[Video] Josh Christopher appears to be mocking Coach Silas

drafting him over Grimes/herb jones was a big mistake. both of those guys will be in the league for a long time.

 

I wouldn’t fault Stone for drafting Josh, even though he plays the same position as the guy we took #2 in the same draft. I will fault Stone for using 7 first round picks in two years and thinking there would be actual development pathways for that many players. Drafting 5 first rounders in 2 years, okay, but 7? Plus the slavish devotion to KPJ, and prioritizing Wood, Tate, KJ and EG? Where were the minutes gonna come from to develop 7 first round draft picks in 2 years?

We didn’t hit on a single late 1st rounder during those 2 yrs. Three picks essentially wasted. Yes it’s hard to find guys in the late 1st round but good organizations do it all the time. To come away this absolutely nothing for those 3 first rounders is just sub par GMing. At least punt some of those pick assets to future drafts.

there was a point we could have gotten a late 1st for Josh straight up coming off a good rookie year. It was clear we had two other guys ahead of him at the 2 spot. But we essentially bench him in year 2, tanking his value, instead of churning through our talent and recouping future assets. Again, just bad GMing…like holding onto Wood too long. Or building around KPJ. Lots of mistakes and poor asset mgmt.

 

hE oNlY tUrNeD 22, a month ago.
So the young age argument doesn't apply? /s

When it's the team that drafted you, even late lottery, there's leeway. But if on another team, roster spots are a premium, it's performance based.

Average years of a NBA career is 4.5 for a reason. For every Jeff Green to have a 15 years career, there's seven 3-year length players to bring the mean to 4.5.

 

Right I mean you should be able to get a guy in workouts or in this case practice and pretty quickly find out “can I use this guy to help me win”.. whether that be outside shooting, switchable defense, rebounding instincts, etc.

I just do feel pretty strongly that the Morey era scouting brought guys in through the draft that they knew very well and knew they had something at an elite level that coaches could use as a tool in their toolbag to win games and develop from there.

Even Royce White they knew from day 1 what his strengths were and how he could be used early on to get rebounds, push the pace, and make great passes. For better or worse (worse in Royce Whites case) at least we could tell that Rockets staff knew what they were buying.

Not saying this is a fireable offense or anything (I mean you could fire Stone for other reasons but…) but I do think it’s an organizational weakness and something I’d like to see Tillman reinvest in ASAP.

Because the fact is the Rockets won’t be able to indefinitely keep all of their guys and some folks are going to walk in free agency, get traded or whatnot and the Rockets look like at best they’ll have one pick a year to replace young talent or try and plug talent in spots we need. You simply cannot afford to have 3 years in a row of another Christopher, TyTy, and Garuba mistake for 2024, 2025, and 2026. These are BIG years for Stone to make sure we get good players on rookie contracts to plug in holes and replenish our cabinet of talent that’ll leave out in the next couple years.

 

Why is his name Gup, is it pronounced Goop or Guhp

 

I do have the feeling that some guys are practice type of players and you actually see in games if they suck or not......

 

The ROI on guys picked in the 20's is generally not good; and it was obvious from day 1 (with the exception of the wackos who were telling us Usman Garuba was a better version of Draymond Green) that none of these guys had all that much to offer.

You can be the best preparer in the world and still strike out with the 23rd pick. It''s much less damning than, say having the 2nd or 3rd or 4th pick and ending up with the 6th-10th best player.

 

Goop.

 

Josh Christopher had some of the worst tunnel vision I have ever seen. Very selfish player, not good enough to play like that in the NBA. Maybe he can do that stuff in China or a lower-level league in Europe. I think we mainly drafted him because we thought Jalen was going to be the franchise player and wanted to accommodate him. Not sure but maybe having him around made the team more immature also.

Garuba was a good defender with a surprisingly good 3-point shot, but he needs a system to thrive in. Maybe he would have done better under Ime. Then again, maybe he was also not that smart.

