When are we going to start criticizing Rafael Stone?

I think that's an unfair comparison because the Clippers threw everything they could at OKC because Kawhi had told them "If you get George I'll sign on the dotted line."

So they were really trading all of that for both Paul George and Kawhi Leonard. Unfortunately, when we had to trade Harden there were no such scenarios to leverage.

 

The Harden trade was horrible in hindsight because of what Rudy Gobert went for

All these rebuilding teams we're going to be competing against in the near future in the West are all in a better position than we are.

 

Seriously, the best actual player at the time - the SGA - that was offered for Harden was... Ben Simmons.

 

Its funny people wanted to pretend the nets picks wouldnt be absolute DOG ****

 

Stone has made some mistakes such as trading away Jarrett Allen(all star player), not trading Gordon last year and not getting more veteran presence on this team.

 

100% it also didn't help that Harden came in looking like the MF'n Koolaide man and refused to join the team. Every team we attempted to trade Harden to basically saw damaged goods, knew he wanted out, and knew we had no bargaining chip.
This was all on Harden!

 

Rivers is right. How you gonna rebuild with No vets or the likes like Wood Boban and EG. Not one point guard in sight

 

You got this all wrong.


Stone didn't want to pay Allen $100m to lose 60 games and not have cap space the next two offseason - Allen blew that plan up. Getting a #1 pick for Allen was a great decision.

There was no "Good trade" for Eric Gordon. It was always going to come with a bad contract attached, which again screws up the cap space when you need it most - after this season.

I don't disagree that this team could use a veteran presence. BUT .... Stone paid a veteran point guard $45million to get lost. If they wanted a veteran presence, they had one. Clearly, they didn't want him.

It's fairly obvious that the plan all along was to be as bad as possible and earning another early lottery pick in a year where there are two prospects that can change the fortunes of a franchise.

Trust the process for another 42 games ..... no adding meaningless wins to give the Bears the #1 pick like that shitshow over at reliant.

Ride the storm out .... the sun will come up in the morning.

 

Would you rather have Jarrett Allen or Jabari and a chance at Wemby?
Let Stone finish assembling his team first before we make any decisions or any serious judgements. We'll see what we have a year from now and then start the major assesments.

 

Wagner is like the outlier in last year's draft. Who else is having an elevated season in the top 10?

 

I agree. These guys cant put 2 and 2 together even if it aint exactly rocket science.

Rox are only going into 3rd year as a bad team but people act like they've been had for 10 yrs. Worse they compare rox to teams like Spurs and Magic who have been tanking much longer and also picked several busts like Primo or Jinathan Isaac.

 

At the time - 2020/21, Ben Simmons was coming off a 3rd team all NBA season,, nearly won DPOY, 2x All Defense was about to make his 3rd all star team etc.

Brown hadn't even made 1 all star game at that point. Nor has Herro.

Not arguing that he's not better now, just saying back then Simmons was still at his peak, it was before the pass, the missed seasons, etc

 

This is an interesting way of saying we've been the worst team in the league for 3 years straight even though he started with one of the most valuable players in the entire league.

 

It's the worst 3 season stretch in franchise history, we don't control half of the next four drafts, and all of our hope is based on a 14% lottery chance given the current grim state of the roster.

On top of it all the Rockets are playing ugly, boring basketball.

Of course people would much rather be Orlando - they have an enteratainig team built around a franchise player in place that is already better.

 

Starting to Sour on Stone......

 

I don’t really have any criticisms for Stone because I don’t think I would do anything differently. He reset the team after the Harden trade, has collected a lot of picks, and collected a lot of talent. Coaching change needs to be made, but I don’t have a problem with the roster he has assembled. Again, this is the 2nd full Hardenless season. People expecting to win right now are stupid. Improvement would be nice but coaching is needed for that

 

If Silas and KPJ are not gone by the all-star break. Very latest moment to do it is the offseason, but it will be torture until then, and the ongoing damage to everyone else's development will be immense.

 

Reset the team? check

Lot of draft picks? check

Lot of talent? Undetermined. Sure doesn't seem like it so far, and certainly no superstar level talent which is realy all that matters for a rebuilding team

No Problem with Roster assemblage? No check - these pieces don't fit at all. Handing the keys to KPJ with no true point, guys who need to be hidden on defense like Sengun, No accountability, Profound lack of shooters, overvaluing Eric Gordon and having him and Garrison Matthews logjam up KMJ and Tate minutes - it's a big,big fail and the result is the worst team in the NBA for 3 whole years.

Nobody is expecting to win now, but signs of hope, upward trending should be evident at this stage. 25-29 wins is not a huge ask.

And if anything, they're trending downward and are going to be even worse than last year.