Fox is not a good fit for this offense, but that's ok because this offense is not fit for the first round of the playoffs. It sucks and we shouldn't base our plans around it at all. Only the defense is salvageable for the future. Maybe we break the offense? For 4 years we've been between the 27th and 30th worst shooting team in the NBA with only this year a herculean rebounding effort allowing us to climb up to #14. We can stay there as long as we break rebounding records catching our own misses. It's like a high school strategy, everyone's going to miss so just get the rebounds near the basket lol. Maybe if we don't have shooting, we should try another differentiator like speed. Fox/Green/Amen would be arguably the fastest starting 1/2/3 in NBA history. You have Jabari and Tari at the 4. Sengun is quicker and more agile than most 5's. At least you have AN identity. We've been good in transition, we can become elite and make that part of our identity. Playing lockdown defense and striking like a cobra in transition, I like it. Right now we are very good at transition volume but bad at efficiency. Ultimately though I don't know. No I don't think I'm willing to break the offense in the middle of the season and risk damaging a season that is likely to be one of our most overachieving years ever. A trade would then require a couple months to build chemistry. I'm happy to take the risk we lose out on Fox. Stars being hard to acquire is a myth. You just wait for the right fit. We've discussed like 4 stars since last season already. Stop falling for the media narrative that it's a rare window. It's very common these days. At most we'll wait 2-3 windows. In the meantime, we can still improve many other ways.
Which star you think is a good fit for the Rockets? We have overachieved but the Rox now have one of the worst schedules left. We will be screwed if we continue to rely on the brick brothers FVV and JG to execute in the 4rth. I think if we can trade FVV for Fox and a couple of picks we do it. As long as the PHX picks are kept we can still trade for a better star on the road if Fox doesnt work out.
Exactly. LOL these guys dont know ****. Fox is the most dependable scorer for the Rox cuz Sacramento have a bunch of 30% 3 pt shooters, Derozan who just stays in the mid range and Sabonis who just stays in the post. Their offense is just as bad or worse than the Rox and the fact that Fox puts up 26 on 57.5% TS means he will singlehandedly raise our offense by a couple notches. FVV is at 50% TS already if you replace him with Fox Rox would be 1st seed in the west by now.
Exactly. We had a great start, but we are not a contending team. The upcoming schedule is going to prove that we are still a year or two or a star or two away. At the end of January we will be somewhere between 6-8 seed. I predict we end up around 47-50 wins. That is good progress. I hope this team doesn't panic and throw away our assets during another development year. What we need more than anything is a different offensive philosophy.
The Rockets shoot 32.7% on three pointers. The Kings shoot 34%. Those are two of the worst 3pt shooting teams in the league. Despite being on a poor shooting 3pt team, Fox is still driving 17 times per game. In comparison, Green drives 9.0 times per game and FVV drives 9.8 times per game.So, Fox drives much more than either Green or FVV. Fox drives the 3rd most in the ,league, behind only SGA and Brunson. BTW OKC is only shooting 34.5 on 3s this year. So how can they be the 1 seed in the west? Because they are getting points from all those SGA drives to offset the bad shooting. As for the success of those drives, Green shoots 45% and the Rockets score points on 63.8% of his drives. FVV shoots 49.8% on his drives and the Rockets score points on 37.9% of his drives.so despite having a much higher volume of drives, Fox shoots 56.8% on his drives and the Kings score points on 72.2% of his drives. Fox is is much more efficient and his team is scoring points on the vast majority of his drives. It's simlar to Harden's ability to generate open 3s. The other major difference with Fox is that if he can't get all the way to the rim on a drive, he's still effective. Fox shoots 54.8% from inside the paint but outside the restricted area. Green shoots 25% on those same shots and Fred shoots 38.9%. If Fox is able to drive 17 times with the Kings, he can do similar things with the Rockets.
Fox would be an upgrade over Fred, but it wouldn’t make much of a difference if he’s surrounded by the same shooters as Fred. Fox finishes better at the basket than Fred, but he’s a worse 3 point shooter. The problem as I see it, is that Green and Smith are not giving us what we need. Shooting.
This has been my vision when it comes to Fox. I believe we could definitely become an elite transition team with him. One of the reasons we don’t convert a lot on fast breaks is because we don’t have a guy with the combination of speed, ball handling, and vision to run it properly. FVV just can’t get up and down like that and Jalen’s ball handling is shaky.
We wouldn't be if two of our worst 3 PT shooters weren't taking the most attempts every damn game like they think they are great.
Our two guards are doing exactly what the coach tells them to do. Shoot when open. He pretty much confirms that every post game interview. Ime is trying to fit square pegs in round holes. He is a very poor offensive coach that doesn't adjust his scheme to fit his personnel. If the Rockets are ok with that, then they need to change the guards out for ones that can shoot.
