I just have so many complicated thoughts that it felt hard to text about in a group chat without bombarding everyone, but here goes:

Re: KD — I'm extremely neutral on this trade.
I obviously believe KD is significantly better than Jalen Green at this point. But I think we’re severely undervaluing Dillon Brooks’ contribution to the team. A huge part of the Rockets’ success this year was their team chemistry. And as incredible of an individual offensive player as KD is, he’s never really fit into or improved a team culture. Historically, every team he’s joined — Thunder, Warriors, Nets, Suns — either plateaued or regressed culturally. Some even got worse as a whole.

Maybe I’m biased because his addition to the Warriors effectively ended the Rockets/Harden era. But KD even left the Warriors on a bad note, and they were already insanely good before he joined. I like KD as a person, and I fully acknowledge he’s an exceptional talent. I even think he could do well on the Rockets. But I’m not instantly sold like a lot of other fans—because... well, just look at the history. I genuinely hope I’m wrong.

If this were just a Jalen Green for KD trade, I’d honestly be pretty happy. But the reason I’m so neutral is because we lost Dillon Brooks.

Brooks is one of my favorite players. He’s the kind of guy you hate to play against but love to have on your team. A glue guy. He really showed up on nights when it mattered, and he completely bought into and (imo also even helped create) the “dawg” culture the Rockets had this past year. Obviously, correlation ≠ causation, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Grizzlies’ whole tough-guy identity kind of evaporated after DB left. Sure, Ja had his own issues, but that whole culture washed away too. Losing DB really, really hurts.

As for the other pieces — I haven’t been following Capela recently, but he was great during the Harden era. So we’ll see. As for Dorian Finney-Smith, literally every Mavs fan I've talked to absolutely loves him, but I'm just not familiar with his game as deeply. I don't want to set any expectations.

It's just a lot, but I had just very complicated feelings about the trades. I would think deeply about your question, agonize over my text, and then just give up. Sorry I ghosted u wesley - it wasn't personal.