Okay that’s good to know. I just haven’t seen him on the telecast so good to hear from folks at the game. I’m pretty confident my theory is unlikely the case, but it is something I was wondering.
He should be back soon. No need to rush him. We are going to be even tougher once he gets back. cant wait.
At first I liked this signing but its looking more and more like he's gonna be out until at least ASB... Why did we sign a dude that's not gonna play half a season at least when we already have an injury prone Tari. I'm very scared whats gonna happen to our season if KD goes down to injury and we don't even own our own pick (OKC has it).
Let's not root for injury now that KD is rounding into his all-star, regular season form. As I mentioned before, I'm hypothesizing that the Rockets are playing extra zone to dial back some mileage on our starters which is being felt league wide with the increased pace of play. (For evidence on that, see Steve Kerr's recent murmuring). Our constant switching and low-motion offense do have weird side benefits. The analytics bear all that out. I'm not sure why the front office has remained so mum on DFS's actual injury timeline. Their "official" injury report has that estimated return date as November 24th. That might make for a happy Thanksgiving, but ESPN also notes: "there is no timetable for his return." Once DFS is in our rotation, we'll be adding what was the best perimeter defender on the Lakers last year. He took considerable pressure off Reeves and LeBron. There's no reason to think that Durant and Amen won't benefit from his work. He's certainly quicker than Brooks and a guy with experience (unlike Tari). Under pressure, he's a proven commodity. He'll be in the right place on D and will space the floor even more. You are right that OKC has our 2026 pick, but the gamble seems well worth it. They also have two other mid-lottery selections (LAC and Utah). Not sure where the Thunder put all these bodies on their bench. Also, it seems like there's little chance the Rockets selection would fall into the bottom five because there's a lot of tanking going on among the 1 and 2 win teams in the league (Indiana, Washington, Brooklyn, and New Orleans).
What's "soon"? There's still no timetable for his return and we're a month into the season. At this point it looks like he ain't suiting up til 2026. Which would be at minimum 40% of the season that he doesn't play.
So? That’ll give him more than enough time to acclimate before the playoffs, which is when we’ll really need him.
This. I actually dont care about the seeding or anything. Just get to the playoffs healthy. Get Reed and Amen the most reps possible until then. Let DFS fully recover and dont play him on b2bs.
We already need him right now. Tari is out for at least a month and Jabari may already be missing his 2nd game tonight vs Cleveland. And I would assume once the B2Bs kick in, KD may either play more limited minutes or sit out altogether for load management. We know for sure that Steven will.
Dorian is a new guy. You would want him to gel with the team to see how he fits before you insert him in the playoffs lineups. If he's just the 9th or 10th guy, it might not matter much. But if you want him to be an important rotation piece, you'd want him to be ready to contribute when the postseason starts.
Yeah, just avoid the play-in and let the cards fall where they may. We saw last season that being a higher seed doesn't necessarily mean a more-favorable matchup in a highly competitive western conference.
While I don't think the seeding is too big a deal, I'd still like the number 1 seed with the hope that Denver and OKC have to play each other in the series before such that the Rockets have home court advantage and a beat up opponent if they get that far.
I think you made the point that seeding could be incredibly important. Going through Denver & OKC would be a hell of a lot harder than through one of the two.
