Yeah, Fred is shooting without spacing and distributing without shooters. With, say, Boston, he could probably shoot close to 40% and dish nearly 9 assists per game. I've gone from being rather iffy on his future here to feeling like we've all been underrating him a great deal. He's not 2018 CP3, but he's not as far off as people seem to think. If he wants to be here let's just lock him up throughout his early 30s.
Jabari has always been a big key to the defense. His length and ability to stay in front of his man and perform on switches kept perimeter players out of the lane. He would also recover and get lots of rebounds. Dillon was overrated by most on this board all year. He is really good against tall skinny guys that like to play on the perimeter. He is not good against quick guards, not good in the post, and one of the worst rebounders for a forward I have ever seen. When Jabari comes back, Dillon should go to the bench. When FVV gets back he should be off the ball as much as possible and the reins turned over to Amen the rest of the year. If the youngsters, including Amen, are struggling with turnovers, then FVV can slow it down and control the offense especially if we have a lead.
Amen is way too turnover prone to trust as the main ball handler. He’s also not a great playmaker other than bullying his way to the basket. If he’s in the open court, sure let him push it and try to get to the rim. If it’s a half-court set, get the ball to FVV or Sengun.
When FVV gets back, the Rockets should run a diversified attack. You can want FVV off ball as much as you want, but it is clear to most that FVV on ball a good portion of the time is why the Rockets win when he plays and have been horrible when he doesn't. FVV is good with Amen as Amen can get on ball reps without having to be on ball all the time and with having a secondary playmaker and shooter when he is on ball.
Reed Sheppard is a PG. Ime Udoka is forcing Reed to play Spot Up Corner 3 SG. Ime Udoka doesn't know what he is doing.
I like Fred very much, but we can do better. Just because we don’t have a replacement doesn’t mean we have to tether the team to Fred for the next few yrs. Obviously we are worse without him, but he’s a 6th man. I hope the rockets consider upgrading the backcourt in the offseason. As long as they don’t overpay Fred I’m happy to extend him. But if they continue to overpay him I’m gonna be very disappointed.
we won plenty of games without Jabari when we lost freds leadership and experience we started losing experience and leadership mean something they mean a lot actually dillon has experience but he is not a leader same with adams fred is a special player and has been for along time raps did have Kyle but they also had fred which gave them 48 minutes of terrific decision making fred is not a star he is a very necessary component of this team because without him we do not have experienced leadership all we have without him on court is potential great leadership amen and alpi are not there yet especially when you combine their lack of experience in organizing the team on court and making the right play with our poor perimeter shooting it is too much to overcome we were riding the wave of good health earlier and then the critical injury happened to the one guy that we do not have a replacement ready for yet we are in the middle of a rebuild on track and now fully exposed reed does have the potential to replace fred and be a superior fred at some point whether he develops that potential is another question kid was in high school 2 years ago and has played in a half a season in the association cut him a lot of slack looking forward alpi has to develop an efficient c and s three ball and a pull up jumper which he has the talent and the basic mechanics to do if amen is going to run the point at all he has to learn how to dance with the handle in iso into an efficient three ball or drive and he has to be able to work off the pick with a hard dribble into the play action otherwise he cannot be an nba point he can still be a great player as long as his body holds up but not running the point in half court simply put in order to be a championship contender the dude at the top with the ball in half court sets has to have a great handle with plenty of deception and the brains and experience to know what he can get from the defense and what he cannot get from the defense efficiently the only guy on this roster that gives you those things presently is fred
Bruh this is kinda inaccurate. Are you saying that just because we have Fred to run the offense and settle things down we should be winning every single game? The point of this post was that Fred has a significant veteran presence and helps control the team - especially the offense. When FVV went down our offense has fallen off the charts and our clutch time execution has been atrocious. Nobody is saying that FVV is some superstar talent but it is clearly evident that we need him badly. This team was 32 - 15 when he went down and we haven't won since.
The only elite guard we could have traded for was Fox and he clearly wanted to go to San Antonio. He even said that he preferred it and there were leaks that his family was setting up in San Antonio before the trade even happened. Everyone keeps saying we need to make a trade but who the f*ck are you guys proposing we trade for. The only player that was available that could help us was KD but the suns wanted young players and a ton of picks. Not to mention KD has been injured a ton this year and last year. All these people bashing Stone need to put up or shut up. Are you willing to give up 3-5 first round picks for a rental of Jimmy Butler or Kevin Durant? Our entire core is below the age of 23, have you ever seen a championship core with not one of their young players even near their prime? If the fans seriously deluded themselves into thinking we can win a championship this year then there is no hope.
I need to apologize to FVV lol, I had no clue the team would suck so much if he wasnt playing. Maybe it is the combination of Jabari and FVV both being gone that is hurting the team cuz they were two of our more consistent 3 pt shooters.
