Maybe you forgot we have 40M in injuries. The team literally was 11-11 with just FVV missing last year and now we have the same no of wins in a tougher western conference than last year. The team def improved but we have injuries this year we didnt have last year.
Sample size is a thing. 3-0 means anything to you? Rockets have the same amount of wins as last year while losing Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, FVV, Whitmore and Steven Adams. Aside from Okogie and Reed the only other addition was Kevin Durant. KD deserves an A for almost replacing 3 starters and the 6th man last year. Constant tos you mean 3 on average??? Blaming him for losses is pretty dumb if he wasnt around who would make those buckets? If everyone averaged 26/5/4 on 52/41/86/87 just like KD The rockets would be 82-0 yet here you are blaming him for BS.
KD deserves an A+ anybody who says otherwise is wrong period. Just look at Dillon Brooks ans Jalen Green on the Suns and tell me again how KD isnt an A+. He saved the Rockets season if we didnt do thst trade Rockets would be a lotto team and gice our pick to OKC.
4-0 now. lol. Offense and team just plays better without him. He’s a ball stopper and complains when he doesn’t get it so we changed our entire offense from first month of season to force feeding KD and that’s when things went off the rails. His turnovers were absolutely terrible and unforced most of time. And how many clutch free throws is he gonna miss this year for a 88% free throw shooter. Not to mention the whole burner account fiasco that shoulda given him an F. Hope rockets trade him this summer as he’s a cancer to our team and stupid Ime relied on him way too much. Losing Jalen green was going to make us better regardless of if we got KD or not. Dude was a negative player. Phoenix saw that first hand this year as they were worse with him.
Offense and team plays better without him? Says who? You? Where even is your proof of that? Your 4-0 sample size? LMAO Yeah losing Jalen made us better guess who made us lose Jalen? KD. If it wasnt for him wed be stuck with Jalen for the next 3 yrs.
Objectively, we've had far worse regular seasons. Recently, too. This season wasn't bad, but it was not fun to watch, and did not inspire me with any hope of success in the playoffs. In before we have a miraculous finals run. (Yeah, right.) (I take full credit if we somehow do.)
If you watched us play this year without him you know the team just played more free. More ball movement and people weren’t playing scared. When’s he out there it’s like they were told not to shoot and get KD the ball so everyone just plays so damn passive. Ime started staggering Sengun and KDs minutes which is never going to work if your two best players can’t play together. Offense is better with ball in Sengun hands and KD as a screener yet we always run the inverse of that for turnovers. Our team just doesn’t make sense. We have all guys under 24 years old. And then an old ass KD. I’d rather just continue to play and develop young guys and see where that takes us because we ain’t winning **** with KD anyways, I still don’t know how he wasn’t suspended for the burners. Like he’s tearing the team apart doing more harm than good. No chance he gets an A
Remarkably similar to the 24-25 season statistically. Finished with the same exact record, ranked nearly the same in net rating. Both teams went on big late season runs, this year 9-1, last year 15-2 to pump up our records. At the end of the 24-25 season I was significantly more optimistic about our future. This year Ime had deep flaws exposed, and Stone further cemented his flaws. Most significantly, our best young player from last season took an enormous, nightmarish step back, Sengun went from a team leading on-off split of + 6.8 to the worst in our rotation at - 4.9, his defensive rating dropped significantly. We didn't just lose Fred, Adams, we lost Sengun in a very bizarre way for most of the season. Eason was still a hyper inconsistent player with poor decision making. Jabari hasn't changed over the last 3 seasons. Amen improved overall but critically his jumper is still broken. Reed took a big step offensively from horrific to passable, but his upside given his defensive woes and inability to create space is glaring. I'm just not sure what we have to look forward to, because it's not going to be a 38 year old KD, or falling apart vets in Fred, Adams, DFS, etc
He missed 3 games. By your logic the Rockets defeated their opponents by 30 pts this game why do we even have Jabari, Sengun and Amen? Get rid of all of them we beat the opponent by 30 without those bums. Rockets also have a perfect record without Amen, omg what a scrub. Rockets won 5 games without Sengun, almost double KD. Ok man you are right lets get rid of Amen and Sengun and the offense and defense will be way better. Where that takes us is giving the pick to OKC do you even realize that? The only young guys in the KD trade we got rid off are Jalen Green (which you admit sucks ass) and Khaman Maluach, who cant even get any PT in PHX. We still kept our young guys and even added JD Davison and Okogie (only 26) to the young guys. You wrote so much stuff and not a single statistic cuz the nos will expose you immediately. If you think the KD files tore the team apart howd they win 52 games, the same record as last year with injuries to FVV and Adams? This is the same team that went 11-11 without FVV last year. Compare 22 games to 3 SMH. Oh yeah the team is so broken up by the KD files they won the same games as last year despite massive injuries and a limp noodle MLE signing. PS You keep talking about TOs you realize KD and Sengun have the same amount of tos? Yeah lets give the ball to Sengun who also turns the ball over as much as KD! You got zero clue about anything you have posted thats why KD gets an A+
Amen going from 68% to 78% free throws gives me hope. The eye test also tells me he’s not far from having a respectable mid-range game.
