I prefer a former player who can talk to current players. Help get rid of the perceived toxic Rockets culture and also make it easier to sign players instead of having lawyers and owners shoulder that responsibility. I wouldn't mind Shane Battier coming back but in a FO role like he did with the Heat.
This is what's scary to me. If not for some lottery ball luck, WE WOULD BE DETROIT. If we got that 1st pick, we would've taken Cade. If we got that 5th pick, we'd have Ivey. If we had 5th pick last year, we probably get Ausar. We would literally make all the same moves. You might say well at least Stone wouldn't hire a bad coach like Monty Williams. Well, you'd be wrong. His first move was Stephen Silas. You all don't realize how close we are to being Detroit because we have all these shiny objects in JG, Sengun, Cam, Amen, Jabari. Those shiny objects+Hou as a destination city+ a fat salary got us Ime. There was no skill in that. I was posting on here for us to hire Ime once he left Boston- does that mean I should be GM? No because that's obvious and easy. At some point those guys need to be paid and then the job gets WAY harder. Aside from drafting top 4 talent, Stone has shown NOTHING to prove that he is even an average GM in this league.
but that’s bullshit because he was extended well before it was clear we’d get to 41 wins. Such bullshit.
Well no **** Sherlock if you look at all these moves in isolation they are gonna look simple and easy. Putting them all together as interconnected pieces is what is hard. The fact that you say hiring Silas was a bad move but then take the top 4 picks we have for granted shows you don't really understand the connection between those two. And btw no way Rox would pick 5th because Stone ensured that wouldn't happen. Is drafting Sengun, Cam and Tari nothing? Those aren't top 4 picks. What about selecting Tate and Kmart Jr from the trash heap? Signing vets FVV, Brooks, Green, Landale? Trading for Adams? Even hiring Udoka? Harden trade remember that? Rox about to get a lotto pick this draft even without their draft pick and you think that's nothing? Anybody who says Stone hasn't done anything to prove himself just doesn't have a clue.
Yeah because getting to 41 when you already have 36 with Dozen games to go is such a large jump in logic lol wtf. The team only won 22 games the previous year when they broke past 33 or had a 50% increase from the previous year with so many more games left I'm sure Fertits already got the extension ready.
I think that at the end of the day, Stone and Witus have absolutely earned extensions, based on how their moves to accumulate top-level talent have gone so far. But we should acknowledge that sheer luck has played a significant role in getting these extensions too, like it does for nearly every early career GM. Off the top, there's a 48% chance that the Rockets don't even have Jalen Green on this team, if they didn't win the lottery and trigger top-4 protection on their 2021 pick. No matter what you think about the future of Jalen Green as a player, the Rockets' future looks far less appealing if he didn't break out post-ASB this year. The Rockets despite being the worst team in the NBA in 21-22, still had a 48% chance of picking 5th in 2022. I'm probably lower on Jabari than most, but I'd much rather have him as a prospect than Jaden Ivey based on how they are both trending after two years. That's a ~25% chance that instead of Jalen Green and Jabari Smith, we have Tre Mann and Jaden Ivey, we have a massive logjam in the backcourt, we have Detroit's problem of figuring out if you can play two non-shooters in Ivey/Thompson together, and the Rockets are clenching their butts during this year's draft lottery that they're not sending yet another top-5/top-10 pick to the Thunder. The planned 3-year rebuild was much closer to utter disaster than we want to admit; it probably breaks down as such: 25% - Wemby 50% - Everything Else 25% - 5th pick 2021, 5th pick 2022, Not Wemby 2023. I think that the Rockets are likely somewhere in the middle of that 50% Everything Else band; slightly better ping-pong luck and you get the Magic, much better luck and talent ID and you get the Thunder, slightly worse luck and you get the Blazers, much worse luck and you get the Wizards.
If he was he could have pirated Whitus when he first took the job. He's been in Philly for 5 yrs now lol.
Yes luck def plays a large part in rebuilds that's why owners don't like to rebuild. But at least Stone and Whitus did well on what could be controlled that's why they deserve that extension.
Your logic makes no sense. If you make 5 easy decisions, you make 5 easy decisions. You want to give him credit for what exactly? Managing those afterwards? What makes you think he has done a good job of that? And are you insinuating that Silas was hired in order to tank and get good picks? He was hired while Harden and RWB were on the team with the intent to contend. He was abysmal as a coach. Oh- and dont forget that it was Stone who insisted on prioritizing KPJ to the detriment of Jalen and Alpi's development. And your point about Stone ensuring we wouldn't draft 5th just shows how little you know. The worst team in the league has 50% odds at the 5th pick. Us drafting 2,3,4 is extremely good luck. Literally less than 1% if you look at the draft odds and do the math. Lets go down your list of "wins". -drafting Sengun (great move, will give SOME credit to him and more credit to Witus who pounded table for Alpi). However, he was a top 10 projected pick in every mock and slipped to mid round. Drafting the highly rated guy who is falling is an easy decision when you're looking to acquire talent. -Cam and Tari- these were consensus moves that 95% of the people on this forum would make. We had polls pre draft and everyone wanted Tari if he fell. Cam falling was PURE luck. No credit at all for that pick. Wtf else was he going to do? -Tate and Kmart Jr from the trash heap- uh I guess some credit but how much are you clamoring for? We let KJM go for peanuts and whats Tates value realistically? -Signing vets FVV, Brooks, Green, Landale. The first two do not come here without Ime. Green fine I will accept this as a good signing. Landale is only here because Stone completely screwed up paying for Garuba to leave us and we had no big. And this was a complete failure for most of the season. He will likely be cut or traded so yeah no credit for him -Trading for Adams? not impressive. -Even hiring Udoka? Again, not a hard thing to do. I was posting on here that we should get Ime from the moment he was free -Harden trade- Again not hard to do. He only had two options and the other was Ben Simmons focused when we were entering a tank He messed up the Silas hiring, Jarret Allen trade, the Theis signing, the Oladipo extension, the KPJ prioritization over JG and Alpi, the development of Garuba/TyTy and then paying for them to go away. We are rewarding someone for doing what 90%+ of fans on this forum could do. Why would we care? Morey was a wizard that could do things none of us could. He turned Rafer Alston into young Kyle Lowry in one of his first years as GM. He drafted late round picks about as well as any GM in the league. Simply put, Stone has not shown ANY ability to turn assets into more valuable assets. This has been easy to overlook when we sucked but when we start to win, this weakness will become more glaring. Love the Witus extension though.
The Morey infatuation is bonkers. Dude bailed on this franchise. **** him. He has yet to find success and I'd bet Stone and this core will reach the promised land before Morey ever does.
People really underestimate how desirable of a city Houston is to live. Especially for a young black man the only comparable city is LA. Detroit/Charlotte don't sniff the free agents Houston does. Neither does NY frankly.
So is Tilman willing to pay all-star money? If they all become all-stars like he says he will definitely faint.
