Zach Lowe: Houston keeps surprising me that they are not trying

Who might you expect to be in the desired column?

where are the ops? I could suggest some; I suspect the FI hopes to be in the facilitating column as opposed to having a target core they are focused on.

 

Realistically, the only chance they really have to be competitive is to add minor pieces and run it back. It won't be good enough obviously, but if they stay healthy and everyone else they are competing with doesn't, there's at least somewhat of a chance. They took a big swing on Durant and don't want to admit that it was a mistake. I mean that's basically all there is to it. Ride or die. I personally don't agree with it, but I understand it to a point. Hopefully they can retool after this season with a better plan, but for now what you see is what you're going to get.

 

Zach Lowe is well connected and he isn't the only prominent person in the industry pointing out that the Rockets have not been deeply involved in the Giannis and Brown deals. FWIW Windhorst said that the Rockets ARE going to make changes. I have personally heard the Rockets are talking to lots of teams, but they are just not willing to pay the cost for Brown and Giannis.

While I do not agree with some of the decisions that the front office has made - Giannis is over 30 years old and Brown is 29 years old. The Rockets are not a "player away" from winning a championship so I don't think targeting 29-30 year old players is the smart play when you will lose so many assets.

The Rockets should continue to rebuild IMO and try to accumulate as many first round draft picks as possible. The problem is that teams are also a little spooked moving unprotected picks with the new lottery changes.

 

This is a reporter complaining that the Rockets are not making offseason news that will help him sell more copy.

 

I don't think that it was a "big mistake", I think the problem is that the young players are not as good as the Rockets front office thought they would be. There are a number of good guys but no one great or close to it.

As a result - losing the #10 pick in the draft looms larger without the young players being special.

If the Rockets adjust and do a soft rebuild (accumulate draft picks, increase player development and scouting) this could work out well because the Rockets figured out they aren't good enough earlier by getting KD.

 

There are some decent playmaker and 3pt shooters we can go after once free agency officially starts on Wednesday.
I'll push the panic WTF button if we do nothing and just resign Tari.
No way we should run it back with our current roster.

 

I think a bigger issue is that they've tied themselves long term to a bottom 5 head coach.... but admitting that would be the same as firing yourself if you're the GM that hired and extended that coach.

They are in a weird spot that I'm not sure how they get themselves out.

 

Jaylen Brown has been in an interesting situation with the Celtics. I'm pretty sure he's a good player. However, the Celtics generally play better without him because the Celtics have a ton of good players. He makes a ton of money relative to the other non-Tatum Celtic players. I applaud the Celtics for identifying moving Brown's salary as better than moving the cheaper good Celtic players.

I don't know if Brown would help or hurt the Rockets. The Rockets don't have Tatum, and could use a high volume, moderate efficiency guy that commands gravity. That said, Brown is paid very well.

 

They are committed to seeing what they have in Alpi, Amen, and Reed which is a very good thing since they are all a few years away from their primes. Giannis would have been a disaster. I do hope they find a way to commit to the young guys and get rid of the KD cancer. Hiring a coach who can coach both offense and defense would help tremendously.

 

did you want the rockets to gut their core(Whatever you think of them) for giannis who hasn't played 70 games in 7 years except for once and didn't put the rockets on the team for a contract extension or jaylen brown who for whatever reason wants to leave a great organization to get his own team, is 29, and has a massive contract?

 

if you don’t try, then the expectations remain low and you have an excuse for when you fail

y’all can go ahead and warmly welcome another embarrassing 1st round exit

 

The Rockets have pretty much signaled (via media sources you can trust) that they don’t believe in investing in this group. This is the right call.

But then - what is the strategy?

If the strategy were to cash in and then draft and develop new talent, Sengun/KD trades would have happened before the last strong draft in years. Didn’t happen.

If the strategy were to find an established young star to pair with Amen, then the Rockets would have been at least in the conversation for LaMelo. Rockets weren’t interested.

If the strategy were to trade for an established star via accumulated pick capital - we would have pursued Giannis. We weren’t interested.

If you don’t think your core is good enough, but you’re sitting on assets you don’t want to pay for an old star, or a young star, or a high pick in a strong draft… what else is there? Am I missing something?

 

Not necessarily. The Rockets own the Suns picks in 27 and 29. The number 10 pick is likely a depth guy and who does not likely fix the special player problem. It just increase the number of young players that aren't special. Weakening the Suns though could fix the problem.

 

But what’s stupid is the KD trade was only a fail because the coach has no offensive strategy or in game adjustments and Stone stubbornly refused to go get a competent veteran playmaking PG, scoring ball handler, or elite shooter.

It’s like they caused their own problem and now they want to quit because they didn’t do what they were supposed to do

 

The Rockets are trying this offseason. Maybe they can get Isaiah Joe for 2 second rounders. Would be a shame if a team like the Pistons swooped in with that offer before us.

 

I 100% disagree as Stone is making moves left and right so fast that we don’t even see them!

 

This is why i am a fan of keeping both 27 picks and seeing what happens I have a strong feeling both will be top 5 seeing how both nets and suns will be middle of the pack or even make the play in/playoffs

 

First paragraph makes me feel better that the Rockets are at least active and will try to upgrade the roster.

Second paragraph, I fully agree. I think Giannis at this stage in his career is a loser (has not been able to drag that Bucks team to success in the east) and Jaylen is taking up quite a bit of your cap space yet he isn't good enough to elevate you to contender status assuming we didn't send out Amen nor Sengun. I don't want to stay status quo, but I also don't want to do something for the sake of doing it.

I guess the one true disappointment in this team that really makes you question the ability of our young players is the fact that they lost to a hobbled Lakers team. They let Kennard and Ayton shine in that series. It truly was a punch to the gut and as a fan it makes you question whether going forward with these players is worth it. You can switch out Udoka, but what difference will another coach make if they can't get the team to make open shots or figure out how to beat a ****ing double team.

 

Because they have no GM and the son of the owner is involved in the FO.

 

I personally think they mutually agreed for Durant not to play in the playoffs to see what they had in the young core and it backfired big time and now the fans and the national media are on their ass about how they are going to fix this since the young core looked way worse than expected