I think this is the type of post are referring to where people lack patience. To think a franchise can't be excited about young talent unless they show Luka or LeBron like first and second year as 19-21 year olds. Right now this franchise looks like it has a slightly more talented version of Sabonis and Fox in terms of trajectory. Is that something really to be depressed about. And this upcoming draft we possibly could be adding a player at a similar level or higher to that core. And boom now you have a future big three that possibly could be a contender. If the Kings roster added one more young star player to that duo it's a major contender team then.
If you had to guess, between Capella and Mobley, who scores a larger percentage of their makes unassisted?
Nah. If the Rockets start winning the fan base will not be fractured anymore. Winning cures all, and opinions can change.
Rebuilds, by nature, are tough. Rebuilds can go on for years and years as well, just take a look at the Clippers pre-CP3, they had about a decade of futility and striking out time and time again in the draft, some of it was poor drafting, but a lot of it is timing and luck. This is the NBA, the Rockets will not be competitive again until they obtain a superstar, by way of draft or acquisition, that's it. In the drafts since Harden left Houston, there has not been a superstar for the taking, I'm not talking talent, I'm talking SUPERSTAR, a Luka, a Jokic, Curry, Durant level player. Maybe Wemby is the next one, but there hasn't been a franchise changing superstar in the draft since Luka IMO, and there's no guaranty we even get Wemby. The NBA changed the draft configuration so as NOT to reward tanking, so I don't understand people's idea that tanking is the path toward getting out of this. You can tank for 10 years and get nowhere. You can land the #1 spot in a poor draft year, or land #4 in the year Tim Duncan is on the board. As Rockets fans we haven't had to deal with the dry spells you see the Clippers, Kings, and even the Sixers (pre-Embiid) go through because we were lucky to have almost immediate transitions from the Hakeem era, to the Yao/Tmac era, to the Harden era. This could be a loooong hard road folks.
Getting high lottery picks is very nice, but it only works if there are elite talents available and you draft them. Right now Green is looking like he would probably go somewhere between 4-6 if the draft were held again - and we spent the #2 pick on him. He still has time to leap frog higher, but right now that is where he is. Jabari Smith was viewed as the #1 or #2 pick in the draft leading up to the draft. The Rockets took him at #3, and overall he has played more like the 8-10th pick in the draft. The player that has done the best (Sengun) is also the one that the coaching staff down plays the most. So if you were to tell a fan their team would over two seasons get picks: 2,3, 16, 17, 23, 24, and 29 ...... they would expect more than what the Rockets have gotten so far. The overall development has been underwhelming and the fit is poor. Money doesn't talk when you have max cap space amounts. All the players worth the max will go to more competitive teams that also have a more established front office and coach. The Rockets have the reputation as being dysfunctional. Therefore that means either OVER PAYING role players or trading for over paid players like John Collins. That also hurts the long term financial flexibility of the team. The Rockets will be better next season, because they almost have to be - but that doesn't mean they will be good long term. Losing the picks to OKC hurts, but like 60% of whether the Rockets win or lose is already determined with the players chosen the last couple years in the draft. At this point, the Rockets need some luck to pick #1 or #2.
That is a double-edged sword. Mobley doesn't have a larger offensive role because the Cavs have Mitchell and Garland. Allen's size does help Mobley at times, but Mobley is still one of the top 10-15 defenders in the league and is capable of covering the mistakes of his teammates. I don't think Mobley will ever score 20 points a game now that the Cavs have Mitchell on board. He will likely be more like Chris Bosh with the Heat, where he has to dial the offense back. Still, building a team is a lot easier with someone like Mobley than it is Jalen Green, and that is part of the issue as well that I said had to be considered at the time of the draft. It also had to be considered that some around Mobley did not want him to go to the Rockets, because they were viewed as dysfunctional.
I disagree. Mobley is a better player to chose in a draft if you are a team already has their primary offensive options and are ready to win now and now need an elite defensive presence. Green is better suited for a team starting from scratch and needs a primary scoring option. NBA fandom has done this with young guards before like Booker, underrate them their first couple of seasons because they are on bad teams where analytics negatively effects them more than bigs. Young guards are the enemy of advanced analytics especially on rosters that were built to tank.