Well if he isn't going to change that philosophy we need replacements at PG and SG who can hit more of those shots. It gets tiring to watch.
FVV is shooting 32.5 on 3s and Fox is shooting 32.2. They are basically even. There's more than one way to win. Shure it would be great to field a team of 5 40% snipers who could all get their shots but that's not realistic. We need to be efficient and be able to score points when we aren't shooting well. Our offensive rebounding offsets much of our poor shooting. It's just those games/ times when we are not dominating the glass that we need to fix first. Having an efficient goto scorer for those times would be huge. OKC has been a poor 3pt shooting team this year, so how have they been able to be the clear #1 team in the west? They've done it with great defense and a billion SGA drives per game. I'll leave it at this. We currently have no goto guy that we can depend on when things get tough. I think most folks agree with that. We have a roster that has lots of talented youngsters but it's not a great mix. The same defense shuts down all of our guys. Whether you do it now or do it later, we are going to need a goto scorer and we need a pg who can assist. If they are the same guy, then great. If not, some of our core will be gone. Those guys aren't easy to acquire. One approach is to jump at those kind of guys when they come available. Just because we decide we want to go get a guy, it is still going to be difficult to actually get them. If you want to make a move this year, Green most likely won't be in that deal as he and Sengun both have poison pill provisions in their deals after their extensions. That means that you are going to have to to include FVV to match Salary. We'd all love an efficient volume scorer who shoots well from 3 and can rack up assists. So, who is that guy. SGA and Luka fill the bill but both are below average 3pt shooters. Maybe Brunson but are we getting him out of NYC? Booker? Is Phoenix going to give him up? Have you seen his 3pt shooting this year? Edward's? He's a scorer and he can shoot the 3 but he's certainly not a pg. He's a 4 ast and 3 turnover guy right now. We won't even discuss how we'd get the Wolves to give him up anyway. We can also hold our assets and wait for the perfect guy to come available. It's just that there's not many players that fit that role and they don't become available often and they are really hard to aquire if they were on the market. Lot's of teams have tried that whenever a superstar was due to come up for free agency. The vast majority are still waiting for that guy. Waiting also means that we are going to have to make decisions on more of our youngsters. Smith and Eason are up next. How much is it going g to cost to keep them? To actually become a contender, one of our youngsters has to turn into a superstar that can carry the team on a nightly basis or we have to make a move. If it's not stand pat, then we eventually have to pull the trigger on a deal. We just need to make sure that the guy we are pursuing actually exists and that we have a realistical chance of getting them. Pinning your hopes that one or two particular guys becomes available doesn't sound appealing to me but that's just my opinion.
I never said they were near equal players. At least argue against what I said instead of making things up. Fox is clearly better than FVV. My point was that Fox isn't the dude to take us deep in the playoffs. And he doesn't fit with this roster. And, again, I'm not saying FVV is amazing, but he's not getting trapped in the backcourt every possession and turning it over. He almost never does. Turnovers are a part of efficiency that doesn't get factored into these shooting percentages, but if you add in a couple extra misses from Fox per game (based on his extra turnovers) he looks far less efficient than the numbers otherwise suggest. Fred also plays very good defense, which isn't something Fox is known for. And if you look at advanced statistics, FVV has better WS, better VORP, both last season and this on, compared to Fox. Again, I'd make the swap if it was player for player, but that's different than also giving up 2 recent high lottery picks and a couple firsts. That's too high a price for a non-superstar acquisition.
Just for fun, I just did the calculation of replacing FVV with Steph Curry's current production. We'd go from a 32.7% 3pt shooting team to a 34.5% three point shooting team. Most likely, we aren't going to beat people by out shooting them from behind the arc unless we turn over much of the current roster. Or we can beat teams with defense, offensive rebounding and some efficient non-3pt shooting.
so just keep the team's bad 3 point shooting back court shoot as much as they want while limiting the shots of the other 2 good 3 pt shooting starters?
Neither the Rockets nor the Kings run anything so special it takes an entire offseason to get people situated. Fox presumably would play the FVV role except being massively better at it. If there's something to worry about with a mid-season trade, it's the defense and how much the Rockets need to accommodate him there. He's pretty slight and unlikely able to handler bigger guys on switches the way FVV can. And in the playoffs, teams are definitely going to hunt him, and he'll need to hold up in such situations if the Rockets have championship aspirations.
I really haven't watched much of the Kings. But Sabonis shoots 43% from three. So he's got the ability to draw his defender out of the paint when Fox drives, something Alpi can't do (yet). If Fox is such an elevating star, why is a team with both him and Sabonis 13-19? It doesn't add up to me.
