His "off game" tonight was nearly a double double, four steals, two blocks, strong defense/highlight chase down block on 50% FG shooting. As he keeps developing his shot, isolation and playmaking for others it's going to be wonderful watching him grow as a player.
Amen had an off night for him, but still had 4 steals and 2 blocks. Only 8 rebounds. Rockets are now 8-1 since he took Jabari's spot. He is starting the rest of his career. We are so fortunate to have so many great young players. My gosh, Amen, Jalen, Sengun, Jabari, Cam, Tari. It is an absolute embarassment of riches. We will have to make a consolidation trade at some point. We have potentially 3 all-stars next year and a 20 year old Cam and 21 year old Jabari with sky high potential.
Do we really need a consolidation trade? Can we not just let FVV and Brooks' role shrink more and more while the kids improve? I think that's affordable for at least another few years if we can replace Fred in the rotation with someone closer to MLE value - I think we can get away with that next season. Brooks' contract is declining and can be dumped for free moving forward, he's a net positive contract at this point. That's why I'm advocating for sending Brooks out in a Durant trade. I don't think we need both of Dillon and Fred anymore, so I'd like to get rid of the one for which we have the most reliable depth behind. Tari/Amen/Jabari make it much easier to let go of Brooks than FVV if you ask me. FVV is a legit 3&D guy with safe and recently unselfish hands if nothing else and can guard PG's. Jabari can guard bigs better than Brooks. I think his presence is more important than Brooks' louder but less rare brand of being aggressive. Amen is aggressive AF he just doesn't yell a whole lot about it. Well he might throw you across the floor but that's just to make sure one time that people know not to f*ck with him. Sorry Herro, it had to be someone.
I’m fine with trading Dillon instead of FVV for Durant. I think trading for Durant at the right price is the best fit for this team for this year and next. Reed is the only one of the young guys I want included and only the two later Phoenix picks or one Phx pick and one Rocket pick. If it requires any more than that, then I would rotate to Collins and Brogdon for highly protected picks or second rounders.I think Phx would prefer FVV since he is expiring.
This is a great stat and the reason Amen is the best player on the team and great thing is, he's got potential to get so much better.
When Kings defense starts full court pressing see who Ime trusts to bring the ball up. (Green or Holiday). Basically our two best ball handlers tonight.
I don't want to touch the core (Reed), I think we should be able to get him for 3 first round picks, maybe a swap, maybe second rounders and good contracts. 3 picks and a prospect is a no-go for me that's equivalent to 4-5 picks with expiring contracts. We'd be getting into the Booker price range which is way too high. 1 great pick, 2 protected first round picks, 2 second rounders, a swap, 1 excellent starter (Brooks), 1 excellent backup (Adams) and fillers. That's plenty for the hopefully 2.5 remaining years of hopefully slowly-declining load-managed Durant. Tonight a perfect example of why it would be nice to have FVV stabilize things. We are going to have Jabari, Amen, Tari and even Jalen formidable defenders. I think Tari/Durant/Jabari can handle the bigger ones and Amen/Tari/Jalen can handle the quicker quys.
The Rockets did not have a dysfunctional offense without FVV, it was a bit disjointed from the start but the Rockets shot 53/36/71 as a team. The Rockets average 14 TOs this season, the Rockets committed 14 TOs. Rockets average 44% from the field, and 36% from 3. Rockets were 53% from the field and 36% from 3. Rockets attempt 36 3s per game on average, they attempted 33 this game. Not a massive drop by any means. The key difference is the Rockets were much more disjointed on offense, and there were possessions where having FVV handle the ball would have been better. However, the Rockets' offense was fine overall. The main issue is: They were not defending well, but the Kings also shot really well. Kings are shooting 35% from 3 on the season, they shot 42% this game. Kings made their free throws, Rockets didn't. Kings took 22 free throws and missed just 2. Rockets took 24 and missed 7. I would argue that FVV would have helped not because of the offense, but because he would have done a lot more on the defensive end.
He’s got a lot of work to do at the PG position but when he figures it out, he’ll be extremely tough to guard. He’s showed flashes but really bad passes that directly lead to fast break points in crunch time hurt. It’ll likely take the offseason to fully work on his PG skills.
It hit me today that Amen actually plays very much like a young Lebron with a more broken jumper. Faster and less strong but similarly reliant on athleticism overall. Has some creative drives that are rare. Aggressive and physical on offense. It's not a bad model for him to follow, he's going to be imposing when he puts on a little more muscle naturally. When we initially drafted him, I saw him as a shy kid and was wondering how his defense would translate. Did not expect him to be - as Mad Max so eloquently put it - "ragdolling" Herro across the court type of aggressive lol. Very controlled other than that incident imo. There's greatness in him.