We can look forward to competing and being a dark horse for the next couple of years. Just look at the assets OKC is getting every year no other GM can compete with that. SAS got gifted Wemby and also got Harper as a package deal if it werent for that they would still be sucking now. Outside of OKC and SAS I would say Rockets have the best mix of current and future assets. We just need a better coach, somebody who doesnt bench Holiday and Reed when they need a 3 to win or tie the game and someone who doesnt lose a double digit lead in OT with 2 mins to go.
Just hope we upgrade the bench this off season. Attach a pick to DFS and try to upgrade for another guard off the bench who can actually score 10-15pts any given night. I think we would’ve won a few more games if we had a decent guard rotation
Grades without a rubric are just opinions. The sale of tickets and other revenue sources are all that really matters. Entertainment value, is the public willing to pay to see it. I lost interest in the team and watched out of habit more than anything. Ime isn’t even a love to hate character like Milkhair was. It was kind of flat as a whole for me personally. I wanted and truly expected more. Stone shared that it’s okay because it doesn’t matter anyway. But KD got his points and that is all that matters.
I don’t think you understood anything I said and rambled about of bunch of nothing. I do not care if we won 52 games cuz we aren’t contenders. KD is stunting the growth of the young guys. The Rockets should be using Senhub and running a warriors type offense with cuts and movement. KD iso is fine in short spurts not spammed the entire game. He has more turnovers than Sengun and less assists. Plus a lot of Sengun’s turnovers are stupid offensive fouls on moving screens that wouldn’t happen if he had the ball. If you don’t think the KD files affected the team I dunno what to tell you cuz they played really bad for a stretch right after. we have 5 losses also without sengun. 5-5 is not great. And a couple of those are to some of the worst teams in the league….. The rockets woulda still made the playoffs without him. Doesn’t matter if OKC gets the pick. Cuz it would be a different team than what you see now. It’s not like you just remove KD from this roster we woulda had someone else in place of his 50 million and probably also not have signed DFS who is the worst signing in Rockets history,
If respectable is just being able to get off a shot late in the shot clock, sure. My eye test is that he is basically Paolo from mid-range. He can get open looks there, but unfortunately, he's the one who has to shoot them. Still good when getting any shot is a plus late in the shot clock. I highly doubt he becomes a guy who can go to the mid-range early in the shot clock for an efficient shot. I just don't see any evidence of developing touch during game action other than close to the basket. I like Amen's defense (even though I thought it was better last season). I like Amen around the basket. I like his cutting. I like his feel for the game. I like his athleticism. I like his rebounding. If Amen ever develops shooting touch away from the basket, he's an MVP candidate. I just don't have much faith in the shooting beyond 8-10 feet during game action becoming respectable.
The C and D grades for Eason and DFS are the ones that hurt the most. They're supposed to be stellar on defense and replace the environment that Brooks and FVv's injury took away. If those 2 did what they normally have done, it's an even better team defending the perimeter. They finished inside the top 10. The Void Adams ankle left also hurt everyone. That's 3 extra offensive possessions. Sengun isn't UFC'd without Adams doing similar things to them. I like it when they allow both teams to UFC each other. The lack of no consistent pick and roll until the final month of the season also made the offense easier to defend. They were replaced with the Teen Wolf set for KD and Alpi. Reed should be an A. With no bench, where are we without him. His 14pts are extremely valuable considering it's his 1st year playing more than 5 minutes a half.
Kevin Durant put up 26 points on 52-41-88. He played 77 games, was second (to Thompson) in minutes played in the entire league. His True shooting is 64%. Even if you take into account the 3+ TO, which is more or less his career average, that's basically as efficient a scoring season as anybody in the history of the franchise. Even if you don't like Dickerson or the end product - that's about as good a season as you could possibly expect (also probably the greatest age 37 season in NBA history, or at least up there with LeBron)
