According to Bill Simmons its not high- there is no Rocket in his top 65. https://nbarankings.theringer.com/trade-value Now, Simmons is a fool, and frankly the whole trade value rankings schtick is a pretty meaningless and embarrassing spectacle. But i don't think it's valueless in terms of being a signal- that signal is the perception that the league isn't nearly as high on the Rockets last few draft hauls as Rockets MGMT appears to be or a few factions of the BBS are. Hope I'm wrong! But, honestly if a zion comes along (he's probably not coming along) I'd give up any of these youngs for him and not look back. But, I don't think other teams would take that.
They are not high. We don't have any established talents, only "projects". Teams are taking a risk giving up assets for our young core.
you could get a 1st for jalen, jabari, maybe sengun but we don't have anyone who's worth multiple 1sts, which is kinda depressing
Bill's list is an attempt at something useful, but it's also insane in a number of ways. Picking out just a few: - Josh Giddey at 22nd is the craziest. Above Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Lauri Markkanen, Franz Wagner, Lamelo, Brandon Ingram? This is one is off by at least 30 or 40 spots. Giddey is a bad defender, a 53% TS player, not a top-250 player by any all-in-one advanced stat you like (RAPM, EPM, Raptor). An offense only player who makes OKC's offense worse when he's on the court - Derrick White in the same spot as Trae Young. This is just a joke. A role player defensive guard vs. the ~10th best offensive engine in the league - Bogdan Bogdanovic included in toughest omissions, and no Sengun / Jalen / Jabari / Tari anywhere on the list. Bogdanovic is an offense only 6th man for a .500 team who can only play half the games because his knee is shot, who gives you 14 ppg on league average efficiency and nothing else. There are at least 5 Rockets with more trade value than him, I'd honestly argue there 7
******** on the city of Houston is just Bill Simmons' shtick at this point, and he extends it to the entire Ringer staff by never hiring anyone from our city (Shea Serrano was his "Rockets correspondent", lol, someone who lived here, talked **** about it, moved back to San Antonio, and is now throwing bombs at our city also from his perch out there). In all sorts of ways--socioeconomic, geographic, racial--it's him punching down, but the most important way and the way they can justify it on business terms is that the Houston metropolitan area media market is historically the biggest underperformer relative to population size around the country. Houston just doesn't consume as much media as the typical USA market, and that goes from ticket prices at the door to jersey sales to Nielsen ratings and finally on down to his podcast numbers. Part of it is that a larger part of our population is poor, part of it is that a big chunk of the Houston population number doesn't speak English or hold onto American values of sports worship, and then another part of it is a positive feedback loop where the national media figures keep ******** on us all the time, so why would we listen to them. In the end, a disproportionate number of sports media figures be it journalists, pundits, or podcast hosts didn't come from here. To a lot of them growing up, our city was the villain, and it's been profitable to keep painting Houston sports teams in an "Iron Sheik" light. In a sense it's part of the friendly competition of cities around the country that sometimes turns contentious in other spheres, be it the bidding war amongst orchestras/symphonies for the top talent in the country, or the concessions local govts make to lure mega-corporations to build headquarters nearby. The solution as sports fans is not to try to hook yourself up even more to the Ringer Machine, like Simmons' army of Eastern seaboard zitfaced incels, giving him pageclicks and ad-views like the obese humans in Wall-E. Just ignore the trolljob, consume Houston media, and maybe try to be a little successful in life yourself. Leave the city, become a carpetbagger elsewhere, and praise the virtues of Houston while talking all the **** you can about Boston, which is a truly dreadful place I left after my first year of college there. Most underrated part of the US ever, and I've lived in five of the six pockets of the USA pool table at this point. In the past decade it's been heartwarming to see alternative Houston media take off as its own thing, from Clutch to Ben DuBose, Jackson Gatlin, Roosh Williams, and many others I'm missing. Just keep your head down, keep grinding, and **** all the haters.
I wouldn't care what the media thinks of our core value is. They're all looking to belittle us and hate us
Simmons is fun and not to be taken too seriously, especially his Celtics takes. He has genuine insight maybe once or twice a season. Otherwise, it's just lightly-informed sports chat. I mean, the dude is still citing PER. Even Hollinger dismisses the effectiveness of his own metric, but dudes like Simmons and Russillo refuse to keep up with the times.
Does anyone think people are calling the Rockets about any of their "core"players ? Rockets have made no secret they're in the market for veterans to improve this year. Obviously people are calling about Scoot pick, Zion, Beal etc. Does anyone think there's any teams hot on the trail of Jalen Green or Jabari Smith Jr, Sengun etc?
Bill and HPBasketball are two guys that have figured out that if you need some clicks just make an article that insults the Rockets and they'll make a thread on Clutchfans and the Rockets subreddit about it.
The teams with the players or picks in your first sentence have let it be known they were open to deal. Of course people will call about them. Meanwhile, none of those Rockets players have been dangled by the front office. Not a one is on the market. You say that's a testament to their quality, but I say that right now teams are looking at available players or guys who'll be expiring this year. Teams aren't offering up young talent on team-friendly contracts. Especially in the Rockets' case, when their only exposure to the league has been with a HC like Silas.
It's so hilarious how your pessimism is clouding even basic common sense judgement. Like you can be low on the core and still understand basics of nba contracts and which contracts are more valuable. No one is trying to get Jalen Green because they know it will be too much. Sengun and Green have very team friendly contracts.
I honestly think at this point that part of Bill Simmons' shtick is pissing off Rockets fans. He knows he'll get an over-the-top reaction to every slight, and he can laugh about that to the fans of every other team in the league. It's old, tired, and lazy. Someone should implore him to try to do better, but I don't think he has a higher gear to go to at this point in his career. He really should just call it quits at this point and retire on the money he's raked in, because every year his value as an expert drops and his joke value goes up.
Sincere question. If for some reason against all odds according to you, Jalen and Sengun make it, as in all-stars leading teams to 50+ wins in their prime, would you be even able to enjoy it? Like you know you didn't believe in them so wouldn't it make it less enjoyable?
It's probably a combination of both Ask too much, because Stonetitta have ego invested And Do not want I don't think the same is true for some other young pieces. I mean the Thunder obviously wanted Shea Gligeous Alexander after 1 year to give up an all NBA player for him.
