I am not too worried about what position Simmons will play because we are so damn close to positionless basketball anyway. I would probably play him at PG or SF. He can play PG if you have bigs that shoot from the perimeter. I think our defensive problems go beyond that, we are not good defensively in the backcourt really either. Simmons isn't a leader, and he never will be. That doesn't bother me when he is the third or fourth best player. He isn't a great worker regardless of what Gilbert Arenas and Antoine Walker say.... but he isn't really a malcontent either like Wood or Porter. His lack of hard work and leadership is a real problem when you expect him to lead a team, those days are gone. As far as his game development, his game has developed. He is a better passer and rebounder than he was. He just isn't a better shooter from the perimeter. His disappearing in the playoffs for the Sixers is less of a concern to me when he is the 4th or 5th guy in the pecking order for offense. Also, defensively he was very good in that series.... which is what I would want him for. I have never really been a defender of Simmons in the past. He was lazy and out of shape at LSU, he was coddled in Australia and is mentally weak. However he was miscast for his personality.
Only if you have a time machine........ or a listener recorded it. It was great though...... @BimaThug said that he had a cocktail with Daryl Morey and learned all of the moves that the Rockets should do for the next 5 seasons..... and then @Clutch got into an argument with Les Alexander over when the Rockets championship trophies will be brought back to Houston .... only to learn that @Deuce apparently has had them this whole time sitting in his garage. In all seriousness it was nice to hear everyone discuss the Rockets and not just see posts.
Only caught the first 30-40 minutes, but really agree with one point Clutch made when he was talking about Paolo, Chet, and Jabari, the Rockets don't have many players that can both shoot and play defense. It makes fit very hard as offense either isn't spaced well, defense is a sieve, or the Rockets double down with no spacing and no defense. I think the Rockets are trying very hard to develop Christopher as a 3-D player because of this.
Game experience is a limited resource, not just for the player, but for the franchise as well. Towns, Edwards and Russell were all still playing late in the 4th quarter, those are legitimate game minutes, not garbage minutes. As I said before, if Green was playing against 3rd stringers, I would agree with you. However, he would have been competing against the starting lineup of the Wolves. Even if the Wolves was already blowing the Rockets out, it would have been valuable minutes regardless. In addition, Green is on a timeline. The more minutes he has, the more data points the Rockets have to figure out whether he is worth an investment 3-4 years from now (and the more opportunities he has to figure it out sooner). You bring up Harden, and whilst it's true Harden still developed with limited minutes, Thunder had no clue about the true value of Harden until Harden was playing in Houston. Even if Green plays in garbage minutes against 3rd stringers, and ends up screwing around in those minutes, that's still valuable information about his character. I guess my point is, we're the worst team in the league, it doesn't really hurt to give him more reps. Injury is the only concern, but if he's that fragile at 19, we have another problem entirely.
I do think this is in someway Silas way of punishing the starters for not trying hard and hustling. He isn't exactly singling Green out, he pulled the entire starting line up. He's definitely making a statement by playin JC the entire 4th quarter because he earned his playing time so to speak and was playing hard ever second he was in previously.
Clutch's Twitter SPACE was a blast! 3 hours of really good basketball talk. A lot of good reasoned analysis. Very enjoyable!
This is a good point and it is something that troubled the Rockets under Morey when the three pointer was first coming into use in high volume. The Rockets had defenders that either were poor shooters or shooters that were poor defenders. It wasn't until they had a true two way player in the back court in Chris Paul that it wasn't a problem. Jalen Green lacks the instincts or measurables to ever be a good defender in a switching defense. He can likely be adequate with hard work. Contrary to what some of his fans think, Sengun is never going to be a good man defender either. So the Rockets really need some players that can defend and also spread the floor. If the Rockets have players that cannot shoot well from the perimeter, that will shut down Green getting to the basket and the passing lanes for Sengun. So that means the Rockets need someone that can shoot well enough and defend well. To me Smith and Holmgren both have the highest potential impact in this way. Holmgren is going to be an elite defender, but he needs to be more consistent from 3 and Smith is an excellent 3 point shooter, but may not be a real lock down defender (but he will be a good defender at a minimum). However, the Rockets would need to add a really good point guard to either player to really run the offense.... because neither player is a real facilitator and Green and Christopher are not either.
