker to the San Antonio Spurs.

Again, small potatoes, very little impact, but Vitt just doesn�t pull the trigger on a lot of deals, so here we are.

Free Agency:

Davis Bertans � UFA, a breakout year for Bertans, and he got his money in the NBA for sure! Has told the franchise he wants to stay and it�s mutual so we�re expecting a good defense to make him stay.

Jerami Grant � UFA, also a S&T guy, probably lucked out here to try at least to get some value from him, because he was a goner, but then not so much. I�d say Vitt is happy enough.

Juan Hernangomez � RFA, has told everyone he�s staying for good, both parties want this to happen, at age 25, Juancho might be playing the best ball of his career.

Jontay Porter � RFA, Houston is extremely high on this guy, and this is probably the first time in years he�ll start the season healthy enough so exciting times.

DaQuan Jeffries � RFA, has also told his family he�s staying, barring any catastrophe, he should be staying, and the GM thinks he has good role playing potential.

Star:

Nikola Jokic

This one is a no-doubter, and it�s not even close. This guy has the full keys to the franchise, to any door he wants to. Vitt made sure to get his guy and he is a superstar. He delivers and is one of the most exciting players in the NBA because he�s so smart. How long he will stay happy without a true star running mate in undecided still.

Goat:

Otto Porter

Another no-doubter, I mean, that�s 28 mil sitting on the IR and never really amounting to any resemblance of return on investment. Otto is a trade candidate in the NBA and in the NSL and he needs a comeback season badly on both sides of the basketball multiverse.

Draft Grades:

GM Vitticus is his own man, and is not one to be afraid of risk on draft day, so anytime you have Houston coming up, draft experts and teams waiting for guys to fall clinch because they know he has a different perspective on draft night.
They started the night with Tyrese Maxey, his guy all along and the first real �reach� in the draft, but the GM did not care. Maxey is athletic for days with 2-way and potential to be something more, a great finisher and attacker of the basket. He needs to improve shooting, but I believe it�s doable based on his form.
Then, in the second round, the Rockets took Mason Jones, yet another BIG reach, this time because Jones was actually undrafted, but again this GM does not care because if he sees value he will take it, however his perception of value is far from the consensus, but there is precedent because he did the same exact thing last year with a high 2^nd rounder to select Jontay Porter.
I�m giving it a B+ because I like Maxey a lot, but I believe the 2^nd rounder could�ve been traded back and still gotten his guy.

The Future:

The future is puzzling to me, mainly because this team seems to be lacking a direction in terms creating a contender and taking advantage of that possibly generational talent in the Joker. This team needs a second star to become more than an also-ran. There are a lot of players that play good basketball and are great from the analytics perspective, and you can see that GM Vitticus enjoys having players that play the game the right way, kinda sorta what the Spurs have done in the NBA. They have their version of Tim Duncan, where�s Tony and Manu then?

C: Nikola Jokic / Jontay Porter / Alen Smailagic
PF: Davis Bertans / Juancho Hernangomez
SF: Otto Porter / Royce O�Neale
SG: Josh Richardson / Thomas Satoransky / Talen Horton-Tucker / DaQuan Jeffries
PG: Delon Wright / Jalen Brunson/ Tyrese Maxey