Stone didn’t hit the panic button, but just surrendered. Why should we support this team, this season. Season ticket holders should be raising hell after those comments. KD should be raising hell.
Stone is clearly risk-averse when it comes to in-season trades. He never does anything substantial at the trade deadline. If he really said “I’m not sure it’s our year,” he deserves to be fired on the spot. Saying that sends a terrible message to the players on a team with the fifth-best record in the NBA.
Key Championship & Career Details: NBA Championships: 1994, 1995 Finals MVP: 1994, 1995 Season MVP: 1994 Defensive Player of the Year: 1993, 1994 All-Time Blocks Leader: 3,830 Olajuwon is the only player in NBA history to win the MVP, Finals MVP, and Defensive Player of the Year awards in the same season, achieved in 1994. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008.
I have been a Rockets fan for 30+ years. You never jump off your team. We are not on the bottom (although some of you are acting like we are) We had no room to make a trade. We have hardly any space to get a decent player back without giving up a decent player.
he hasn't given up at all. Some fans have. A trade mid-season isn't always the best way to go. Especially if you have no cap to do it.
We don’t even need a star PG, we need someone who can put pressure on the defense - finish at the rim decently when asked and who can hit a decent amount of 3s when open… while having a low turnover rate
There is one man who needs to stop walking away from the rim like he is ushering in people to a movie theatre.................. Sengun. He has been leaving the lane open far more often lately. He just walks away.
This whole thread is confusing me. I've been drinking a little so that might also be part of it but I'm not sure what the terrible sin is that Stone has committed. He said something about it not being our year? If it's anything like that is it possible he means something to the effect of "it's not our year to go all in"? If that's what he meant then good for him. We can still win this. We still have two top 15 players in KD and Alpi. Amen is getting better by the week and Jabari is also. It seems to me that all that's needed to actually win it all, WIN IT ALL, is the coach install a few offensive sets and SGA break his leg. The first might actually happen and the second....well we'll see. I don't want him to break his leg. I'm just saying.
Early spin for an unsuccessful year purely out of his own hands. Injury luck? How about them Boston? The Hospital Celtics just mauled your sad team of almost full strength. How about them Denver? Lost the MVP for god remembers how long and they are still ahead of us. Please give me a break.
(Why did you stand pat?) The process was sticking with the guys we have. We talked to every team, had discussions. This year in particular, with the way the cap works, we’re hard capped. Constructing trades in the first place is hard so that created one limitation. Generally, the team has been very good the first half so we weren’t looking to make change for changes sake. Given the number of injuries we’ve taken, one thing we did look at was “Is this just not our year?” Leading into today, we’ve had some of the worst injury luck in the NBA but credit to Ime and the guys in there. Our record doesn’t reflect that. Our offensive and defensive rankings don’t reflect that. We like this group. Credit to Tilman. He didn’t have an appetite to taking a step back. He definitely wanted to spend the money and give this group a chance to be as good as it could be and just keep building and moving forward. (What do you like about where your team is at?) It’s been disjointed, the first half has been. Starting from before preseason when Fred went down, we’ve had to figure things out on the fly a little bit but done a good job and there’s a lot more to come. Generally, we’re in a competitive place in a competitive conference. I don’t feel this group has played its best basketball. We’ve had a lot of change, way more than we anticipated this past summer. That provides an opportunity for this group to coalesce over the 2nd half. I do firmly believe in continuity and there’s real advantages to teams that do have continuity and this group does not have that. Time should be our friend in that respect. (Update on Fred’s return this season and why is this a championship level offense without Fred?) Right now, we’re the 5th best offense in basketball and 5th best defense. If you want to win a championship, a good rule of thumb is at minimum you have to be top 10 and top 10. You really want to be top 5 and top 5. Now we’re 5, not 1. We’re 5 and 5. Some teams are very, very good. We can be better. I don’t think this group had the benefit of continuity and the players playing the bulk of our minutes are 24 and younger. They need to be improving not just year to year but within the season. (Update on Fred?) You’d have to ask Fred. We want Fred to do what’s best for Fred. He’s a big part of what we’ve done the past 2 years and expect he’ll be a big part going forward. Literally the toughest NBA player I’ve ever met. If he can play, he’ll play. (Per cleaning the glass, 22nd in points per play in half court but 6th overall in large part due to offensive rebounding, second chance points, that kind of thing. How would you assess the half court offense and can the offensive rebounding and second chance points is sustainable without Adams?) We want to be better but our offense has been very good. I talked this about this past summer. There are no style points. Saying the thing we do better than everyone else doesn’t matter, I’m not saying you’re saying that but if someone would, that’s not an argument I buy into. What I buy into is are you effective or not? And we are and have been. Since he went down, we’ve been rebounding at a 36% offensive rebounding clip which would still be #1 in the NBA. The one thing I do believe and expect post-all-star, Steven is a bit of a crutch. Amen has been the best non-big offensive rebounder in past years. Tari was in past years. Jabari always well above average. Well yeah, get back to doing it. It’s great if Steven gets every offensive rebound and you can chill but we have talented guys who can do it and puts an onus on us to do it by committee. To the extent this group has an identity, that is a big part and we should continue to lean into it. Ime: We’ve had ups and downs on offense for sure, in large part the shooting. Started the year off really well shooting the three, best percentage in the league, although lower attempts. Had the rough stretch vs Portland and Sacramento. Went through our slump there. We haven’t had any drop off at all since Steven been gone. We want to maintain that identity for sure. … Offensively, whether it’s Jabari in his slump or AlP in his slump at times, when guys come back to the norm, those numbers will go up. Continue to work on pace, ball & body movement and in half court, needs to be not as stagnant and dependent on isolations. (You talked before the season with Fred going down and Amen/AlP taking on more responsibilities. Thoughts on how they’ve handled it?) Stone: Our offense is 5th overall so I’m very pleased. Amen in particular has been a stabilizing force for us. They’re doing great. They’re 23. They need to improve. I’m happy with them, love ‘em. Thing I love most is not how good they are currently but how hard they’re working to become better. My expectation is that will continue. I know they’re not as good as they want to be and not as good as we want them to be but they both had good year to date. Our pace needs to pick up. Amen is the one guy who plays well in transition. We have to run with him. AlP has to figure stuff out. He has to cut his turnovers down a little bit. Both of them do. Overall, super happy with their progress. AlP, to me, has played at an all-star level this year. Overall, very pleased.
