Absolutely unbelievable job. He has the Rockets playing really polished basketball a few games in. They are going to be hard to beat in this form.
We’ve gone from being a run and gun team to a half court team. It seems to be working. The new vets are really making a difference. But, it’s still early.
I haven't seen the Rockets defense fly around like that on the perimeter since the 2018 playoffs, my lord. So glad to have Ime!
Love what Ime and his staff have done with our team so far. LAL should be a good test this week. Nice to see end of bench guys get some burn when we're whooping ass so bad!
We really need to add a consistent bench scorer. We have picks and we have expiring contracts, Stone needs to be a player come December. He needs to listen to Udoka as well and not get cute with whoever we try to acquire.
Turnarounds can happen quickly if you make the right moves. Look at the Texans -- they hired the right head coach, and they drafted the right QB. Overnight, they are a different team. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but the Rockets seem to have identified the right coach (Udoka) and are running the offense through their identified franchise player (Sengun). Again, overnight, they look like a different team.
I would rather have a plan at disposal how to pay the young guys and how much.....that is the key going forward in the next 2-5 years. This is going to determine which superstar we might add if opportunity knocks etc.......not to drop like the Kings who did not make any good moves and are sort of falling behind. The follow up transfers and sustainability of brilliance is of importance here.
What's "defense"? I mean, in basketball? I haven't seen it from the Rockets in so long my eyeballs turned to Charmin watching the games.
Two things that stood out to me last night: The first was Sengun's passing. I saw several instances where in previous years he would have tried to slip it in there but he pulled those back last night. I think it's directly attributable to coaching that his turnovers are down. (It also speaks well of Sengun that he can be coached to that degree.) The second was the late challenge. That's a great way for a coach to build trust among his players and the fact that it was for a lower bench player can only improve team camaraderie. Most coachers would have waved it off under those late-in-the-blowout-game circumstances.
Not a big fan of the FO however credit where it is due. Hiring Ime and not Harden were the biggest of things done right. Bringing in FVV and Brooks thus far look like icing on the cake. Even getting KPJ outta here was tremendous although ugly. Hopefully we've seen the bottom and are finally on the way up.
It doesn't even look like the same game compared to the garbage "system" they rolled out last season. It's not all on Silas, but my God, it's looking more and more like they weren't even coached at all last year.
Last year's system was basically pretending Kevin Porter Jr was James Harden. I have yet to see Jalen take *one* of those stupid iso dribble dribble step back contested 3s this year. Going back to what Ime said. Team isn't bad at shooting. Bad at shot taking.
I would be cautiously optimistic, it's only been a few games. I know it's exciting since we been absolute trash the last few years, but I would tame expectations until we get a proper sample size.
