Seems they are playing things down the middle instead of going all in or taking a strategic step back. Looks like a recipe for 2nd round exit at best
Hey second round would be an improvement and solidify the 3 stooges (Pat, Stone, Ime) another year of treading water.
We are the Spurs after the Duncan and Kawhi era. Draft picks like Keldon Johnson and Dejounte Murray. Mixed in with Demar Derozan, Lamarcus Aldridge, and Patty Mills.
A young core doesn't matter if they're maxed out on talent. The 22-23 Sacramento Kings were up and coming with all of their rotation guys except Barnes being 25 or younger. Sabonis, Fox, Murray, Huerter, and Monk are all nice players individually but none of them improved since that season. They couldn't win a playoff series against an old Warriors team, building a contender with that core was absolutely out of the question. Unfortunately, we might be heading in that same direction. Sengun, Jabari, and Tari have possibly plateaued. So unless Amen or Reed become stars we'll need to pivot very hard to be contenders. It's only going to get harder as the veterans age out and the young guys' extensions all kick in.
Gotcha thanks for the info. The only inaccurate thing i can see is the rockets will have a top 2 pick next draft based on what tankathon is telling me in my own research.
funny enough i just went to the site and did it twice. on the 2nd i got this. sheesh okc 1st pick (from clippers) hou 2nd (from suns) dallas 3rd (from charlotte) spurs 4th (from atlanta) hou 5th (from brooklyn) that would be insane. talking about winning and losing all at the same time. thunder, spurs, mavs all get more top 5 picks to add to their superstars.
Amen, Jabari, Sengun are all already better than those guys and it’s very pessimistic to think they have plateaued.
This whole thing 1000% has the fingerprints of Ime all over it. He can’t/won’t develop the young guys so he surrounds himself with aging vets who “clap, clap…play the right way”.
I didn't say Amen had plateaued yet. He improved in raw production while maintaining his high efficiency and has only played three seasons. He and Reed showed growth last season. Sengun, Jabari, and Tari's raw production and advanced stats have been unchanged, or declining in Tari's case, for three seasons now. I didn't even say they have plateaued, only that they might have. Even if they are better than Fox, Sabonis, Murray the results have not been much different in terms of playoff success, so the question of how to build a contender with the current roster remains the same. If we're not the Kings then we're the current Orlando Magic. They are not short on young talent, but they still have a massive hump to climb.
It seems that you need an amazing talent (skill/physical gifts of Gianis, Curry, Doncic) or you need a mindset to improve through intentional grind (like Shai, Harden). With latter you also need a setting that celebrates intentional grind. Our culture seems to be get-talent-for-cheap oriented (lawyer GM) and result oriented ("play harder" coach) So the plan, it appears, is to eventually luck into a young generational talent via draft and hope that fanbase will be blinded by glitter of KD's name/talent in the meantime. Too bad for Stone that Dickerson came along & took some shine off KD's signing. If KD has to take time off next season, we should expect fans bringing "firestone" signs to the games in droves. Hope Amen or Reed proves me wrong.
The outcome has been worse. The 3 of them lost to an even older 8th seeded Warriors team and then the banged up garbage time Lakers. I also don't think Sengun is better or worse than Sabonis. He is the same player.
There’s a way to make a u-turn. Look we just have to accept there’s no Houston version of Wemby coming to save the day. We aren’t sitting on the mountain of draft assets that OKC has. But we don’t have any albatross contracts. We aren’t tethered to an overpaid all star. We have a trove of very tradeable contracts. keep building that asset war chest. It starts with moving off KD. Be smarter about evaluating the draft; move up and down the draft. We did it with Sengun in 2021 and haven’t done it since. Maybe convert the least favorable of the 2027 picks into a future pick. Hire a coach that can build up our player strengths. A good coach can turn Sengun and Reed into a better players and increase their value. Ime is ill-suited to the players on our roster. Identify undervalued talent and acquire them 1). Trade KD for assets 2). Better use of the draft 3). Hire a coach that can build on player strengths 4). Find our own SGA/Bruson/Deni not sure our front office is capable but I think this is the path forward.
I completely agree with your take. They've plateaued in the sense that they've plateaued. Tari's actually fallen off defensively, but is a touch better offensively. Sengun fell off defensively in the second half of the year, his offensive efficiency has dropped. Jabari went from total ass his rookie to playable now, incrementally improving each season, but the advancement has been quite slow. I just don't see a lot more potential in him personally. So imo, move them either for draft capital, or better win now pieces if you want to make a go of it this season with KD. Until you have the centerpiece, you should be putting in as many chips as you can to get him.
Personally I like having a mix of vets and youngsters... i think this whole mindset of having everyone "on the same timeline" is nonsense... U want to have the vets teaching the kids... kids hungry to gobble any minutes vs vets are happy to embrace minute mgmt... I'm sure KD would be happy to sit the out the 4th - if we had a lead that wasnt going to disappear... vs younger Harden wanted to hammer his usage - even in blowouts... all that said... I posted this is another thread... I think we should go for Kyrie and couple him w KD for the next 2 years... if we run KD/Kyrie for those 2 years... i think it improves our chances at getting lucky... all depending on health... and we may as well swing for the bleachers since we got 2 frp swaps in 2027... If KD/Kyrie breakdown the next year... thats fine, we own our pick that year and we can let the draftees play - and prob turn our pick into another lotto pick in 2028 as they learn... then we got KD and Kyrie coming off the books... hopefully 2 or 3 newer frps added to the roster... and we got all the space in the world to build around them... and theoretically we got 2 more frps that year in 2029 (Two most favorable of HOU, DAL and PHX then other to BRK) - although this is prob where we grease the wheels for Kyrie by giving Dallas back control of their own 2029 frp - and maybe pulling back a 2nd or 2 - since we just depleted our srps... 2yr KD/Kyrie window... then we got like 5-8 lotto frps on the roster and tons of cap space to supplement... and maybe move on from Ime after the 2 yr KD/Kyrie window...
The biggest sign that Ime has too much influence is the fact there were zero changes/additions to his coaching staff lmao. It's hilarious that there wasn't a veteran head coach added or just some new assistants at the very least. How they managed to retain the entire staff after a such a pathetic offensive display with zero adjustments and a catastrophically embarrassing 1st round exit Is mind blowing to me. We can discuss player movement and picking a direction and both sides have valid points but I don't think there is one person on this forum that would agree with the decision to make ZERO coaching staff changes.
