Yes we have a very young core, but no, this is not a roster designed to supplement their development. It’s a roster built with two timelines in mind: taking a swing this year with KD + young core + insane offensive rebounding gimmick, and then leaving options open for the future iteration of the team in the 2027-2030 period. The FO has basically said as much. The “swing” we’re taking this year comes at the cost of the development environment and incremental talent accumulation. Playing with near league worst spacing principles, pull-up 3 rates, and guard play in favor of all time O Reb rate is a bad environment for developing at normal 2025 NBA basketball. That’s the choice the FO made. They executed it very competently, transaction-wise, to give them credit. But IMO the choice is wrong.
You can't have just ONE guy on your roster who can do one of the essential things for winning. That's the proverbial putting all your eggs in one basket. This is especially true when that one guy has missed an average of 18% of games in the last 7 years. I think they are banking on Amen and Reed to take a large step toward being able to do what Fred can do at least on a part-time basis. This vision can still be brought to fruition if the two kids continue to be developed. I personally prefer them to let Amen and Reed go through the fire and see what they are made of and not rushed to trade for a PG like a lot of people here are advocating.
I do think it's 6 of one and half a dozen of the other if i'm being honest. Coaching isn't putting our guys in the best position to succeed on the one hand, on the other hand some of the bad play does also come down to bad play from the players themselves. Bad plan, bad execution, bad time all round. Front office also shares blame for loading up on players of a similar mould to Amen and Tari when we were already stacked there when we should've got another PG. Ime actually looked flustered for real in the press conference, so maybe he's starting to realise they need an actual change in approach. Either hire an offensive coordinator, or get a ****ing real PG, or both. Even if we start Reed we need a solid bench PG who isn't a shooter/scorer (Holiday's a midget 2 guard) who we know we can throw in for a few mins to steady the ship and calm the waters and stabilize things. Ime's weird because in some ways he's a very traditional/conservative coach then in others he tries weird lineups that are so unorthodox they're mostly broken in a bad way. The man needs to step back and realise you can't win with just physicality and size, sometimes you need smarts, grace and finesse. And actual strategy beyond defensive sets and unorthodox zones.
big if true Spoiler https://rocketswire.usatoday.com/st...-among-nbas-highest-paid-coaches/84275013007/
Hmmm...I don't really agree. Like you said in your post, they want Amen to learn how to do this, and they want Reed to learn how to do this, and also they have Sengun who can already do a bit of this to an extent. Aaron Holiday can also kinda do all that stuff, just not at a full time starter level. I don't think it's fair to say that having FVV is putting "all your eggs in one basket", you could say that about almost any starter on any team. Every team has important players where they would be screwed if that guy went out for the season. So it's not like we completely neglected it, we had a plan. But Fred was really important for our team.
No, it's not a contrarian approach. Not very many teams can not skip a beat when their lead guard/ball handler goes down for the season, that's just bad luck. No rational person is not trading Durant for a 10th pick, green, and brooks.... The fact that you call it an "offensive rebounding gimmick" and not what it actually is.... a "possession gimmick" that has resulted in an objectively better offense than last year that is 3rd in scoring tells me a lot. It's not a coincidence that we are taking better 3 pt shots and still hitting them at a league best. Do we need to work on our crunch time offense and defense, sure.
What are you talking about? We don't have all of our eggs in one basket.... We are just down an important rotation player that has had downstream effects. And yes..... the spotlight was put on Amen and Reed to take up the slack and it's been inconsistent. Sengun has clearly taken a leap but has his limitations and Durant is 37. Holiday is a great 3rd guard. Bad injury luck happens.
I blame Kevin Durant. dude is too old to be so dumb. At some point you gotta trust the players to not be complete morons.
Durant shouldn’t be have to be a playmaker. We need to get him more open spot ups. He tends to turn the ball over a lot when he’s forced to be playmaker for others.
