[Poll] Do you think the Rockets should tank or try to win?

Play the young guys and let the chips fall where they may.

Rest your vets with a couple of weeks left to go in the season if not in playoff picture.

 

What do I want? Play to win.

Finished last two years in a row and didn't come away with number 1 pick. 3rd time is the charm
is for losers.

Top 10 pick still improves this team for what the Rockets need.

Plus Wembayama stats were not amazing this past season.....end of the world is here and all that stuff. No time for 5 year plans. Get it going

 

This part, not surprisingly, is very underrated. Hardworking and unselfish. So far, these are the guys who seem to have great attitude: Green, Sengun, Smith, and Eason. I hope this core will bring and maintain a good winning culture for the team going forward.

 

Green looks like he is going to be a star in the making. Sengun looks like he could be the solid 15 or 20/10 guy, eventually. If Eason and Jabari look promising in the upcoming season then honestly I feel there is no reason to dilute the team with too much potential and would rather focus on developing this core and fill the necessities to complement it. Not to mention we still have KMJ, Tate, KPJ, and Chris who are developing.

 

I feel pretty confident that KPJ, Green, Jabari, Eason, Sengun, Christopher and Tyty are, or are being seen as, rotation pieces. That really leaves only a spot or 2 for additional rookies or free agents. Obviously 1 or more of those guys might regress/bust or be traded for an upgrade but, regardless, I think this is the seasoning year. Get these guys as much run as possible and let the cream rise to the top. Identify those that don't fit and move them.

 

Rebuilding isn't tanking. Tanking is giving up. You can try to get wins and rebuild at the same time.

The Rockets are rebuilding and their less experience means they will mosr likely win in the 25-30 win range i think. But the losing margins will be smaller.

Tanking is just a made up saying the media came up with for teams at the bottom. Not everyone can be up the top

 

This. Well said by Clutch. Trying to win and inevitably still losing enough games to end up with a decent draft pick is the likely route here. Going out and adding a bunch of veterans doesn't make any sense at the moment, but I'm not sure how you truly "tank" with this team either. Typically tanking means sitting your veterans and letting the young guys take over, but this team is almost entirely young guys.

Trading Gordon before the season's end feels like a no-brainer, and maybe as you get closer to the end of the season, giving Green, Smith and Sengun some extra rest days to guarantee a few more losses couldn't hurt. But other than that, I think they're at a point where you want to see a little improvement. This team is not going to win 40+ games this year, but not finishing with the worst record in the league and winning more games than last year would be a good start. You can do that while still getting a good draft pick next year and adding another asset to your young core.

 

We're going to suck even if we try to win so I think we're golden. But let's say we pull a Cleveland and surprise people this year. The "worst" case scenario for our draft pick is that we're competitive and get into the play in. I can't imagine us possibly doing better than that. We'd still get a mid 1st round pick. That's hardly a terrible scenario and likely means that one or more of our youngsters took a major leap.

Plus we have the unlikely possibility of Brooklyn being terrible and swapping picks with them. So being competitive doesn't completely eliminate us from the Wembayama sweepstakes.

 

Not sure if this is what Clutch is getting at, but if the Rockets tank, it will be when Green is off the floor.

 

If Gordon is traded, we are going to be bad again imo with everyone basically under 21

 

We'll lose our games by naturally being extremely young and high mistake prone. We'll lose winnable games and people will call it tanking. Our rookies and sophomores will go through slumps and Clutchfans will call them busts. We aren't good enough to discuss anything less than maybe a #5-#8 pick, but, when we look back at history, will we remember the 4 or 5 games we won to knock us out of the Wemby and Scoot sweepstakes?

Fellas...Pop doesn't tank. If he's blowing it up for a chance at Wemby after the Duncan history, you better believe Wemby added to the guys we've already drafted could be a dynasty in the making and not just a good team that could fight to win 1 championship in the next 10-15 years. I don't want to be a 1 hit wonder easily forgotten.

 

Best outcome would be a BKN (pre KD/Kyrie signing) type season...35-40 wins...Productive season from the young role players equates to possible trade for Allstar in their prime.. sign vet specialist to round out bench.. keep this year's draft pick to get energetic big or best shooter to develop..

 

…..another poorly coached 20 win season. Doesn’t have to be but replacing Wood with Smith is basically 5 less wins at this juncture of Smith’s career. Rockets management has already said this is not the year, so tough times for fans like myself who are competitive and enjoy winning.

 

Do you REALLY get that much more joy watching a 32-50 season compared to a 22-60 season? The real goal is to build something sustainable where 3-4 years down the line, you have a chance to be a consistent 55-60 win team. The worse our pick this coming season, the less likely we are to build that sustainable contender (obviously). You really would lower those odds just for a few extra meaningless wins? That kind of thinking just baffles me

 

5 less wins because we lost Wood is laughable. People look at his 20/9 number and think we won’t replace it, but statistics show we were better offensively without him on the court and we are going to be a hell of lot better defensively and will have an incredible transition game.

 

Yes, because the progression would show that the team is heading in the right direction and that they picked the right caliber of players.

If the team stays terrible, it means there's structural problems and maybe the players picked don't have the talent we thought they did.

 

It doesn't mean that at all. We have seven players under the age of 21. It is difficult for a team that young to compete, even if a future superstar has been drafted. Seattle won 31 games the season before they drafted KD and traded Ray Allen for Jeff Green. They won 20 and 23 games over the next two seasons despite drafting Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka. They had sucked for four years straight at that point. Then they drafted Harden and two years later they were in the finals.

Teams can rarely rebuild in two seasons. Last years selections are still technically rookies. Saying they don't have the talent if they don't make us competitive in their sophomore seasons is premature.

 

Teams rarely pick up this much high caliber talent this quickly.