Why are you using playoffs to judge the 2025 team when the playoffs havent even happened yet? Right now the Rox are 4rth in the West standings and top 5 in net rating so they are a top tier team full stop.
I think I see why you and I are having a communication gap. You are defining "top tier" with historical meaning. I am not. I'm just saying THIS season, not even last season. Right now, the Rockets are a top team in the league. I'm not even comparing this team to last year because this team is very very different than last season. The Rockets lost 3 new starters from last year. My contention is that if the Rockets had FVV playing that this would take pressure off of Amen, Alp, and KD from having to dribble the ball up the court. That alone would be valuable. FVV would also get many more uncontested shots because you have to double KD and/or Alp.
I feel like this is one of those situations where the stats are kinda misleading, yeah, they look great on paper .... but look a little deeper. It's not like he's executing the offense in the half court. He's a monster in transition or against an already compromised defense and that's where he does the majority of his damage. But when it becomes a half court set, it's mostly point Durant running the show. When the playoffs roll around, that half court offense is a much greater part of the game - everything slows down & gets more physical, ball handling becomes much more important and transition buckets much less frequent.
In the playoffs Amen was pretty decent. 15/7/3 on 49% FG, 54.5% TS Not the best but also not terrible esp when you consider the defense. He should be better this year.
Funny thing, the Rockets were the most efficient at the PnR when the ballhandler kept it last playoffs because of the namesake of this thread. That Kevin Durant guy has also been better than most PGs at isolation and PNR in the playoffs. I'm not saying the Rockets don't need playmaking and shooting, I'm saying it could come from a PG, SG, or SF. Prefereably from someone who isn't turnover prone. I don't like the arguments it has to be a PG. I don't like the arguments that the Rockets don't need a PG. I don't think risk more than SRPs at this deadline unless they make a big move and just put their hopes on the guys already here. I'm much less confident in the Rockets since Reed fell off a cliff.
The entire assumption of our contending status next season is based on Fred’s knee, a healthy 33yr old Steven Adams, and non-declining 38yr old KD. It’s flimsy at best. Folks should feel justified in questioning the direction of this team. They are selling magic beans.
Ehh... I would say the smart people are first stating the importance of a big summer of improvement for Amen, Sengun, Reed, and Bari. While the supporting veteran pieces are important, everyone who looks objectively at the Rockets knows this team is going nowhere without the young core leading the charge, and at least Amen and Sengun playing at an all star level. When people are talking about the importance of those veterans, I think mostly what they are really focusing in on are the deficiencies of the young core that those veterans theoretically supplement.
I have been impressed lately by Amen's passing and court vision. He has improved a lot. That's why I've always felt that Amen has the highest ceiling among our players. He is such a fast learner. That said, from my eye test and imperfect memories, I feel that a lot of his assists are from broken plays (off of scrambling, offensive rebounds, etc.) rather than organized half court initiating. He still has a ways to go to be a floor general kind of PG. Part of the problem, of course, is his lack of outside shooting. That is a big obstacle for him to create against a set defense. And his handle needs further tightening. I also think that the responsibility of getting his teammates involved kind of hampered his finishing. A lot of times he tries to pass off from close range when he should have just gone strong to the rim.
I just feel like the bolded hindsight. Not only did it suck that FVV got injured and was out for the season, the timing sucked too so we couldn't really do anything. As @dobro1229 mentioned, ultimately it's the young core this season that will determine how far we go. "The plan" was always to evaluate our young playmaking core, it just got accelerated with FVV's absence. Sengun is also part that young playmaking core and feel like he's gotten better but it's still not enough to be even a dark horse contender. We are still evaluating and holding onto those additional future picks, but maybe this season gives us a lot of answers about the direction of the team.
well if it’s all about the development of Reed, Sengun, Bari and Amen I’d say, we should be concerned about Bari’s slow development. No shooting improvement from our two best core players Sengun & Amen. And anyone who doesn’t see that Reed is quite a ways away from being a big-time starter isn’t watching these games. Obviously Amen continues to get better but the player who has improved the most isn’t signed long term in Tari. So a 32 yr old Fred coming off ACL and several prior yrs where he missed significant time is doing a lot of heavy lifting in optimistic forecasts of team success. We have no dependable big behind Sengun. You have to assume Adams is not gonna be healthy next yr. And you have to assume some eventual decline from KD. I really don’t think we are as close as folks want to believe. The current plan is not gonna get it done.
