I don't know why, but I've believed that San Antonio will win the lottery all season long and still believe this going into next Tuesday.
I think you misunderstood my point. The #2 pick is safe only if there is a consensus #1 prospect with high risk. Actually, Chet was like a lesser version of Wemby. So the Rockets picking #3 was safer. A more comparable situation was the 2002 draft. Jay Williams was a safer pick than Yao. Nobody knew if a 7'6 dude from China would pan out. But how could you pass up a talent like that? The irony was that Williams didn't even last a season totally unrelated to basketball. So "safe" is not always safe.
Some interesting tidbits here. Sam had HOU #5, but this ranking is just a fun experiment that doesn't offer much. Did seem like Sam seemed to imply the "HOU is a mess" talk is a bit overblown, and a lot of the issues were due to coaching staff (including the worst coach in the NBA according to him). Anyway, I found it interesting that the other guy said this draft class could rival 2003 draft, at least up to pick 12 or so. I've been getting excited about a lot of guys, and I wondered if that was me misjudging guys, but maybe there just are a lot of talented players in this draft.
This is definitely a deep draft, but besides darko I'd take the top of that draft over this year Wemby can be all time great, but I'm not sure any of the other guys in the top 5 will ever be a hall of famer
Nobody wants to live in Detroit, sea world and Fiesta Texas aren’t gonna make anyone wanna live in San Antonio. Houston attracts free agents, 60M in cap, young pieces, and a real coach. People forget how bad these other teams have been, but whatever man
IIRC, Vecenie kinda pushed back on the idea of Houston being a mess later. He doesn't trust Tilman, but he mostly blamed the issues on Silas. Someone in the chat speculated that this talk of Houston being a mess are due to people saying "I hear Houston is a mess" and just having that spread (so everyone has heard Houston is a mess, but only because they're all saying it). IIRC Vecenie agreed with that idea as there's not much to it otherwise (especially since most teams have stuff that make them a mess too). I guess that's good? Not that I like the narrative going around, but if it's just based on circular logic, I guess it could be worse. Someone needs to start saying "Houston is much better now" and pass that along.