Stone deserves to be on the hot seat after fumbling the trade deadline. All we picked up were 2 2RP. Are you kidding me?!
Rockets have had only one actual PG playinh since Stone took over. Kpj wasn't a pg. Neither was Jalen. Neither was Nix. Neither is Holiday. Neither is Reed. Amen kind of is one recently but still not legit enough to direct an offense. People kept crapping on Silas for offense looking bad. But as you can see, any coach without someone who can direct the offense can look really bad there
Rockets 5-10 without FVV the past two years or a 27 win pace. Rockets 68-47 with FVV or a 48 win pace the past two years. 48 wins may not sound too great, but a lot of those games were before Amen's breakout last February. Even when the Rockets get FVV back, they still need to address the elephant in the room that has been the defense of the starting lineup since Amen became a starter. I don't think either FVV or JSJ are a cure-all for that problem. I don't think the Rockets would be on this long a losing streak with FVV, but that problem was there before his injury and it is getting worse without him.
That should put to bed the idea of Amen playing the full time point next season .... but some will still insist upon the idea.
Harden was pretty great at it and CP3 no words for him .....so yeah people were definitely coddled. Before that Tmac was one of the best wing passers in history.
I hope Reed beefs up into a TJ McConnell over the next few years. I’d hoped he’d turn into a Nash or Stockton. Keep hope alive, Reed!
There's a whole lot more to the position than just passing. The PG is essentially a coach on the floor .... getting the ball up safely & in time, getting everyone else into the right places and kick starting the offense - no matter who the offense runs thru. Amen is a good passer but he's not ready to play the point.
Freddie is a good floorgeneral but people forget that mostly it was Kyle Lowry who championed that team in Toronto...... I am not convinced either way but it is true that for the regular season Freddie is enough.
I feel like it's extremely obvious you can get away with not running your offense through a "real" point guard--I mean, MJ, LeBron, Kobe won a bunch of championships with mostly spot-up shooters in that role. However, I would argue those teams are generally exceptional in some way--usually by having either an exceptional, MVP-caliber player (MJ, LeBron) or by having ridiculous depth and overall talent (last season's Boston team, some of Kobe's teams) On a team like the Rockets, you do need a point guard in my opinion. And for what it's worth, by my count, 7 out of the top 10 offenses this season utilize a "normal" point guard setup, with the remaining three (Denver, Boston, and LAL) being exceptional in some way.
I personally count players like LeBron and Pippen to be PGs, or at least PGs in the sense that they direct an offense. Harden was like this too and worked with Beverley who was clearly not a real PG. Kobe teams can indeed be argued to have no PGs. In terms of this Rockets team, I just feel there aren't that many good offensive decision maker/passers among the youngsters. I would venture Jalen, Cam, Jabari, Tari, Holiday, and Reed (if you count him as PG) are all below average in these areas for their position. Amen is probably average depending on who you compare him with for now, and Sengun is above average. So the fact that Stone never tried to alleviate this problem over the years has always felt weird. Yeah FVV was a good signing. But he's getting up there in age and he can't play entire games.
Stone is lazy on trading for an elite guard. That's why old Fred looks important. We don't have legit PG without Fred.
Fred is a PG that is surrounded by lousy shooters. That’s a bad thing for any PG. Put Fred on a team with good shooters and then he can focus on just distributing the ball, which he’s pretty good at doing. We really ask too much from Fred. At times he’s like a babysitter on the court trying to get the kids to play the right way. Of course, that’s what he was brought here to do, to help teach these kids how to play. I don’t know if Fred will be here past this season. But, I think his tenure here has largely been a successful one. The Rockets still have a lot to learn, but progress has been made.
Van Vleet definitely brings a calming and efficient presence. His defense is good despite his height and he is our emotional leader. we win a few of these last games without him. I largely imagine in the off-season we will extend him for 3 to 4 years and there will be an understanding that he may not end up starting past 25–26. Or at least it will be an open competition, at that time amen or Reed might be the better option. But us having the stabilizing presence as a back up. Option is good.
It was always amusing seeing the surety some spoke of about this team being better with Fred being benched.