I am bullish on the Rockets future. I think Sengun/Green could be similar to, but better than, Sabonis/Fox in short order. I also think KPJ is a useful piece in some fashion playing off those two as a spot up shooter or secondary playmaker. Having KPJ guard 2s would allow Green to cover smaller, quicker point guards which I think would help a little too. Jabari and Tari are both guys with bright futures as 3 and D forwards. Tari needs some seasoning and Jabari needs to find his shot but I think both will pay off for Stone moving forward. I still havent given up on Chrisopher playing some backup minutes or Ty Ty getting 10 minutes at the 1. The best part of all of this is that Stone has cap space and 2 more first round picks to add to this base. As much as I like him personally, I do think that Silas needs to go. This team needs a former player that can identify with the kids in a way that he cant or a guy with college experience who is more accustomed to teaching the game than Silas is. Snyder or Cassell.
I'm actually not even that worried about the rebuild, I think we've got plenty of solid pieces with bags of potential. A good coach, another good draft and a couple years of development and we're there.
Vets man... Also vets. This team needs vets. Plain and simple and vets who aren't looking to put up numbers for a new contract like Wood.
Yeah that's fair. We need solid players who'll teach good culture. How do we keep them though? Right now they all wanna jump ship the minute they arrive here. I'm not an insider so I have no idea why, but we seem to have a really bad rep right now, nobody seems to want to play here. I think that's half the reason our rookies/sophomores are seemingly surrounded by basketball's answer to the Mighty Ducks (from the movie, not Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne lol)
I predict that none of Green or Jabari will be here when we finally get over .500 they will be traded..... DD
Opinions can change if you're a reasonable person, but I do think we have a number of people on here who are extremely prideful about the opinions they hold...which is ultimately meaningless because nothing we say on here will probably ever actually impact the Rockets.
I do agree with the premise of the OP and that YouTube video. I think the main thing Stone should have recognized was that in other complete teardowns like the Process Sixers, almost all of the players became NBA casualties through that process. It's okay to tank with nothing but young players when you have no real high lotto draft talent, but once you do get a high draft pick, you need to surround that young player with veterans, and have them in a competitive situation. That's why I believe Okafor, Noel, Fultz, etc. all struggled to carve out a career in the NBA, and certainly all of them underachieved to never really become star players. The Rockets method, I believe, could make Jalen, Jabari, and Sengun potentially NBA casualties. All year throughout the tank all we heard here was "our hope is getting Jabari or Chet" etc. etc. Then what did we do.... we got Jabari... and didn't put him in a situation to be successful. We were still playing to tank essentially, and putting all our hopes in the next guy (Wemby or whomever) while at the same time making the last guy we tanked for, and the guy before that NBA casualties potentially. So yeah, hindsight, and also looking at the Sixers Process among other rebuilds of the past, I do think the Rockets should have traded this Summer for some veterans.
So LeBron and Maarty Leunen are equally talented? Banchero and Hugo Besson? You get more and more ridiculous with each post. It's very entertaining to watch.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that all about Mobley's dad having seen in person what KPJ was like at USC? So while it was mostly about not wanting his kid to be on the same team as a known knucklehead, I suppose he may have also not wanted to have him go with a franchise that was so heavily invested in the knucklehead.
I think drafting a bigger player that can score and has some playmaking ability is the easiest and most coveted piece. Players like Harden, Doncic etc. However, a scoring guard that isn't a real combo guard isn't as important as a big playmakers. In the case of Green, you have several issues that make it harder to build around him. First, because he is small he is likely going to have to defend a lot of point guards. Also, that mean's that you need a larger point guard next to Green that is able to defend ones and two's. That really limit's team building. if you end up with a small guard next to green, you are going to see teams hunt them on defense. Green is also not a good defender, and won't be without a lot of hard work, so that means you have to have 3-4 other plus defenders on the court with him. That also makes team building harder. That doesn't mean it CAN'T work because it can. Green could keep improving and become more efficient and improve defensively and the Rockets could draft someone like Jalen Hood-Schivino and then eliminate a lot of the issues. However, it is more steps than just drafting Mobley. Right now the Rockets are kind of bottle necked with both Sengun and Green. They both require really good defenders with size around them. As far as comparing Jalen Green to other players.... he is very similar to Devin Booker statistically, and also Anthony Edwards. The difference is that physically both are a lot bigger than Green. Having said that, Green is capable of having a similar career.
