I hope he goes to jail for 10 years and is stripped of his entire NBA contract, including the previous year. This guy doesn't deserve a penny for how he's betrayed a front office, teammates, fans that believed in him.
He just wants to win so badly! Let’s see your record when you were 18-19-20-21-22! You were no saint! None of it happened while on the Rockets! He was never charged for anything! “[Whoever this woman is] is John Lucas’ goddaughter.” As if Kev cares or that makes a difference. But but but the quicker-fixer-upper John Lucas can fix him! John Lucas can fix anyone! KPJr.! Ben Simmons! Zion Williamson!
Kid had it all--talent, charisma, an overly supportive team and a fiancée who seems to like basketball just as much as he does. And yet, somehow, he ****s it all up. Put any of us in his place--ANY of us, and I am almost certain it wouldn't end up like this. It doesn't matter now, but I've interacted with KPJ once before. He was friendly, well-spoken, and seemed to genuinely enjoy interacting with a Rockets fan outside of Houston. I was always the guy on the GARM talking negatively about his playstyle, but that's because I thought his potential was great. Doesn't look like he'll ever reach it at this rate. I'm sad for his girlfriend, most of all. I hope she's recovering well both physically and mentally. Like others have said, we're still technically waiting for confirmation. I guess all we can do is keep following the updates
Fans? Contrary to message board beliefs, fan opinions have virtually 0 affect on front office decisions. The Rockets have something to do with this for enabling him. The whole spare the rod spoil the child thing..... but really kpj is who he is and the brunt of it falls at his feet for being a dog **** human. Dont get "blame" confused with "enablement". They are two different things and as far as fans go, this is nothing more than sitting around with your boys talking sh*t about sports and if someone in the group had rode that hard for a loser like kpj you better believe they are going to hear about it. Deal with it.
Being a knucklehead and poor decision maker extends beyond the court. Those are character traits and not specific to basketball.
Absolutely. DD came onto the Rockets watch today early and blasted KPJ right out the bat, and in no way condoned this type of behavior. DD has only ever defended him from a basketball perspective, and likely didn't even know about the Cleveland incident which also was news to me today. I knew there were issues with maturity, but even I didn't know that there had been a another incident with a women being abused.
I didn't like him as a player, but I would never root for his downfall either. Not going to run laps around the house and be happy that he's pretty much done as a Rocket. If anything, I'm very disappointed in him. Even if he wasn't a good player, I was rooting for him to turn his life around. For him to allegedly do this to the goddaughter of the guy who is trying his hardest to turn his life around is unacceptable (it's not acceptable even if it's someone else.)
I actually never thought he was as talented as he was given credit for. Not elite at anything and most importantly did not turn any of his talent to a skill where he has some sort of consistency. To the contrary you can see how Jabari is building up skills that will make him succeed.
This is *exactly* what happened. The Rockets organization enabled this behavior. We had another player like this before. Royce White. Except that version of the organization knew how to handle him. Surprise surprise he never did anything with all that "talent" he had either.
Okay dude, stop being combative for literally no reason. Its really not cool to try "shame" people or whatever you are doing. What he's done up to this point was not something anyone could have anticipated and is not some indictment on people who rooted for him before. Enough about basketball, this is real life **** that has nothing to do with it.
Let's not rewrite history here. DD absolutely tried to defend this guy's character, something wholly unrelated to basketball. He insisted that KPJ changed and that his past was no longer an issue because he had been "good" (false, by the way) for a season. He excused every single act of petulance. He accused those who disagreed as haters and poor judges of character.
I think he came before the Rockets had all those Top 2 -4 picks. KPJ should get his shet together and not end up becoming a jail bird, he is on his way to hell. He should seek for help. Royce White is running for congress, at least he is not in jail.
The longer Stone and Tillman wait, the more likely it is that Adam Silver steps in and lays the hammer down in a way that makes the Rockets look really really bad. Like this harbored this kind of nonsense and only took action when the commissioner stepped in. I get that they want to spend a little bit of time this afternoon to get all the facts straight. However every second here matters. You might not even need to officially do anything today, but you damn well better communicate right away that if the reports are accurate, there is no acceptation, or tolerance to assault. Every second here matters, and the more and more likely it is that Adam Silver lays the hammer down hard... and that hammer WILL FALL on the Rockets too.