TyTy had that nice floater. I would have preferred him to play over KPJ, but not because he was so great, just addition by subtraction. Maybe TyTy has the best shot of the three to get another chance in the league. Probably subpar in terms of athleticism though.

 

Of course. As I said, even Morey struck out big time with evaluating prospects like Royce White. Stone, even with a big budget increase in scouting this year from Tillman (if he was gracious enough to do so.... which I'm sure he isn't) is going to strike out at least once or twice over the next 3 Summers with the Nets 24 pick, our 2025, and the Nets 2026. However I am saying that it actually will be really freaking important to make sure we have at least a couple hits in the next 3 years because players are going to go out the door due to no fault of Stone's, and it's just incredibly important that you have that faucet of cheap talent still coming in.

I know the MLB is different, but just look at how the Astros have separated themselves from the pack in terms of sustained success because of the long term investment in scouting, and farm system development. Again the NBA is different, but if the Rockets could have as much of an Astros model as possible in the NBA, it'll be a game changer. During the Morey era I just felt like we were much more ahead of the curve than we are today, but again... might not necessarily be Stone's fault. Could be Covid restrictions, different agent/college team access issues, etc.

I unfortunately don't expect a big investment from Tillman but that won't stop me from pointing out how much of an impact it COULD make.

 

Lol. I tend to agree, but nowadays with more international players coming in, the first round should get a bit better or at least more populated with possibilities. Anybody griping about picks 20 and beyond has lost it.

I encourage all of y'all to get involved in the yearly "guillotine" thread I make to see who you think will be some of the best and worst players in the draft. Everybody has an opinion and can talk trash after the fact, but it seems people are hesitant to stake their claim before.

That being said, I thought Josh could potentially be a steal, but "woops", I guess.

 

You guys are terrible talent evaluators who don't recognize greatness when you see it. Josh Christopher is the GOAT!

 

Herb Jones is like a Jokic, nobody knew he would be this good. Grimes is averaging 6 ppg on 54%TS on the Knicks, I dunno if he will be in the league a long time but he is a low level/min contract player at best.

Overall I want happy with JC pick, but loved the Garuba pick back then. Looking at the prospects now really only Herb Jones and Cam Thomas look like more than replacement level players so I'm fine with both our picks being busts since the chance of getting a good player back then were so low.

 

I think that Daryl Morey himself would disagree with you that a structural model advantage can be easily ported over from MLB to the NBA:

I was not a huge fan of the Josh Christopher pick when it happened, but I can understand the idea of taking a long shot on a highly ranked HS recruit hoping he just had a terrible year due to coaching fit a la DeAndre Jordan. TyTy to me was a reasonable shot at hoping yet another UK point guard was being suppressed by Coach Cal's system. And I'll gladly keep using the international scouts and process that led them to placing a big bet on Sengun if it occasionally leads to misses like Garuba.

There is not enough playing time already for the top-6 prospects on the Rockets. While I'm disappointed that they couldn't get much value for these guys (and KJ Martin), it's hard to argue that they weren't correct in assessing their open market value and dumping them early in the summer while cap space was still plentiful.

 

NO.

HELL NO.

Hell F&%@ NO.

 

God blessed the broken road that led us straight to

CAM WHITMORE

 

Coach Silas smiled to the dry hump.

 

You just keep him as your avatar and everything'll be alright.

 

Josh Christopher is definitely NBA talent, he was scouted and rated high since high school. Had very decent flashes in his rookie year. Unfortunately, he checked out mentally after his rookie season. Going to Paris Fashion Week was the tell-all sign... Then in preseason he was spamming something, I don't remember what, I think it was an NFT...

A guy like that that has talent but also has a lot of developing to do, he cannot afford that BS. If he doesn't eat, sleep, breathe basketball 24/7 he's a goner. This is the premier league in the world, less than 500 slots altogether. You can't treat it like a 9-5 job and check out for your BS projects...