Who cares if the Wolves are happy to trade baskets with their starters for a few more minutes in the 4th than they probably should have been? Seems kind of irrelevant. I mean, whatever, the Rockets had a game to lose by a lot the next night. The wolves did not. And of course there's probably some stat-chasing involved considering that we're coming right up on All-Star selection sunday, so letting Towns play 33 of his usual 34 probably reflects that to an extent. Basically my point is not that much different than yours, it's that for all the marginal benefits you cite - they're low value. The costs & risks are also relatively low, is Green going to strain his hamstring down 24 points in the 4th? Probably not. is this the 4-minute stretch that unlocks Josh Christoper? Who knows....but honestly you could go either way and it's completely justifiable. To argue that Green isn't getting enough game minutes in is a pretty shady argument in general - he's averaging 30 a game! That's a lot. There's only 6 rookies above 30, basically all guys that will finish ahead of him in ROY voting. If I'm complaining about Green's minutes, I'm complaining about how he's mostly spending them with the two Usage kings - Wood and Porter Jr - both of whom increasingly look like they are less likely to be a part of the team's future, both on the court and because of the Denver debacle. Now that seems like a waste. And finally If lack of garbage time minutes as a rookie are even remotely relevant to the OKC trading by then All-Star Harden years later, that's the first time I've heard that theory. Sounds highly dubious.
That's lame. This is blatant discrimination against those of us with busy lives and a sense of self-worth that prevents us from being on Twitter. I will be taking my complaints to the Hurt Feelings Bureau.
Agreed that Salman is sharp. I also like that he is providing his objective opinion to us bias Rockets' fans. In my opinion, Simmons is an excellent defender and on some nights defensive player of the year quality great. He can create for himself downhill and create for others. Before Simmons' max contract, I thought he could win MVP if he only became a decent shooter with a go to move or two. However, it's painfully clear that he isn't willing to do that. So, now he has bucketed himself in this rare group of player where they can take a bad team and make them good or make a good team and make them better, while being an easy player to scheme against for top tier teams. I put Westbrook in that exact same bucket, even though I recognize they are not the same player. Simmons works if you have an elite play maker who is deadly catch and shoot (Curry, Trae Young, etc) to go along with other deadly shooters. He is Draymond on steroids without being able to knock down a three here and there. I could see him maximizing his talents in Draymond's situation. The biggest problem I have with that is now a team getting Ben Simmons needs to build exactly around his weaknesses. Of course, even the elite talents have weaknesses and the GM needs to build around their weakness. But, guys like Simmons and Westbrook are easy to scheme against. There's very few times where your weakness is so apparent, but your strength is just so dominant that it just doesn't matter as much (ex: Giannis/Shaq types). I also recognize that Simmons will never be the alpha #1 option. But, even as a 2nd option, I think he is too easy to scheme against. 3rd Option? Yeah, maybe... but now we are committing a decent chunk of salary space to a guy who is just a 3rd star on a team without even knowing if Green/Sengun/'22&'23 picks are going to pan out and knowing if they are flowing well with Simmons' weaknesses. Philosophically I don't if that's the best way for roster reconstruction. I firmly believe in finding your guy then build around him. Everyone else needs to be viewed more as "liquid" assets. I still can be convinced, but I just haven't seen a convincing argument for it yet. Maybe I am more stubborn than I like to admit haha
This was in my opinion the best "podcast" they've ever had with so many different Twitter guys popping in to speak and hopping back out so it's sad and a downright travesty that it wasn't memorialized. I would've loved to listen to parts of it again and there were stretches that I missed for various reasons because it went on for so long. They did try to record it initially when they were trying to figure it out. I guess at some point the focus fell on just getting it to work.
What was great about Clutch's SPACE is that everyone that contributed had calm measured takes. There was no yelling or blasting which tends to happen on other SPACES after games when people are worked up. Here, we had 3 hours of good conversation. Everyone that spoke had well reasoned opinions and even if you didn't agree with them, it was a good conversation. It was like a Clutchfans podcast on steroids. I am sure they will record future ones. This was their first trial SPACE and it was a big success in my opinion.
