I don't feel like its just organic growth how much better we are on defense as a team. We have Green who was absolutely lost for two years play good defense for once in his life consistently. Sengun was who a bit lost on defense in Silas's system look very competent this season. You don't just turn the worst defense in the NBA to one of the best just with the addition of Brooks and FVV.
Everybody with half a brain last year saw that Silas had neither a defensive or offensive structure. Thankfully Ime does. And whilst I find his offense fairly uninspiring, his defense is actually world class.
Coaching does matter, but roster construction and having veterans matter just as much, if not more so. This is a player-driven league, and unless you have talented players - the amount of "good coaching" you have doesn't matter. You see how VanVleet calls huddles with the players on the floor to get them organized and not make mistakes whereas last year they would be competitive during the first half and let the game slip away in the second half. Veterans on a team matter because what they say to players carry different and often has greater weight than anything a coach might say. Also, Udoka has the luxury to bench Green for Holiday or Smith for Green. He has the luxury to let Cam develop in the G-League before giving him a chunk of NBA minutes. Those luxuries did not exist with the roster Silas had, and Udoka is still paying for that because of the lack of shooting and bench depth that Stone failed to rectify in the past drafts. Silas had to develop KPJ into a point guard, while developing Green, while also developing Jabari, while also developing Sengun. When you put so many developmental players in the starting lineup, you're not going to win a lot of games. Stone was the architect of the tank. People got tired of all the losing and Silas was the easy target. It never made sense to me that people wanted the Rockets to be one of the three worst teams in the league while looking good in the process. A lot of fans wanted their cake and eat it too. Silas is the past, and I'm happy we got Udoka. But folks sound silly blaming Silas every time Jalen Green has a mediocre/bad game. They should be blaming Stone instead - Udoka is saving his job right now.
Through the losing with Silas, Stone accumulated the draft capital & cap space to attract Udoka. We rebuilt our franchise in 3 years. If anything Stone deserves a promotion
That draft in general looking fairly bad. Who could we have gotten instead of Jalen? Mobley? Barnes? Meh. You need superstar swings and neither of those offered that. Jalen did. Probably won't pan out at this point but who cares. He was the right pick. Rockets have 5 stabs at a superstar in Jalen/Sengun/Bari/Amen/Cam. We just need one. Sengun is already a star. Just need one of the other 3 to become one.
Still difficult to say at this point, it is not like Barnes is head and shoulders above the others...... Franz is still there.
Forgot about Franz. For me it’s probably Sengun, Franz, Barnes so far. Book is still out. on Cade and Green.
Going with the guys who dont make the same mistakes over and over. Pretty obvious who the guy was who WAS making the same mistakes over and over.
Kind of always forgot Sengun was in that class. Yeah, he's the best right now and likely remain the best throughout. Barnes is second at this point. Wagner and Cade can still overtake him. Mobley will be a good role player but doesn't look like he'll be a superstar. Green is gradually losing, but who knows.
Like I said in the post just above yours, I kept forgetting Sengun was in that same class because he was picked so low compared to the other guys frequently mentioned.
Next step for Ime as a coach is to remove Jalen from the starting lineup. He’s already benched in the 4th quarter multiple times. It’s coming eventually.
We cannot ignore that Silas wanted to take the ball out of Harden's hands to give it to John Wall. It was one of the stupidest things we had to deal with that year.
One of the things the team needs to work on is pace. We play way too slow (4th slowest in the league iirc). That's expected from a mostly new team but it's really limiting opportunities for the more athletic players on the roster. We're not getting enough opportunities to attack defenses before they get set.