In the 2025 NBA, playing a majority of your minutes with 3 non-spacers on the floor is contrarian. Rostering only 3 guards out of your 15 roster spots is contrarian. Shooting the fewest pull up 3's of any team in ten years is contrarian. Having 7 of your 10 non-minimum contract guys be PF's or C's is contrarian. No other team is doing this. You can call it contrarian or a gimmick strategy or unique roster construction or whatever, but it's a strategic choice the FO made. FWIW, I think they are very conscious of that and are doing this very purposefully, they're sharp guys. I bet they would even use the term contrarian internally. To win in a 30 team competitive league when you don't have the talent advantage, you have to either get very lucky or be contrarian and get proven right. So I'm not even saying it's dumb or definitely wrong -- I think it's very well considered, this FO is anything but dumb. I just disagree with the choice.
We see this so different, but you’re never disrespectful about it. You never blast people as stupid because they don’t agree with you. I **** with that approach. Thank you.
I love you DD but this is your thing for every team ever. Texans have terrible coaching….Demeco is a a first time coach to win 10 times games all of his first 3 seasons…at least every years he’s coached…are you sure you get it the way he does? Do you honestly think you could replicate that? All of your posts on Sunday, win or lose, is to belittle coaching. Do you really think you can coach better than Demeco Ryans? Rockets have terrible coaching, you say... And the assumption behind all of it is that you’re smarter than all the coaches you question…which is pretty much every coach ever. Rockets earned the 2 seed last year…you could do that too while also coaching the Texans past a 10 win season? I’ve coached AAU hoops for 5 years now. It’s not easy..man it’s tough. I’m a lawyer who helps people buy and sell companies, but in the moment when you’re coaching it’s tough. To be fair, I’m not paid to coach. I coach through a nonprofit…and it’s so not easy. I just helped a client. Sell a $45 million business, and that was stressful for sure. I was paid to do that. I’m not paid to coach, but that’s more stressful for me. I’m certain you’ll have a response to this that will be great…and none of this is disrespect, because I think you’re a great human based on nothing that gets posted in the GARM. …those things matter much more. I’d just suggest you have a little more humility in your takedown of every coach that’s ever coached here. It’s a really tough job.
How many rostered "guards" do the Lakers or Denver have? It's actually not very contrarian in the modern NBA since playmakers aren't just traditional guards. I would argue that many teams are focusing on possessions so the Rocket's strategy is taking hold. I don't think it's gimmicky... strategies are constantly evolving in order to tilt the math as it's a constant cat and mouse game. Maybe I just don't view it as being "contrarian" but making the best use of the available resources. We aren't rejecting "modern NBA"..... I'm sure the coaches and FO want the Rockets to hit more 3 pointers at that high clip. I don't really view it as a "choice" but the cause and effect of bad luck and development of the young core not being contender level. It's a pretty high bar we've set.....
We have Reed and Amen but they need to be utilized differently than FVV and İme is not good at doing that. FVV is very low maintenance in terms of coaching and puts your baseline at a reasonable level that the coaching weaknesses are not exposed. When ime doesn’t have fvv, he is not as good because to get positive value out of Reed you have to apply a different strategy because you can’t get much value by making him a better defender or play the fvv game. Whether it is Sengun, green or Reed, it doesn’t matter for ime, he is focused on their defense. You can ask that from players, but you need to offer them something in return on offense, you need to do your part too.
I don't totally disagree. But we aren't lacking playmaker. Sengun and even Durant can do it, to a certain extent. What we lack is a guy who can handle the ball steadily and direct the offense. Fred is the only guy. Sengun and Durant are too shaky as ball handler. Holiday can handle the ball okay but he is not a floor general. Same with Amen and Reed. Holiday is what he is. The hope is Amen and Reed can fill the role. My feeling is that Reed is more promising. We need to invest in developing him toward that. Amen can be the secondary guy in the future. And they have to get it sooner than later or this playoffs will be ugly.
They did not go out and get a guard who can handle the ball and direct offense. Holiday is just a shooter. Amen and Reed just started to learn on the job a couple months ago. FVV is the only player we have who can be a full time starting PG. Again, I get it that they want to develop Amen and Reed in that role. I'm cool with it. But don't tell me they didn't anticipate the possibility that FVV might miss a significant part of the season.
