No you can't. Neither Clingan nor Sengun have any business trying to defend professional PF. They're going have hard enough time trying to guard on the perimeter.
If you trade Sengun you literally spent 4 years being ass and what you got back was not a single young above average nba player. lol
If Alpi develops a consistent 3 pointer and middy I think he could move to the four spot in the starting lineup, and play 5 in some lineups. But the Center has to stretch the floor as well. If Clingan is a legitimate stretch threat then I wouldn’t mind drafting him. Jabari could be the odd man out in this scenario because he doesn’t have the ball skills to move to SF. & The Rockets have to find a way to get Cam & Tari as many minutes as possible so they can continue their development.
Anyone working just fine with Jabari right now is still a projection. A large - bigger - part of the reason everyone wants to "get bigger" inside is cause Jabari is soft and weak. He's not a good interior defender. He's not a great wing defender. He doesn't rotate great. Everyone takes for granted that he's going to turn into some kinda defensive stalwart or something that shoots 40% from 3. MAYBE. But we have to see it. And until we do, our PF spot is incredibly weak, especially with Tari injured. Ofc this is less a comment about drafting Clingan and more about general team building, and the state of the team overall. The 2 weakest positions on the team last year, and the year before (and probably the year before that) have been SG and PF. Yet there are countless hours spent on talking about the center position - probably their deepest position right now. It's baffling.
Because the Rockets having a center as a their focal point is not going to get us anywhere. The center cannot be taking as many shots as SG and PF. Besides, SG was not a weak point last season. SF and PF were. We are not the Nuggets. That team winning was fluky anyway. You see they couldn't continue with that recipe. What makes everyone think that we are going to make it work.
SG was not a weakness last year? Lolol… Bro Jalen was historically terrible for a huge chunk of the year. Come on now.
I'm not exactly sure why so many draft boards put Clingan at #3 and Zach Edey out of the lottery altogether. Edey is literally better than Clingan in every statistical category. The only difference I see is that Clingan is thinner, and therefore that makes him more mobile to defend at NBA levels? But Edey performed better than Clingan in lottery combine in speed and agility plus Edey is a better shooter. I seriously don't understand why Clingan is so highly rated ...and Edey is rated so low. What am I missing? I guess Clingan is just highly for 2024 and any other year, he's like #8-10 or something.
With this incredible post, Stone will be worried about his job security. Front office will be ringing your mobile shortly. Wish you all the success as GM.
