That's because the Rockets had a lot more players who could only play guards last year in Cam, Jalen, FVV, and Sheppard. While Tari and Jabari both missed significant time. He played up because the roster required him to, not because he can't defend guards.
FVV got hurt last season, and Reed didn't perform well. Problems occured in the playoffs in which they barely lost to GSW. I don't assume FVV will miss more games than last season. I don't expect Reed to be unplayable as a backup PG. Like last season, the Rockets still can give Amen the ball as a PG as well to patch over when one of those two are out. I don't see much difference in overall value in Green and Holiday. Green was better at driving and doing PG like stuff than Holiday, but Holiday's shooting is more valuable in my opinion next to Amen. The salary cap, aprons, and the owner's wallet have limits for teams other than the Clippers. I see FVV, Reed, and Amen as comparable or more depth than most teams outside OKC at PG even if there are a few PGs better than FVV. At SG, Amen, Okogie, and Holiday appears deep to me relative to other teams. Looking at the roster and people making over the minimum, I don't see a guy that I would rather trade for a 4th string PG in case FVV is hurt, Reed is a mess, and Amen at PG with Holiday playing SG doesn't work. Maybe one could say Capela, but then center would be as thin as PG. One has to assume that Reed is a zero basically and FVV is hurt for the Rockets to need another guard. Even then, a lesser Rockets team survived the 82-game season last year. I'm much more concerned that OKC can still put together a better starting lineup than the Rockets on paper than having a 4th PG behind FVV, Reed, and Amen, considering there is just only so much a team can do with money.
Brooks isn't a guard. He's not fast enough to guard quick backcourt players full time. But we did get rid of Green and Whitmore and replaced them with Durant, DFS, and Capela. DFS should be Brooks's replacement. So they got Durant and Capela to replace Green and Whitmore. The overall level has been raised but the balance is tilted from the guards toward the bigs. When they took Capela to occupy a roster spot and cap space, I didn't like the lack of urgency in getting a guard in the offseason. Getting Okogie helps on defense but not on offense. They kept saying that they were banking on Reed to play a big role. It still didn't address the depth issue if someone got injured.
I actually think that if one doesn't think Brooks can play SG, that makes it even more bewildering that the Rockets offseason ended up the way it ti. Brooks played 36% at SG and 64% at SF last year. DFS and KD both played 90+% at PF/C last year. So replacing Brooks' minutes with players who have mostly played PF/C is definitely not typical. I think Stone and Udoka simply believe don't need true shooting guards, and that their quartet of KD/Jabari/Tari/DFS can defend guards in the Udoka system. In which case one can argue FVV/Reed/Holiday PG depth is reasonable if you truly believe in Reed. I'm not saying they are wrong, just that they better not be wrong because the team is too close to the hard cap for a major pivot.
To be fair, Amen played a lot of SF/PF minutes last season. I'm sure they are going to use him much more in PG/SG positions this year because of Durant's size. So roster-wise, they added more bigs to replace guards. Lineup-position-wise, Amen will replace Jalen. Durant/DFS replace Brooks/Amen. Essentially we have Durant rather than Green, and one of Jabari, Tari, and DFS instead of Brooks, in the starting lineup. That's fine with me. I think they see Reed replacing Whitmore but will play much more minutes. So the backcourt is being banked on two things: (1) Reed stepping up, (2) FVV not missing too many games.
