Draymond Green just said Harden may go back to Houston

it should, but it just won’t be the same if the offseason is overpaying a few mediocre players who are only here for a payday

Harden is 1 of the top free agents on the market and the 2nd greatest Rocket…it would be time for the young guys to grow up fast because a playoff appearance at the very least would now be the expectation after signing him

Harden can’t be diming u up, and you’re still shooting 30% from deep Jabari or smoking every layup Tari

Jalen, u gotta be a consistent, dependable scorer

KPJ is off to the bench as a 6th man where he belongs…he either accepts it or he can gtfo, we no longer have time to coddle him

Sengun can no longer be passing up jump shots

 

Very good post. Nice to see you being constructive in your criticism and not just calling them all busts. If Jalen gets his 3 ball to around 36% instead of 33% with some consistency and play a little defense it would do wonders for our trajectory with Harden as PG. That being said, I really don’t Harden is coming back. I do think next year we will see improvement and more wins, but probably still in the back-end of the lottery praying we get lucky and get a 1-4 pick. Re-building from scratch is a grueling process and thinking it will be done next year is really optimistic, but depending on the vets we do sign and an actual NBA Head Coach, I could see us challenging for the play-in.

If Harden comes back and we trade for someone like Bridges or Jaylen Brown then we could make some real noise.

 

He's still by far the best guard on the roster and it's not at all close. If KPJ is going to be the 6th man, the team needs to find significant upgrades at PG, SG, and SF to justify that.

 

Harden loves Houston. Lots of smoke around this not to be some fire. Would accelerate the rebuild as having 35 Y.O. Harden for a couple of years is drastically better than anything else including Scoot Henderson. He could come, play for 3 years and take a backseat in year 3 while transitioning to his Houston life outside of basketball.

Give me Harden in the offseason plus a 3 and D SF, Scoot Henderson/Wemby and Gradey Dick.

 

I'll take 45+ wins instead of the abomination we've been watching wtf are you talking about.

 

Not everybody is convinced as you that Jalen and Jabari are busts. The KPJ being sixth man is if we sign Harden. You could also say the same thing if our pick is Henderson, but if that is the case we will really need to sign a couple of all-star type vets to even sniff the playoffs. If Jalen stinks it up the first half of next season, he may well go to the bench, but I see no scenario that we open the season where KPJ starts over Jalen other than injury. If we do sign Harden or VanFleet, KPJ will go to the bench or be traded if he fusses about it.

 

Why do people think Jalen is good ?

 

I've never said that they are busts and that has nothing to do with what I said.

KPJ is objectively better than anyone on the team at PG, SG, or SF. The notion that the second best player on the entire roster should be the 6th man is just flat out ridiculous unless the Rockets massively improve all 3 positions.

 

Draft position and hype.

 

Going out on a limb and predicting Jalen Green will be a Rocket a lot longer than KPj. Maybe Bobby will follow KPj to the next teams web forum in China. YaoMingMania might still be active. You can argue with them about how much greater KPj is than their GOAT Starbury.

 

Probably because his good games show his potential. When he is on, he is on. If he could get to any level of consistency, and improve his defense, he would be really good.

 

The difference is you think that everything is as it will always be. KPJ is better most games than Green right now. Anybody that is basing a player’s future performance based on his 19/20 year old season is just as immature as the player. I like KPJ and think he can be better in a different position. I think both Jalen and Jabari will be better NBA players in a year or two. It’s just a difference of opinion, as neither of us know the future. I think it’s more that you are a pessimist and I am an optimist. I also think that most FO’s in the league would favor my opinion over yours, but that is just conjecture as well. It’s what we do on a fan forum.

 

not even his best games. Just pulled random good games. Most are opposing team feeds also with their commentary.

 

I would love to see some staggered minutes between James and KPJ, which is the reason I'd love for KPJ to either come off the bench or start at the 3 and get subbed off first. 48 minutes with Harden/KPJ at point would be really nice. They can obviously play together well too given KPJ's catch and shoot numbers, but I'd feel a lot better about TyTy getting to slowly develop behind those two.

 

He dissed Harden in the postseason after losing jsut like he dissed Simmons. Lol. He said he’s clearly not Houston Harden anymore. Simmons is brutally honest.

 

Then why did he take a paycut last summer to stay?

 

No, I'm not saying everything is as it will always be, I'm just not assuming a specific level of development and growth that has not happened will certainly happen.

Also, why do you assume that Jabari and Jalen will magically turn into amazing players because they are 19 and 21.... but a 22 year old KPJ who is already considerably better than either is done developing?

I think it's that you are excessively optimistic about 2 players while being excessively pessimistic about another. I'm just realistic about all 3.

 

Rule of thumb is that you have to see it by year 3. If Jalen doesn’t make a big jump next year then it’s time to have the conversation. Jabari has two more off-seasons so he’s got a ways to go. KPJ isn’t even on the pivotal year 3, he’s in year 4, and he’s a pretty average player. I guess if you want to keep average players around then keep him, but he just hasn’t shown what he needs to show. There’s an opportunity cost to keeping these guys around, and sometimes you’re gonna get it wrong, that’s the cost of playing probabilities. So yeah, kpj is the best guard on the team, but historically there aren’t a lot of players that end up being above average starters with his trajectory.