Was Christian Wood playing at a superstar level before injury?

I think the takes against Wood are absurd too, they deny numbers and his impact and instead just rely on where he was drafted or his history.

I don't care about any of that, I'm watching games, I see his impact, the numbers tell me he has an impact, and his past is irrelevant at that point because he's clearly improved his game.

YOU were just saying in the game thread that we could lose Wood and now it's a trash take? Why didn't you tell that to the originator of the take and direct it at me when I was just mirroring that take?

 

I just don't know why anyone who thinks it's "absurd" is even arguing about this. Especially because we're all on the same page (I think) about trading expiring veterans like Oladipo and Tucker for future assets.

If it's laughable to worry about Christian Wood's happiness, that inherently means he's not all that special of a building block. If he's not special, then they're going to lose a lot of games no matter what they do, especially after trading multiple veteran starters. So, what's the problem?

 

right, I've said multiple times that I'm for trading vets like Dipo, Tuck, Ego, I've said this once the Harden trade was made. If we get the right deal (notably not giving up picks to give them up...basically whatever we can get for them at this point) you do it. It's a no brainer.

And you're right, if Wood isn't what we say he is, nothing for tankers to worry about. The Team will be bad regardless and things will naturally play out...but people act like there are 0 consequences to constructing a team for failure and that drafting future all-stars is as easy as getting a top 5 pick.

 

PREACH.

Wood is a future building block. Wall is playing well (fingers crossed on his health, though) and, besides, we're stuck with him.

Let's see where Stone takes us. Unfortunately we'll have to ride out this bulls*** (the Rockets not releasing real news of the severity of Wood's injury so we don't hurt what few ticket sales we're allowed, etcetera, and they can nurse him along while we suck) until the trade deadline or so, not to mention the season.

 

In my opinion, I think that risk is overblown. I don't think players asking to be traded to a competing team is all that common. The ones we've seen are either Top 5 players looking for cement their legacy, or players that are disgruntled with coaching staff due to lack of playing time or seeking a bigger role.

Most NBA players just play it out and look for big contracts.

 

I don't see how treating Woods as our blue chip and going for high draft picks in 2022/2023 are mutually exclusive.

Either way we need to pair Woods with another great talent and I don't think the timing for the mediocrity treadmill is good. Let's see what draft picks we can get in 2022/2023 while seeing what we have in Woods.

 

Just sounds like an excuse to run on the mediocrity treadmill.

Woods will be fine. We will be able to offer the most money. We were the original team to pick him up undrafted and the first team to give him his big NBA contract.

 

I don't see how you're acting like 2021 and 2022 are the same thing and lumping them together.

The mediocrity treadmill sucks because it's a treadmill, and it's hard to get off. That's not what anyone is talking about. I don't think anyone is against tanking in 2022 and 2023, if needed, and it won't be hard to do. The difference is that in 2021, you are extremely likely to be picking in the Miami Heat draft slot due to the pick swap, no matter what your final record is.

Put yourself in Christian Wood's shoes. The last eight games played by the team before his injury, they were 7-1 with the No. 3 net rating in the entire NBA. Imagine if, due to a brief losing streak during his temporary injury, the team decided to pull the plug on the entire operation, feign long-term injuries... and the Rockets end up with nothing to show for all of it, anyway, since the odds are against them getting a Top 4 pick. How would that not bother you?

 

the Rockets are not a playoff team...they are currently projected to finish 11th in the West

we are basically arguing if Wood will feel some type of way if the Rockets miss the playoffs, but barely win 30 something games, or if the Rockets still miss the playoffs, but are bad enough to hopefully keep their pick

the Rockets need to be tearing things down for a tank job in 2022 and 2023 where they’ll have full control of their pick...Wood has 2 years left on his deal...What are the Rockets gonna do within that timeframe to make themselves relevant while running on the mediocrity treadmill?

Wall, Dipo, Tucker, and EG are nothing more than placeholders, and then everyone else outside of Wood is a role player

 

My mistake, 2022 and 2023 drafts picks.

This season is a crap shot, just trade the expirings and let the chips land where they land.

Sounds like your shoes... It's such a small sample size (8 games) in the grand scale of things I don't think it really matters. Harden has been already traded, I think Rocket/Wood expectations have been greatly altered already.

 

Christian Wood has only played in 17 games all year! And before this season, he was basically viewed as a journeyman. Eight games isn't such a small sample for him, which is the perspective we're talking about.

Anyway, I think we're mostly on the same page. If the team just loses games naturally because they aren't good enough, especially after the inevitable Oladipo/Tucker trades, that's fine. All I'm objecting to is actively trying to lose in 2021, i.e. shutting down Wood and Wall and feigning long-term injuries.

 

"superstar" or not pretty obvious that Christian Wood is the catalyst for this team. Not Wall. Not Oladipo.

 

The ROckets are going to end up with nothing to show for this season in any event, AND THAT'S OK! They're a mediocre team that will struggle to get to .500 - that's what they are now and there's no reason to think this is going to change.