I agree with the shooting. I think FVV is the only one who can run screen and roles with Sengun to get open looks. FVV also has the highest assist numbers on the team and he is our leader. During a bunch of games but especially the Cavs games FVV was yelling at the young players to calm down down the stretch and was coaching them on the court. FVV is also a great defender and makes a ton of clutch threes. Jalen and Amen are not developed enough to take over the offense plain and simple. Just getting 50 wins and making it to the Western Conference Semis would already be overachieving.
Fred was an average starting PG when we signed him. By production, that's roughly what he was. No we can't win without our starting PG. But we can win with an average PG or better. That's not an indictment on our young guys. You can't just take away the starting PG. Give us an NT-MLE-worthy vet PG (Coby White?) and we'll do just fine with Amen/Green/Sengun mostly running things.
Is Fred or the lack of depth behind him? The roster is depleted of point guards even Fred himself is a combo guard. Reed is too. We don’t have a point guard on the roster. Stone really
Fred was a combo guard with the Raptors during their championship run, but I'd argue he has evolved himself into a true point guard, or as close as you're going to get in today's NBA. There are very few guys who are "pure" point guards anymore. T.J. McConnell is one of the only ones I can think of. (Actually, Harden has very nearly transformed himself into one.) Fred was #7 in the NBA assists per game last season. He's fallen off this season, but I think that's because his usage is down a bit and one of his main assist targets, Sengun, has had a bad season as a scorer.
I think one issue also is Ime mostly runs an MDA system where the pg controls everything, instead of a system like GSW where there is a lot of movement and a lot of passing and cutting. Now that FVV is injured, we have no consistent way to score other than transition and dump the ball to Sengun. Thats why I'm thinking Rox should try to go after Trae instead of Booker. If the system is built for a ball dominant guard might as well get one of the best playmakers in the league.
Trae is one of those players where the points/assists look super impressive but hide some underlying issues with his game. Trouble with Trae is that he's a massive defensive liability in a way that Fred just isn't. In my view, FVV is about as close to all-defense as a 6-foot player can be. Trae also turns the ball over a lot--over twice as often as Fred does. Trae is a moderately more efficient scorer on higher volume--mainly because he draws a lot more free throws--and puts up higher assist numbers. But again, at the expense of a two and a half more turnovers per game. Kind of a wild take here, but I think FVV might actually be the better overall player, or at least very close. I feel like Fred has one of the most undervalued archetypes in the league--plus-defense-but-undersized point guard who rarely turns the ball over and takes most of his shots as three pointers. My only real problem with having him just go on in his current role with us indefinitely is that he's on the wrong side of 30.
Amen gets in the lane at will. When he is initiating, the ball moves around the perimeter much better than with any other initiator. Our offense was much more fluid when they moved Fred off the ball and they did it against very good teams. Amen rarely makes an errant pass, but he does outrun the ball quite a bit. The more experience they give him this year, the better he will be next year. When Fred is playing and not dominating the ball it gives us another decent spot up shooter. Having Fred playing off the ball gives us a zone buster and someone that can calm the team down in the 4th quarter. Although his penchant for playing hero ball at the end of tight games can be infuriating. When we made no moves at the deadline to get shooters, we effectively punted this season and should lean in heavily on development. We will still at least make the play-in, because our schedule gets real easy in March and April, but any idea that we would make noise in the playoffs is ridiculous unless their are mulitple injuries to other team's key players. When Jabari gets back, Dillon should go to the bench and Fred should play off the ball at least 2/3 of the half-court possessions. Cam and Reed should be getting as many minutes as possible the rest of the year. Our youngsters are what will make us relevant not freakin FVV. He is a good steadying hand and would be an ideal vet backup next year if he will take a 25m or less contract. Our defense has been putrid since Jabari went down. FVV being out makes it even worse, since Amen has had to guard frontcourt players too often. When Sengun and Adams started the second half, Amen was able to guard Irving and shut him down. Jabari is a really important to our perimeter defense and rebounding. Dillon and Sengun have regressed horribly on the defensive side of the ball since he went down.
FVV is like you said one of the best 6 ft defenders but at the end of the day 6 ft people just arent great defenders. I dont see him stopping Luka, Lebron, SGA etc against the Celtics FVV couldnt stop anybody among the starters. In the playoffs against the best teams I dont see a big difference between defense of FVV and Trae tbh, I think both will still get hunted down and scored upon. Trae acts as the sole offensive guy on the Hawks nobody else can even score in iso thats why he gets turnovers cuz the defense is always on him. FVV gets low turnovers but all he really does is set the offense and do pnrs with Sengun, those are low turnover plays. Trae gets 3 more turnover than FVV but also gets 6 more assist lol. I think having a playmaker like him set the offense will make the Rox a contender. Yeah he is bad on D but pg is where weak defenders can play in like Steph Curry.
