The Kings had solid shooters in Bibby, Stojakovic, Turkoglu and Christie to keep defenses honest. The rockets don’t have anything close to that on this roster. Not remotely close. The Kings could get away with a ton down low because those guys on the perimeter were a problem for opponents. The rockets kick the ball out to guys who simply aren’t good shooters. Offenses look great when guys make open shots. Not so much when they don’t. Warriors hit their open and semi-contested looks last night. Rockets didn’t. They have to find someone or have someone step up to actually knock down the shots off the looks they get. The first half was an absolute joke in terms of open shots missed.
The team is .500 and the goal is a playoff spot or 50 wins. This isn't the Harden Rockets of a team full of vets and there will be growing pains each year. He's an excellent coach and we'll get better as the season progresses.
B- What he did for the mindset, organization and professionalism of the team can’t be understated. We were the Pistons for 3 years with utter chaos on and off the court, now we are a .500 squad with a fighting chance any given night. That being said his offensive system is non existent and that just won’t cut it long term. He has to either grow, accept an offensive coordinator or be replaced.
For sure this... However... They can't hit shots. That's not changing. So the question is within that framework, what is the best offense to run? Hard to make an argument for what they do run. Half the time they look confused. "Oh, we're gonna have Amen initiate? Great! Wait, they're sagging 10 ft off of him? Well... let's have FVV set a pick on his guy then!!" what? Spam FVV-Alpi PnRs, against constantly packed paints?!?! Yeah, no. Would a full motion offense be better? Who the f knows... full motion, i doubt... semi-motion, i think definitely yes. Create space via motion, confusion. But that's not happening. So the next best imo would be basically what they're doing, but a more proactive willingness to move the ball efficiently and effectively. 2 of their better players at this - Alpi and Amen - seem to have gotten much worse. If it was just one I might be like "cmon Alpi!" or "cmon Amen" ... and still am to an extent. But not only is it NOT just one, its 2 of again, the smarter, better ball movers on the team. Amen's ast% right now is 11.2% compared to 17% last year. Even worse cause his TO% has risen from 14.9% to 20.2%. Sengun's assist% is down from 25.2% to 20.9%... but at least his to% is also down (just slightly). That this is an issue for both speaks much more to coaching to me then anything. Again, these dudes look confused af out there much of the time. I don't envy Ime being given a roster of bad shooters in 2024/2025 and being tasked with making it work. But I think I could install a better offense in a week - no joke - and that's embarrassing.
I think you can move around as much as you want and the defense is still gonna pack the paint until someone on the Rockets convinces them otherwise.
This. The Rockets are losing about 6 ppg based solely on missing wide open threes over how they did last season. Even with the horrible shooting, the Rockets are a Top 10 offense this season as they don't turn ball over much and get so many offensive boards.
I think shot making is easier when it is defined that is what they should do from a certain spot. Right now they get the ball and go...what do I do next? We are a headless chicken on offense. DD
When the ball swings and it hits you and you’re open…and you can’t knock that down,..that’s a problem. When you catch it in the flow and you’re open that may be the best look you get. The pace of the game is super quick and you only got 24 seconds. reminds me of when Westbrook was with us. Kills the whole offense when one guy shoots so poorly that they don’t have to respect him shooting. Way worse when there’s multiple guys on the court shooting like that.
You complain about outside shooting so the Rockets go out and get the best outside shooter in the entire draft. Problem is the Ime doesn’t know offense and how to set a pick for a 52% three point shooter.
I put a C. Lack of offense and stubbornnes with vets makes him limited. The backwards slow development of Sengun and the rookies is worrisome
Ime is a defensive minded coach and is pretty much trying to still a simpler version of what Boston does. I'm not saying he has a top 10 coach right now, but 6 games in I think this is more of an with roster and bad shooting luck. We are going to need to consolidate the roster by the end of next off season, there's too many high draft picks and players on their rookie deals to feed and develop.
Our offense is a team full of youngsters yet we can't run a fking fast break, cuts alley oops bc of fvv slow a$$. No sht by the time we even get to the other side the defense is already set and is daring our shooters to shoot. Ball movement is fvv slow walk it up, pass it to an open man and hopes he makes something out of it. Stupid as fk offense
I don’t disagree with you that shooting is the issue, but the way to fix it is to cut back on some of Jabrari’s wasted threes that rarely go in and focus on getting Green, Sheppard, and FVV special plays to get them open and bombing away. They are all three decent shooters. Even Whitmore and Eason aren’t horrible. The problem is that we need an offensive coordinator as guys who shouldn’t be shooting threes seem to have free reign to shoot whenever they feel like it.
I think this is the most fair take And given Ime’s lack of awareness and accountability, I have little faith in him to grow. He just shows this stubbornness that the likes JVG, McHale, Hollins all did. Unlike JVG (at least), Ime puts it all on his players. He’s very good at deflecting and I bet he runs circles around Tillman and Rafael with his vision and defence talk.
He gets a c- for me. He does get props for washing silas stink of our youngsters. His refusal to make adjustment to the line ups and his weird fixation for fvv is what's docking him. I'm fine benching sengun and green when they deserve it but his refusal to bench fvv no matter the performance just irks me. Man does not deserve harden level treatment when he sucks.
