I Agree that they’re turning the ball over too much and shooting poorly from the line. I don’t get the YMCA analogy. They’re not pros and they aren’t a real team. And there thousands of players at the Y most of whom suck. Anyway I think the turnovers are part of the learning process. And KPJ may not be the answer at the point. There’s a lot of new faces which means it will take time to gel. Reminder those suns with Ayton Booker and Bridges first year together went 19-63. One thing I am concerned with is how many easy baskets the Rockets give up per game and how many bad possessions they have per game in not running their half court set but rushing and missing resulting in points the other way.
You have the right to do whatever you want to do. This is not my argument this you’re missing the point. The point is this team is young and a brand new team from last year. It has parts put together through management and likely Silas’ input. It’s cut off odd pieces like cousins, PJ, wall, Oladipo. The team has a fresh start in this post harden era. There’s a lot of kinks to work out. There’s a lot of heartache and hard lessons. I really don’t understand what you are expecting when no NBA team has magically been great overnight. Patience. Stop the criticism. they’re growing they’re competing. And you’re assuming a lot of how these other teams see us. What is this based from? Your own opinion or fact?
The better question is why you or anyone feels the need to defend a team in dead last and may have likely busted on the #2 draft choice it was very fortunate to get?
Not about defending anything as you are missing the point. And it’s not a contest so no need to even say things like “the better question.” I simply stated my opinion about some of the fans such as yourself who would rush to conclusion with impatience, unnecessarily harsh criticism, and judgement rather than relaxing and enjoying the Growth of this young fun team we are blessed with. You either choose to be negative or positive. Thanks for responding to my post.
They added 4 rookies to a what equates to a 19.5 win team last year .... and told their "star player" to go kick rocks in John Wall. I really don't know why people are mad .... We expected this and it leads to a positive outcome , assuming they don't whiff on the draft pick. You prefer Chet over Paolo ?
First of all , I'm not arguing with you here - I'm just pointing out the numbers aren't as historic as you might think - it just feels that way. For the record , they aren't even in the top 100 for worst FT shooting teams in history. There have been dozens of teams who shot in the mid to high 60's. They aren't even last currently - they are three tenths of a percent better than the Spurs right now. Rockets 70.3 Spurs 70.0. The Worst team FT% in history - 0.635 - the 67-68 76ers. Yes , they lead the league in turnovers per game this year but they are far from being the worst ever - that belongs to the 76-77 Denver Nuggets - the only team in history to commit more than 2000 turnovers (24.52 per game) but back then the league average pace was ~110. Quite a few teams have averaged more than 20 per game in recent years. LeBron James is the career leader in turnovers .... 4613. I had to throw that in there - I hate that guy. The other thing you have to take in context here is pace - the Rockets lead the league in pace and NO team has finished the season with a higher pace than the Rockets current 103.1 since the 92/93 Warriors 103.4. You have to admit , that's a significant figure , increased # possessions is going to lead to an increased # turnovers and their pace is in fact historic. Are they a poor FT shooting team ? Absolutely. Do they turn the ball over far too much ? Absolutely. But they aren't "historically bad" in either aspect - It just feels that way .... and it could be worse!
The fuse got wet .... They might struggle to reach last years win total of 17 when they only played 72 games and a .236 wining percentage. 17 games in an 82 game season is .207. Right now they are .100 , on pace to win 8.2 games. That's on pace to beat the 72-73 76ers record of 9 wins in a season (Charlotte had only 7 but they only played 66 games (.106) in 2011-12) The 6ers own the two worst records over an 82 game season in history winning only 10 games in 2015-16. The Mavericks have two of the ten worst seasons in history - I hate the Mavs and will take every opportunity to kick them. The Rockets 82-83 season is 9th worst ever.
I think we have a “historic pace” because the ball rolls off our feet a lot and also we have no idea what we’re doing on offense and just jacking up any shot we see.
On the court, it looks like the Rockets are a lock for the worst or second worst record this season, which seems to be the plan of this organization. Hopefully it works out and they get the top pick. I do hope that they're putting as much effort into player development off the court, though. Maybe it's due to covid restrictions, or maybe it's because the season is young, but there seems to be no news about what the team is working on in practice or about how the front office has sent end-of-bench players to the G-League to work on their game. And I haven't heard of anyone brought in to help with a young player's game. (I don't count Gerald Green.) IIRC Yao had Dream and a few others showing him the ropes, while Jack Sikma did wonders for Capela's game that first season. I do wonder what this front office is doing for its rookies, outside of giving them a whole lot of minutes in losing games.
My problem is our method to rebuild not that we are rebuilding. Morey did it right, managed to keep us in the mix for almost the entire rebuild. He maintained a Rockets team that was competitive and watchable. This time we decided to literally start below zero. Matt Maloney, Two Sandwiches and Zan Tabac would probably be starters on this team. This rebuilding strategy does indeed require patience as for it to work we will need to emulate some of the worst teams in history literally for *years. As I've said before there is no guarantee you can escape a cycle like that.
With all due respect, Morey never had to tear down the entire roster and start from scratch like this. His "rebuilds" were more like reshuffles as Les would not let the team sink low enough to even entertain getting a top 5 pick. Stone inherited the two highest paid players on this roster from the previous regime and only one of them is tradeable at the moment. Basically Morey "did it right" because he didn't have the option to go through a proper rebuild.
This is where my concerns are as well--you have talented young players or, at the very least, players with high ceilings. What is the organization doing to help develop these players so that they can potentially reach said ceilings? That's why I've been harping on structure since the beginning of the season. A free flowing offense (or "Chaos offense") works when you have elite play making guards at your disposal and we currently don't have that. Silas' coaching philosophy works when he has a Luka or Harden at his disposal but not when you're rolling out a young and inexperience backcourt every night. Is there anyone mentoring Green on what to look for in an NBA game, what opportunities can he create for himself, what to look for if the defense collapses on him, etc? Aside from playing one on one with Wall, we haven't really heard or seen much of how this coaching staff and organization is going about their business in helping these young players along. Losing is the reality at the moment and the team has played hard and kept games close but how much of that is just getting hot at the right time and how much of that is by design?
Morey got Harden. Imagine how competitive we would be if our best player was Kevin Martin or Jeremy Lin.
I prefer saying "PLAY LIKE SHET FOR CHET!" over anything I can make rhyme with Paolo. I don't really have a preference. Paolo doesn't intrigue me much though. He looks polished but doesn't look like he has a very high ceiling. That said, Chet is about a year older than all the rest of these guys and I worry that's why he looks so good against them. Hopefully Stone will get it right. I probably wouldn't.