I can see where you are coming from: Yeah, this Rockets team is one of the top 5 squads in the league. BUT I feel like there's a very large gap between those teams. OKC is at the top followed closely by San Antonio - you could argue with the Spurs being 3-1 against OKC that they should be flipped. Then there's Denver, the 3rd best team when healthy. After that, its Detroit and Houston but there's a pretty big gap between them and Denver. The Rockets are 3-6 against that group San Antonio is 5-2 hasn't played Detroit. OKC is 4-3 hasn't played Detroit. Detroit is 3-1 with two of those wins coming against Denver without Jokic, yet to play OKC or SA. Yeah, they are pretty good but there's a pretty big gap between them and OKC, SA, Denver.
Should just trade off Fred, Adams and Durant, look for younger promising players to put around the Core 5, under 27. They have plenty of time Eason is oldest at 24!
Which is why upgrade trade is probably a good bet in the offseason if we look outmatched in the playoffs.
I'm with you mostly. They are a ways away. Relying on the veterans next season is a dicey gamble... but one that could be mitigated with a big summer of development. The frustrating thing is going into last offseason we knew what these deficiencies were pretty clearly, and there was so little sustained improvement. You can see the makings of an attempt at developing, but after like 2 weeks you see all of these guys just settle back into essentially who they were the last season. Quite frustrating TBH. I think the main thing Stone needs to try and avoid is ending up where the Grizzlies ended up the past 2 seasons after building their young core, having some success, and 2 seasons later being back to tanking. Had Ja Morant alone developed his deficiencies (maturity, and shooting), that team could be in a much different place today. Luckily we don't have to worry too much thus far about personality deficiencies, and instead can focus on the on-the-court stuff. With the vets (even including KD) I'll take what we can get from them next season, but this team is still IMO a 2nd tier team until Amen, and Sengun mostly take that next step.... if they are ever capable of doing that.... which might never happen, but we'll see. Amen should be shooting like 1,000 shots a day in the summer IMO. Like if Scottie Scheffler couldn't putt the golf ball how many putts a day do you think he would practice????... A Fck ton. So let's see what happens this season, but more than anything I'm more interested in what happens this Summer on the practice court.... especially with Amen and Sengun and being able to shoot the damn ball.
I'm going to disagree on it being hindsight: I made the statement at the time, before the injury to FVV that they should add another guard as insurance for injury or the young guys not working out. There were a few other posters also begging for a guard at the time Turns out, both reasons are in play. Funny thing is, the guy I wanted them to go after hasn't played at all this year (Ty Jerome).
Hmm, my gut agrees that there's a gap between us and the top teams. However, looking at the game log, I will point out though that most of our losses against those teams were CLOSE. OKC loss in double overtime, Detroit 4 point loss in regulation, Denver three point loss in regulation, Denver loss in overtime. We did get our asses whipped once by the Spurs last week and once in November, and by OKC a few weeks ago. Other than those three games, we've either won or been right there with these teams. There's an element of execution in winning close games, but there's also an element of luck. It's hard for me to tell for sure how much of each is responsible for our bad record, but I certainly think we're capable of being competitive with the top teams.
Fair enough. I just think the FO was more interested in seeing how Amen, Sengun, and Reed (to a lesser extent Bari and Tari) could handle playmaking than getting playmaking depth.
Ty Jerome has now played 2 games and scored 39 points in those two games on 54% shooting. DFS meanwhile has scored 50 points in 17 games on 31% shooting. Jerome also makes less money than DFS. Honestly going over Stone's moves this past offseason, post-KD trade, is just fail after fail after fail. That Stone has so many defenders thinking he's some genius GM might be Stone's biggest superpower.
Unless amen learns how to shoot outside of 5 feet he isn't going to become the guy everyone wants him to be. I'm not sure how much better Sengun is going to get he is already an all-star level player. As for Reed and Bari. I think Bari could develop into more with a better coach. Reed I just don't see it with.
Given the way we ended up drafting good but didn't hit the jackpot on a generational talent, we'll probably likely be contending "if we ever do reach a peak" with the Piston's model vs a typical Lakers, or Hakeem Rockets type of model that wins on the back of a superstar generational talent. And I think we all should be okay with that because as a fanbase we are likely to be much more satisfied with our journey as fans having a team that is deep with really good borderline star players for a longer period of time, than to be a team that is only happy if we luck out with a generational talent just because the Spurs got lucky with Wemby, the Lakers rigged their way into Luka, etc... and have a GM that reflects that by injecting turmoil that takes big swings and has a low chance of striking gold. The fact is none of these youngsters are going to go away this Summer and come back as Hakeem, and win us two titles back to back. However with some growth in the areas they are deficient, and some help with veterans that plug holes, we could have a couple seasons where we as fans look back at these years regardless of titles... and feel pretty good about the product we had, and the enjoyment that team gave us in a world as Fcked up as our world is going to be the next couple years. Sorry for the psycho babble bs, but I think it's important for us as fans to think about what we have in that context to enjoy it a little more, and not have another thing in our lives that makes us miserable bastards.
