Title Teams can only afford to have 1 Non-Shooter in their Rotation

It works better if one of the bigs can shoot (like Chet). I think Sengun will become a decent 3pt shooter in the next few years and thrive as a PF.

 

I’m in no rush to trade Amen, Sengun or Adams. I think 2 of them can develop into somewhat capable 3pt shooters. Amen from the corners and Sengun from the top of the arc. We just need to be patient.

 

I agree we don’t need to be in a rush, but we need to be opportunistic and realistic. If we can get a high pick in this draft using Sengun then we probably need to go ahead and pull the trigger. It’s all about the return. Adams developing a 3 pt shot is hilarious.

 

I’m all for being opportunistic and realistic. I don’t think opportunity to get in the top 10 of this years draft using Sengun or Amen is realistic though. If it is and that’s the route they want to take then they better have plans to offload a lot of the other vets as well (KD-cough, cough).

 

This depends on coaching. The Rockets barely shoot threes and Ime likes it that way. What good are more shooting threats who wont be shooting threes? Change the coach first or it wont matter who you get.

 

Top 10 is not good enough to trade Sengun unless it comes with two really good young players like Okongwu and NAW. Top 3 is a different story, because I think Peterson, Boozer, and Dybansta all have perennial all-stars written all over them so it’s worth the gamble. We could then pursue a stretch 5 this year or next that would fit with Amen and the younger guys. Amen easily gets you in the top 10 and wouldn’t trade him even for top 3, but that’s because I think Amen’s ceiling is higher than all of them (but that’s just my opinion, of course).

 

Agree with this. 3 pt misses lead to transition points. Ime’s extreme focus on defense is one of the reasons the Rockets don’t take very many 3’s.

 

Duh. Not rocket science. While fans continue to blame coaching, the starting lineup makes little sense in a Center and guard who both can’t shoot more than 12 ft. That’s unheard of and I don’t think that’s ever happened in the history of the game.

When we got blown out by the spurs on the reg season they loaded up on Durant. Every time the ball rotated weakside corner with Amen he is wide open. He usually misses the corner 3 or tries to drive and by that point the defense has recovered into the paint

 

There are two possibilities I see with Amen: Either you build the whole team around generating turnovers and defensive rebounds and running the floor, with athletic floor spacers all around him--which is the only way you can play him on the ball as a point guard / point forward with his current skillset--or he gets decent at shooting the corner three (which I think he can do, given his FT improvement) and you play him off the ball as more of a power forward on offense, like a blend between Aaron Gordon and Draymond Green, i.e. a guy who is basically the best roleplayer in basketball, to the point of making All-NBA teams.

Playing him as a guard with no stretch 5 and a slow-paced team is not going to work.

 

I think he will at least get 15-18 ft jumper and 3 pt shot similar to how Jeremai Grant developed. But it will take another 1-2 years I believe. I think we’ll see more mid range j’s next year and maybe slight improvement on 3’s. He showed in the playoffs he could shoot from FT line and beyond.

 

Or if Amen shoots 6.5-7 3’s/game like other normal 2 guards then Rockets would be up there middle of pack. 36-36.5 threes a game. OKC shot 37.9 and Spurs shot 37.5 FYI

 

There's never a single approach to winning a championship.

When Magic came into the league, there were people who said that you couldn't win with a really tall PG. Then he won and everyone then wanted a tall pg.

People used to believe that you couldn't win a title with a predominantly jump shooting team. How many times did Barkley say that exact thing about GS? Then they won and everyone started copying it.

No doubt that most teams are currently built around 3pt shooting, but that doesn't mean that you can't win without it.

Want proof? Look back at the 2025-2026 season. When the playoffs came around, OKC shot the ball terribly but still won the title.

For the entire playoffs, OKC only shot 35.0% from behind the arc. In comparison, the Rockets shot 37.4% in those same playoffs while losing to GS. In '25-'26, league wide 3pt% during the regular season was 36.0% and 35.4% during the playoffs.

In last year's playoffs, here's the 3pt% of the top 8 players, by minutes played, in the 25-26 playoffs for OKC:

SGA - 28.3%
Jalen Williams - 30.4%
Holmgren - 30.4%
Caruso - 41.1%
Hartenstein - 0%
Dort - 34.3%
Wiggins - 36.2%
Cason Wallace - 32.3%

Did they step up and improve in the finals? Nope.

In the finals, OKC shot 33.8% from behind the arc.

SGA - 24.2%
Jalen Williams - 26.7%
Holmgren - 15.8%
Caruso - 40.0%
Hartenstein - 0%
Dort - 45.5%
Wiggins - 36.4%
Cason Wallace - 31.3%


You could argue that for most of the playoffs (and especially during the Finals), OKC had 3 to 5 poor shooters ( or more accurately, guys shooting poorly) on the floor at any time, yet they still won. They didn't shoot the ball great this year either, but they got to the WCF and got knocked out by SA. The difference, Wemby in the paint prevented them ( especially SGA) from getting to the rim and scoring and racking up free throws that they got against other opponents.

Having 3 point shooting is great, I'm not saying otherwise but there's no single formula for winning. That's the way it's always been. A team wins playing a certain way and other teams copy it. That becomes the perceived "way to win" until someone does it differently and then that becomes the way to win.

Right now, the majority of teams are built around 3 point shooting, as is OKC. The difference between the good ones and the not so good ones, is that the good teams can still compete on nights when they are not hitting 3s. If you can't then you're pretty much dead on bad shooting nights and those will happen. This year, we shot the 3 poorly vs the Lakers and our best alternative option was on the bench injured so we had a tough time scoring.

 

There were random nights years back, where I'd watch a Blazers game when Matisse Thybulle come in limited minutes and do some positive defensive things. I'll be like, 'hey, good on him'. But never did I utter; 'the Blazers should build around Matisse. Cornerstone: Thybulle'.

In terms of future core, none of the young prospects are a MJ or even prime Pippen, but that doesn't mean because of a lack of A1 option, we build around a Dennis Rodman. Detroit likes Ausar, but team is built around Cade.

They are good complimentary players, they are not your franchise players. To reconfigure the make up of a team around a Rodman-type, is Lunacy. Even a Gobert like team, the defense might be anchored by him, but the team is built around Ant.

1. get better development coaches
2. Get back into the draft of possible. To find that A1 option. And if Amen can you that high pick, you do it.


This kind of talk about building your identity around Amelz is crazy pills.

 

In football, if a part of your team is dog crap, dragging the rest of the team down, you replace that coach. Take the offensive line for the Texans, for instance. Yes, eventually you might also need to change the personnel, but why is it that, year in and year out these Rockets underperform expectations in terms of shooting—while our shot quality continues to be excellent—but there are never any rumblings about switching out our shooting coach? As another example, Sengun always comes out of the offseason with a reworked jumpshot, looking smooth for the first few weeks before our coaches presumably teach him the old bad habits all over again. Amen also seems to get demonstrably worse after the first couple of weeks.

 

If this is accurate 2 years is a small price to pay. Calls to trade Amen for a top 3 pick in this draft is crazy to me. Sengun would be a reasonable gamble.