I'm excited about Ime and the upcoming season, but...

they don't teach you this stuff in meme squad school

 

sighs shouldn't have dropped out Hogwarts School of Memecraft and Wizardry half way

 

No on my expects that. A solid chance amongst KPJ, Christopher, Garuba, Tari, KMJ and Usman, more than half are traded this off-season along with picks to get some vet pieces.

People just don't want to trade Green, Sengun and Bari now unless it's something crazy like Luka becoming available. At the very least we need to see those three in a competent system.

 

I’d personally add Garuba and Eason to Green Sengun and Jabari. Garuba and Eason are 2 guys you want on a good team down the road.

 

What I'm mostly excited about with Udoka's hiring is that Sengun is a Rocket....

 

plenty of folks expect it

 

If the Celtics were any sort of indication of what Udoka wants out of his big men on D, you might want to pump the brakes there. He seemed to value long and mobile bigs for defense and it will ne interesting to see if he actually considers Sengun worthwhile enough on O to change that.

 

The only thing I will add is that Stone knows that this summer is it for him if he doesn't knock it out of the park. He has been talking about this summer for years and if the team only wins 30 games next year he is a dead man walking. I expect Stone to be the one leading the charge on the "let's spend it all" plan.

 

I really don't think so, he doesn't seem to be an impatient person. If anything, he has lost out on a couple of trades because he was too patient. I'm sure he will want to spend but I don't think he will want to trade the young players, future picks and spend the FA money all at once. He's been sh*t on for 3 years about this, I don't think he'll piss it away.

Udoka I'm sure will push to cash in as many future and young assets as possible but it's Stone's job to balance that. We have to be weary of Udoka's probable will to redeem himself using the assets we died to collect for 3 years.

We've heard for a couple of months now that it's TILMAN who is pushing hard to spend everything this summer. If the owner is pushing something, he is leading the charge.

 

I don't totally disagree, but do you think Stone is on the hot seat this year and if so, what would it take for him to retain his job? If he feels the heat he may end up making decisions with that in mind.

 

Depending on the draft, I could see us looking to bring in a vet PG, a vet SF, and a vet backup (defensive) C to help the team going forward. KPJ should be a 6th man and KMJ is a off the bench guy too me. Both are still young and developing but I just dont see them as long term starters on a winning team. In today's league you HAVE to have good wings to compete. Tari can develop into that, but it will take a couple years for him to get there. So until he is there this vet we bring in can help us out and then they can change roles when Tari is ready. If we draft Scoot, this vet PG can still help him learn the ropes until he is ready to take over.

All this to say, we are in a really good position with Ime as our coach. Im sure he will let Stone know which guys can play the way we want/need to play. Ime will hold them accountable and add some discipline. Those than can handle that will thrive and be here, those that cannot, will be gone and replaced with those that can.

 

I think that if when Stone was hired he promised that within 3 years we'd go from the position we were in to the position we are in, the Rockets would have been very happy.

In every way (coaching, cap space, young players, future assets) we are in an excellent position. What we sacrificed is slower development for the young players in exchange for being in this position sooner.

I can't understand why he'd by in the hot seat and I've only seen it speculated by some with no evidence. What I'd say is he has almost aced Phase I and he's starting Phase II. So i don't think he's on the hot seat but the leash that was necessary in the first phase is gone. If the team doesn't do well, he should be judged like any GM who built his team from scratch and already got to choose his own coach.

It's slightly elevated pressure but to say he should be on the hot seat on day 1 i don't really agree with that.

Having said that, i think Tilman is an impatient person and he was staying out of things cause the team was boring. I think he'll have unreasonable expectations and could very well see Stone as being in the hot seat even though he shouldn't be.

 

The rockets need to sign attractive free agents that hopefully can be flipped later. I don’t want us to gut our youth.

 

To preface, this is a vibes-only reply, but I was able to go to some Q&A sessions with Stone the last two seasons (I'm a season ticket holder), and last year was very different than this year. Last year near the end of the season he was completely relaxed and confident. In both demeanor and what he said he projected extreme confidence in the direction of things. Knew that the team was progressing down a solid path.

This year when we went to the same event you could tell he was much more tightly wound. Could have been a bit of an off-day, but his answers were much more defensive in tone ("I inherited this problem..."), and he seemed a bit more stressed. After the meeting I told my buddy that was there with me that for the first time I thought he might not actually survive this off-season. I wonder if he has had the screws tightened on him a bit. The vibes weren't great.

 

I can buy this and that worries me. Speaks of bad leadership by Tilman, which is not the least bit surprising. Should have expected it to take at least 5 years to complete the rebuild regardless, and absent some extremely obvious, horrible screw-up, Stone's job should have been safe for at least 2 more years. It is not the right time to tell him "go get results OR ELSE".

 

Yep, Sengun would go to the bench. Udoka loves a switching defense and Sengun can’t switch. Maybe he can be a 6th man and dominate second units

 

You could be right but it sounds to me like he was irritated that the reporters were asking him about an untrue thing.

 

OKC is rebuilding their team the right way with SGA as the young vet plus LuDort and the rest of their youth.

 

OKC is rebuilding their team the right way with SGA as the young vet plus LuDort and the rest of their youth.