The win streak was fine but it was @DaDakota grade fool's gold , like others said it a rare confluence of Rockets having available players and playing a lineup of mediocre or otherwise walking wounded teams on the second nights of back to backs or whatever,s. Variance is going to be very high this year due to that! Tjhey might have other win streaks, they will definitely have other losing streaks - this particular one could get very ugly if they lose the next 2 on the road.

This will give crap teams like the Rockets chances to look good for stretches. And, it's pretty obvious personnel wise they are crap. It's a guards/perimeter league, and Oladipo and Wall and Gordon are your guard threats - that might be acceptable or adequate 3-5 years ago, but it is very subpar today. AND IT SHOWS, that's why they have the 26th best offense in the league. Even during the stretch of wins, pace, and the general leaguewide offensive surplus, greatly exaggerated the mediocre offensive output.

I don't really care about Christian Wood's shoes, it's nice he's had 17 games of borderline all star productivity - but...that's all he has! He's under contract for many more years, his cloutometer is a fraction of James Harden or many lesser lights in the league. He's very promising! but I tend to line up with @durvasa in that as good as Wood has looked, he's a complementary piece and not a franchise carrying level superstar at this stage. The numbers (as limited as they are) seem to back this up, he puts up big traditional numbers but some of his advanced stats dont' look so great. But, anyway, the die has effectively been cast in terms of cashing in on Harden for draft picks that don't vest until Christian Wood's contract expires - so, even if Christian Wood decides he's going to follow Deshaun Watson out of town - so what? Get some more draft picks for him. Or players - whatever. There's no window that's closing to even worry about here. The window to this team is closed! And the rise in the chance of keeping your pick from being bottom 4 to being bottom 12 is a significant rise! Like I said, would you prefer to have to win a coin flip, or to have to win 4-5 coinflips in a row?

 

I agree that Christian Wood isn't our new centerpiece but he's quite a grab, good enough to be one of three star players, and on a cheap contract for what he brings. As far as whether he stays or leaves at the end of his contract, that's a ways off.

Stone has time and options (draft picks and tradeable players / Trade Exceptions). If Tilman doesn't step in and insist Stone invade Russia before England has been finished off, or halt our advance giving the British Army the chance to evacuate Dunkirk, well.....hope is the last thing to die. Or the first.

 

If you think "mediocre and struggling to get to .500" is truly representative of the current team, and then you trade away multiple veteran starters (Oladipo, Tucker), shouldn't that make you lose games at a high clip, naturally? Again, I don't understand what we're arguing there.

I don't think that's a given, at all. There are absolutely scenarios where you trade many of those future draft picks before the expiration of Christian Wood's current contract, because the next disgruntled star sees Houston (with Wood as the Robin to his Batman) as an intriguing destination. And other teams would definitely push Houston in those negotiations, since the Rockets have more draft capital to offer than most bidders.

Is it likely? No, I'm not saying that. Just as I'm not arguing that Wood is a true superstar. But even if we accept the odds of those types of scenarios as small (10%, 20%?), to me, it's a worthwhile gamble given the extremely limited upside of the 2021 draft path. Especially because in many of the dire scenarios (i.e. your arguments that Wood isn't that great), they would probably lose a lot of games, naturally!

I would frame it a different way: If you needed to win a coin flip or two, why wouldn't you take as many coin flips as possible? The tanking route is always going to be there, and much more efficiently in 2022 and 2023, when you have full control of your pick. Considering the high likelihood of you drafting in the Miami slot this year no matter what you do, I would prefer to also go down the path of giving Wood a legit chance, and seeing what happens. If it fails, then A) you probably weren't keeping your 2021 pick, regardless, and B) the tanking route is always there, and more efficient, in 2022 and 2023.

 

The tanking crowd want to believe that our current team is trash and therefore should be thrown into the dumpster. They actively diss all the current players in order to pump up the trash team image. The ironic thing is, tanking is supposed to rebuild with young prospect. Yet they are proposing to dump even the promising young players or wish them bad in order to tank.

 

all these weak strawman arguments tell me u got nothing

Who are the “promising young players” people are proposing to dump? Name them.

 

I think we can all agree that PJ should be a bench player by now.

Why is he still starting and getting major minutes when he can't win games?

Silas is truly clueless here.

He wants to make the Playoffs with a bunch of ACL and Achilless injured veterans.

Get Kevin Porter in here asap.

 

Good start but Superstars do it over the long haul. I think he'll get that long haul superstar level eventually but you have to start with doing it over and over and he hasn't done that. Good news: he just has to keep it up to get there.

 

This.

Isn’t the general consensus that based on age and what we assume their contracts/situations are valued that Tucker, Oladipo and Gordon are the prime candidates to move? Maybe House?

And to be honest, removing Tucker, House and Oladipo from our rotation and letting some youth fill their minutes likely improves our current team. They are 3 of our lowest net ratings players since the Harden trade.

People are too focused on the being bad part of this. Being bad isn’t a requirement. If we trade our older tradeable players and we are still a “good” team, that’s fine. We still increased our asset collection. These older guys aren’t going to be on our future winning timeline, we should cash them in.