Ime Udoka after Rockets fall to Thunder in NBA Cup 12/14/2024

The Rockets need better shooting and a top tier scoring guard… so their biggest problem has been SG production and that’s Jalen Green. He- coupled with poor perimeter shooting by FVV has destroyed the offense.

Maybe Green eventually figures it out and isn’t a shittier version of Jordan Clarkson but I am getting doubtful. He had an amazing month last year and that’s it for years. Also - his defense is still the weakest in the starting unit.

I really wish Stone hadn’t gotten cute and had taken the Maxey package from the Sixers, but whatever.

The Rockets need a guard that shows up every game and will score and lead and Marshall the offense. That can be a big 1 guard or combo guard but is likely a SG.

Unfortunately getting a player good enough to lead a team will be difficult. At some point someone in the owners box will realize the Rockets had the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 3rd picks in a row and managed to not get a single franchise player out of those picks.

 

Has to be a franchise player available for you to pick one.


I don't see any franchise players picked in any of those drafts after the Rockets made their selections.
The closest you come is Franz Wagner ....

The 24 class looks terrible top to bottom.

The 23 class, you could argue that the Rockets got the best player in that draft in Amen - Wurmy wants to play around 24 feet from the basket neutralizing himself ....

The 22 class they never had a shot at Chet or Banchero.

The 21 class ... Mobley refused to even work out for the team, ROY Barnes hasn't been good, #1 pick Cunningham is terrible. Suggs is a solid player but not a franchise guy .... Is Franz a franchise player? If you wanna call him that I'll concede .... Regardless they are both better than Jalen.

 

Amen even developing a shot has less of a ceiling but a higher floor than Wemby for sure.

Because it takes a lot of energy to play both ends equally well.......and only Kawhi comes to my mind but he is 80% injured.

Depends on what you want......Wemby has like that Lebronesque IT factor nobody on the Rockets has right now.

Sengün is the closest to him on a purely skill level. That is coming from someone who dislike French players.

 

We must not be watching the same thing then. When Adams is in, guys can get open 3s, easy layups, he can't get off his feet to contest at the rim, can't close out, or really do anything other than play a deep drop coverage, and then he loses out on boards if he can't reach them without jumping.

Jabari is significantly weaker than Adams (so is everyone else on the planet lol), but he can do things that Steven can't. When we play against teams' second units, there is often not a big man to take advantage of Jabari inside. Think back to that Thunder game, and random role players were attacking Adams relentlessly because they were guards and Jabari could have put a stop to that. The only time Jabari shouldn't play the backup 5 for 6 minutes or so is when teams have other bigs who can really get after him in the second unit.

 

I see FVV as part of the next 2-3 seasons.

On if his shooting doesn't return, the Rockets are winning as is such that they arre somewhere in the 3rd to 14th best team in the NBA. Maybe there is some luck there in winning percentage with their poor shooting, but I think the Rockets are improving and have had bad shooting from FVV and others below what is expected (i.e., I expect the Rockets to play better even if the winning percentage isn't an improvement).

I want the Rockets to get a good playoff experience this year (i.e., at least competitive in the 1st round) as I expect the Rockets next season to be a lot better than they are now assuming they address the guard spot.

 

If the Rockets offense doesn’t improve this year the likelihood of them being a 1-6 seed is pretty remote in my opinion. However, I do think at least Sengun’s efficiency will improve and there is a chance that FVV’s 3 pt shot reverts to norm. in that case we have about a 50/50 chance. Right now we are only 3.5 games out of the lottery even after a really good start. I’m won’t be as upset as others as I have always thought of this as a development year and I do think we will make the play-in. We better sweep the next four if we want a shot, because Jan. Is going to be brutal.

 

The Rockets point differential suggests the Rockets are a 56-57 win team with the offense as is. I think the defense is legit as I expected a Top 3 defense with Tari and Amen both healthy and limiting Jabari at the center minutes. If you think the chances of being a Top 6 seed with the offense as is is remote, I have to assume you think the defense will be much worse. This might happen if Jabari is used as a small ball center, but then the offense will improve dramatically over the backups centers.

I expect some regression in the defense, but without injuries, I expect the Rockets are better than they were last season (i.e., the defense can carry the Rockets to a Top 6 seed assuming no major injuries).

 

I am not sold on Banchero being a tier 1 or tier 2 franchise player. Wagner looks to be better than him. The best player in the 22 class is Chet and is probably the only high level franchise player in that class. He has the injury risk, just like Wemby.

Sengun may turn out to be the best player in the 21 class. Mobley has a significant leap in his 4th year after almost flatlined in his first 3 years. We'll see if his offense is sustainable. Cunningham is not terrible. He is in a terrible situation and still shows some promise. I think he is somewhere on Banchero's level. The 21 class is a very confusing bunch when everybody thought it was quite clear at that time.

 

I don't really get this at all - Banchero made the leap from ROY to All star last year, was good in the playoffs, was in beast mode All-NBA level this year in the first week before he got hurt.

The big questions on Banchero predraft were "can he hit 3's, can he play defense" - the answers are Yes, and HELL YES.

Meanwhile Wagner had a pretty mediocre offensive campaign last year and actually needed Banchero to get injured to get good again.

Body of work, it's not even close, and now they're both out with the same injury, so...

 

Efficiency is still his biggest concern. High volume scorers on subpar efficiency never get anywhere, there's a long list of inefficient "superstars" throughout nba history and their playoff resumes are not impressive. That type of player has never won a championship. He started this year scoring efficiently but it was only 5 games, if he can keep that up then he's a legit superstar. But his poor efficiency is definitely concerning, we'll just have to wait and see if he can improve it.

 

His advanced stats weren't that good. As @harold bingo pointed out, his efficiency is not good. His WS was worse than Wagner even when Wagner was giving seemingly mediocre offensive output. His second year 3pt shooting while greatly improved from first year was still not very impressive. His rebounding at his size was only mediocre.

He was indeed in beast mode the first 5 games this season. But so was Jalen Green.

Let's see who will be the alpha when both he and Wagner come back from injury.