Relative to whom? The Hornets have more-or-less the same record we do. To quote JVG, we are who our record says we are.
I don't disagree with that. Nevertheless we are much weaker to the good teams in both the WC and the EC. It's true we aren't competing for the NBA championship or for the WC title, but we are struggling mightily with injuries and changes to the line up. Tucker and Oladipo have to play well consistently so they can be traded at the deadline. I hope Porter Jr and KJ Martin/ Thomas, Ray Spalding and Wooten emerge successfully from the G-League so they can join the rest of the young players on the roster. Wood's recovery to solid health is a must for us.
Yes idk if you watched the game but whenever pj and Oladipo were in with House, The hornets were getting pretty much anything they wanted. Oladipo was just jacking up 3s resulting in fast breaks, pj wasn’t even tryin to shoot when he got open shots. And on defense pj wasn’t even able to stay in front of his guy. House was doing his house thing. yes I believe that if we had kept pj in the bench and given Oladipo less minutes resulting in less touches for him we would have been able to at least stay close on the 4th. Even when we have Wall, Eric and Wood whenever we have those 3 together in the court bad things happened. The flow or the movement is slow or minimal. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed it. That’s why when the starting line up was given I even posted on Twitter that this was a L and we would be losing by 20 or so. Tate and boogie play okay but the other starters weren’t. Since Oladipo came he has been shooting terrible from the field and jacks every 3 or every time he gets the ball. He hasn’t done anything. House’s had only one good game but all season he hasn’t given us much. And pg 5ppg with 30 plus minutes isn’t helping us either.
House is average at best on defense. I’ve never seen a spectacular defensive play from him or I don’t remember one
Im just putting this here. I think EG needs rest. Silas probably thought the team could beat the Hornets without him. he was wrong, lol.
Come on man - put the checkers down and start playing chess. They aren't pursuing mediocrity - they are trying to maximize their value with the assets they have. Strategy wins over impatience/convenience every time. It's the same reason dudes sell overpriced roses on the side of the road on Feb 13th/14th - right before Valentines day. In this case, Stone is trying to sell Oladipo/Tucker/virtually anyone with value on this roster at the trade deadline to potential playoff contenders looking to beef up their roster for a deep run. The end goal isn't to bottom out and get the top pick in the draft - that limits opportunities because you lose all your assets to get bad enough to get that one asset and then hope you don't draft an Anthony Bennet, or the ping pong balls give you a bad roll AND you lose the ability to trade salary because you don't have enough "max" type players to facilitate a trade. The goal is to turn as many of these pieces into future assets to leverage in trade transactions - the Harden acquisition was the blueprint and we are trying to be that team that can outbid all the other teams the next time a star says they want to be traded - it's how today's super stars like Anthony Davis, Paul George, Kawhi, etc moved teams. It's probably going to be how guys like Bradley Beale, Ben Simmons, De'Aron Fox and Devin Booker find new teams as well. Hell if Milwaukee ends in another disappointing playoff loss or two - I wouldn't be shocked if Giannis started making demands too. Players flexing their star power to force their way off of rosters is a trend that isn't ending anytime soon and if that is the trend than it makes sense to let go of the notion of a homegrown drafted star - there will continue to be fewer and fewer of those and that's why you keep a good but not great roster and manage assets wisely to become a plug and play contender for the next frustrated superstar or soon to be star.
trading for some disgruntled star with a year or maybe 2 left on his deal that will likely leave once free agency hits doesn’t excite me they will use their star power to force their way out, and it won’t be to come to Houston
Either he’s completely clueless and prefers Name over Skill or he was told to try to tank. There’s no way he thinks what he’s doing out there is good. cousins plays too many minutes, lineups that get us back into games get taken out and players like Oladipo get free reign to do whatever they want. Ben is hot and gets 16 minutes, next game he gets 0 minutes. Mason Jones plays relatively well despite him having to sit out games for no reason and playing out of his position and yet again doesn’t see the floor. that can’t be his plan.
we were so much better looking when the young guns were battling for minutes. what happened to jones? what happened to Martin JR?
Player availability has been a major issue this year but Silas overall hasn't been anything special out there. His rotations at times are head scratching. During the streak I was starting to give him credit but now without Wood, it looks like he's lost and doesn't know what to do. That's why he look defeated when Wood got hurt.
I think coaching is tanking and they just haven't told Wall yet cuz he clearly wants to win. What I don't get is that we're staggering Wall and Oladipo on back2backs. Neither one of them can carry a team alone. I think it just hurts VO's trade value to play without Wall. Makes me think they're prioritizing tanking over upping VO's trade value by letting him play in his natural position next to wall.
We don’t have any size outside of washed Cousins and no consistent offensive players. Hard to coach with that.
If that's true (and I honestly think you're right) then we deserved that embarrassment. For anyone to think this Rockets team is good enough to beat another team after resting a key piece, is just laughable.
...but spending possibly many years tanking(risk because you don't know how long you will be in that cycle) to get an elite future star and then hopefully being able to draft the right guy(risk because for every Lebron there are several Greg Oden/Brandon Roy types and many more Anthony Bennets who never pan out, and many more good but not great players like Ben Simmons) and then hoping that the player turns into a bonafide superstar you can build around(risk because most aren't that guy - look at the last 10 years fo #1 picks and tell me how many of those you can really build a franchise around) and THEN hoping you can build around that player before they get frustrated and leave (risk because it could happen at any time) - THAT IS THE SCENARIO THAT EXCITES YOU? REALLY? You are negative about getting a disgruntled star for a few years but the idea of spending possibly the next 10-15 years searching and hoping seems way more exciting to you? It's almost as though you WANT to do things the hardest way possible. Let me refresh your memory for a minute - Boston traded their aging core in 2013 to Brooklyn for a slew of picks. Brooklyn made the playoffs for 3 years before their core got too old and Brooklyn was forced into a rebuild in 2015. They didn't return to the playoffs until 2018 and have been a solid young team with upside ever since. On the other hand Boston has probably been the absolute model for the tanking for high picks strategy and in fairness they absolutely hit on most of their picks - Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Terry Rozier, and of course Jayson Tatum all were drafted under Ainge and were a promising core but as their rookie deals started to expire, they had to let go of one and Rozier had to leave. Meanwhile Boston has been a playoff team since 2015 but has mostly been known as a good but not truly elite team. Tatum started to really come into his own last year and started to become a true alpha guy and this year is their strongest team yet BUT in order to win a title they will have to beat - THE BROOKLYN MOTHER----ING NETS - the same stupid team they thought they outsmarted in their 2013 trade. The final count of playoff appearance between the Celts and Nets in that time frame is - Celtics with 6 playoff teams and no titles, Nets with 6 playoff teams and no titles only now the Nets are favorites over Boston this year. So who really wins in this scenario? If the Nets/Bucks/Sixers/Heat can keep Boston from winning a title the next few years - how long before Tatum starts to become disgruntled himself - how long before the team wonders if he is really the alpha guy they hoped he would be? Again the Celtics are an example of literally everything lining up almost perfectly with draft opportunity combined with accurate drafting skills and decent cap management but for every Celtics type team there are a lot more Atlanta, Sacramento, Minnesota type teams who would much preferred being mediocre and getting the chance to pick the star they trade for rather than frustratingly wait for Karl Anthony Townes to become good enough to carry a team(hint - he won't)...
Getting fed up with the 5-out offense. Too much ISO. I hope he's flexible in his thinking and will scrap it.
