Curious Rockets Fan Coming In Peace to Check Y'alls Temperature Rn

As someone who watched the Rockets hold on to their beloved star Harden before eventually pulling the plug for the tank.. I'm feeling sympathetic to where y'all are at right now.

I'm wondering what direction yalls fan base wants the club to move in at this point? Obviously this was supposed to be the year it all came together.

The west is so damn stacked and y'all aren't any better, and they players seem frustrated, Ingram wants to get paid, Zion never really seemed like he wanted to be there in the first place...

If I was yall's GM I would do a few things:

1) Trade Zion Williamson ASAP: I would look to send Biggie back to Brooklyn and see if the Nets will swap you for Ben Simmons and Cam Thomas + Pick(s). With Simmons you can either cut his $40m salary off the books next year, or if you like some of his game you can bring him back to Louisiana where he went to college and sign him for a few million and have him in your lineup with some youngest and see if you can build his value while you tank a little. With Thomas, you're also bringing another LSU player who's young and can score the shit out of the ball.

2) Trade CJ McCullem: The Pistons are the only team with $10m+ in salary cap room right now and boy are they tired of losing. I would see you can send CJ to Detroit to provide veteran leadership and scoring to get DET into the play-in. Tim Hardaway and Malik Beasley expiring contracts + one pick should match value for a CJ trade. And again - saving big big money, moving off of Zion and CJ clears $70m in cap space and gets potentially 3-4 picks back.

3) Move on from Brandon Ingram: At this point I think you gotta sell it all. I could see where you hold onto Ingram and Murray and just take a gap year... but the west is so loaded why is that a good idea, the team is still going to miss the play in. So I think you gotta move on. It's unclear whether it makes more sense to trade him now, or wait till the offseason and drive up the value a little. But getting more picks in this draft would be ideal to add to Cam Thomas from the Zion deal. One trade idea that I think makes sense is to the Charlotte Hornets. LaMelo is coming on strong and CHA would love to invest in their young core and win some games soon. Miles Bridges and Grant Williams + pick(s) to send Ingram to Charlotte.

Summary:
You lose: Zion, Ingram, CJ...
You gain: Cam Thomas, Miles Bridges, Ben Simmons (exp), Tim Hardaway Jr. (exp), Grant Williams, Malik Beasley

** These moves net you ~$75M in cap room this offseason, potentially up to 6-7 total first round picks if CHA makes play for Ingram. All these players move East to help fortify the middle of the weaker Eastern Conference and align NOP with where they are, at the bottom of the lottery in a talented draft. You'll have 3-4 swings in this draft and 2-3 swings in the next one to land your next franchise player and forget about this Zion era fast-enough. **

Your Lineup Next Year:
Starters: Djounte Murray, Cam Thomas, Trey Murphy, Miles Bridges, Yves Missi
Bench: Jose Alvarado, Jordan Hawkins, Herb Jones, Grant Williams, (re-sign Simmons as backup C?)

EDIT:
4) Yalls fans need to petition the owner of the franchise to change the team name to something else other than 'Pelicans'. It's the worst name in professional sports. Players will never be excited to play for a team name like that, your team name should be something that inspires the team to win games.