Fandom can be emotional for many. We had a short window to tank and become competitive due to the Westbrook trade. Stone deserves credit for getting us to where we are now but now comes the harder part and Stone's future isn't guaranteed.
Typical reactioionary quote. You fail to see the big picture that this is still a lotto team going nowhere. Circle jerk going 4-3 to start the season much?
Brook Lopez had 2 points 2 rebounds 1-7 fg in 29 minutes today, a -15 in a 2 point loss to the Pacers. On the season he is averaging career worst across the board, the Bucks are 25th in defense in the league. He is turning 36 and will be paid $25m a year. The Rockets are 9th in the league in defense with Sengun as center. Stone should thank his lucky stars that Lopez reneged on him because our season would be looking much different.
1 rebound lol. How a 7'1 dude can finish the game with 1 rebound in 29 minutes? Is that even possible? lol
Jury is still out on Stone if you ask me and I say that as someone who has agreed with many of his strategies the last several years. I think directionally he has been doing the right things - but I've taken issue with the execution and the singular focus. He's a little too heavy handed if you ask me. When we lost Harden, the most obvious next step was try to rebuild asset value on the roster. That meant selling everything on our roster that wasn't nailed down for the opportunity to collect assets that would appreciate(future picks, young players, distressed assets like KPJ, etc). This is rebuild 101 stuff and I thought Stone mostly made solid choices but left some opportunities on the table. I never understood why we took Oladipo instead of Jarret Allen for instance. I also never understood why he stood with Silas when it was clear he wasn't helping the young guys grow - again, he wasn't maximizing the assets he was drafting because while I agreed with picking Jalen, Jabari, and Sengun when we did - it felt like we really wasted a year or two of precious development time for those guys. Also, it felt like KPJ was a sell high candidate for a while now and it sucks we weren't able to take advantage of that before he did the eventual dumb thing that would sabotage his career. I guess Stone would have looked like a genius if we had landed Wemby so maybe this was an opportunity cost situation but this is the reason for my heavy handed comment - just because you are in asset collection mode doesn't mean you can't also make efforts in asset growth. I feel for Jalen because he gets so much hate for lack of development yet his post high school development was stunted because the pandemic impacted the G league(he had what a truncated 10 game season?) and then he came into a situation in Houston where Stone wasn't even attempting to build a functional roster for two more years OR have a coach with a clue on player development. So, sure Stone helped us collect an impressive group of young players and distressed vets(Brooks/FVV - although I think he probably overpaid a bit on both) but it also feels like we came dangerously close to being the gulf coast version of the Sacramento Kings teams of the recent past - always tanking for talent and never improving culture and instead just hoping you draft the right guy to bring that with them(here is a hint, those types of 19yr olds are exceedingly rare). Ime was a great hire but I doubt when Stone set out with this plan he knew we would have the opportunity to grab a potentially great coach who had just been fired after coaching in the Finals....but I guess this is where sometimes its better to be lucky than good. So thanks to Stone for having a bit of skill and luck to get us into the situation we are in and let's hope the recent signs of life are no mirage because there is also a version of this story where we lose a LOT more games and go back to the same poor shooting team we were last year(albeit much better organized version of that squad thanks to Udoka).
Allen is a good player that wouldn't enable the tank. He is also due for a big contract which again wouldn't enable the tank. The tank got Jalen, Jabari and Amen and none of that would be possible if the team didn't suck. Would you rather have Allen or those 3? Personally I take those 3. Development of players is on themselves not the team. They are Professionals and can afford to fund their own development. Why Sengun is amazing despite having Silas as his coach? Of course teams do development too but that should be a supplement the real development happens when you put in the work yourself. Guys like Lebron famously spend more than 1M on self development and that's why he has 21 yrs of dominance. When you are running a team luck is a very high component. Unless you have your franchise player already it's tough to decide what direction to go in that's why these GM's do everything to keep their stars.
First of all - grabbing Allen in a trade wouldn't have meant we wouldn't have an opportunity to draft Jalen, Jabari, and Amen - that's just a false equivalency. The point of my post was that we likely would have got more for Allen than what we ended up getting when we offloaded Dipo OR we could have kept him around because it's not like once Harden left we were outscoring ANYBODY with that roster. Here is the thing about the “they are professionals” comment - you probably work at a job - when is the last time you saw a 19 yr old walk in to your workplace and already know how to “be a professional”? Did you know how to be a highly disciplined professional at 19? Could you watch what you eat, go to sleep early, stay away from trouble and remain focused on a singular job for 8-10 months straight? I HIGHLY doubt it. Like you can count on a 19yr old to show up…but making millions of dollars doesn’t necessarily mean they already know how to be a professional- in fact it’s quite the opposite. You give those young kids a lot of money on the hope that they grow to be a professional for your team. You are paying for future performance NOT rewarding the most professional athletes. That’s why FVV took so long to get paid in the NBA because he didn’t have the raw athleticism and unteachable skills that guys like Amen, Jalen, and Jabari do despite the fact FVV was probably more of a professional than those more naturally talented guys. …the other thing about handing a 19yr old a bunch of money and saying they can hire people to help them is- who are they hiring? Everyone they come across will tell them whatever they want to hear. Who do you trust? How do you know who is legit vs fake if you have never been a professional yourself? I mean they all got “trainers” but a lot of times they were just the coach who has been working with them since middle school or came from the shady AAU guy who has connections. It is 100% on a team to maximize their investment - sometimes they gotta cut their losses and let a player go(KPJ) but any team lazy enough to say it’s the responsibility of their untrained talent to cultivate their own growth is a losing team. Period.
First of all grabbing Allen would've meant the Rockets wouldn't be tanking, they won't be among the worst teams in the league they be top 5 worst+ which means no top 3 pick which means no Green, Jabari and Amen. If we got Allen to be our center of the future we prob don't trade multiple firsts for Sengun as well, can you imagine OKC with Sengun, Chet and SGA? Allen was traded for a first round pick which was his value at the time, not sure how you think he would be worth more as Allen was an EXPIRING contract. Do you have any proof Allen was worth more of just pulling **** outta your ass? The 19 yr olds where I work don't make multi million dollars and have a whole slew of support system when they get to the office. Just cuz YOU are ignorant doesn't mean these players are. These players are all groomed to be basketball stars since they were teenagers. At the very least, they have their own managers/agencies looking after them and these would provide the connections and network they need. Lebron James and Emoni Bates were already on magazine covers before getting to the NBA. That doesn't happen without a team behind them. It's on the player to improve himself 100%. A teams job is just to get the best players available that they can. This isn't classroom. This isn't school. Look up what being a professional means. No reason to keep Tyty around when Holiday is better. Sengun and Green aren't relying on the Rockets handouts to develop them, they develop themselves. That's why they are both so good now despite 3 yrs of Silas regime.
Literally not worth arguing. My time is more valuable than wasting it on trying to get you to see nuance. Have a good one.
Stone has made some good decisions to this point, no doubt. Now he needs to find us a big. If Landale doesnt work out, maybe two.
