Glass half empty - glass half full situation. The Rockets have had: #2, #3,#4,#3 picks the last four years. Out of those four, all are still on the team and outside of the rookie, all are deeply involved in the rotation. The bad is that none of them at this point are real franchise players. The 2021 #2 pick came down to Green or Mobley or Barnes. The 2022 #3 pick came down to Smith or Murray of Ivey. The 2023 #4 pick came down to Thompson or Thompson or Black The 2024 #3 pick came down to Sheppard or Castle or Clinghan I wanted Mobley or Barnes in the 2021 draft, but Green has improved and has proven to be a legitimate NBA starting shooting guard. Smith and Thompson were pretty close to no brainers in 2022 and 2023 - as there was a drop off after them. I still support Sheppard at #3 - but it remains to see if Castle will end up better. Recently Bam McMahon said that the higher ups for the Rockets told him that they are overall happy with the progress of the Rockets and thinks they are a super star away from competing for a title.
Banchero is getting 26/8/5 and has a TS% higher than Jalen Green. Mobley is averaging 19/9/3/2/1 while shooting 37% on 3's - and will finish in the top 5 voting for DPLOY, for the second time this year. Barnes is averaging 19/8/6/2/1 while playing high level defense and at multiple spots. He also averages almost 3 more assists a game than Green does. These guys are not Hall of Famers at this point - but they have certainly done more than Green or Smith have so far in their early careers. Have some objectivity.
When I say, "hit", I mean to varying degrees, across the board. Certainly enough talent, along with our assets to be set up for a long run. The Rockets not taking Mobley and Grimes are my only complaints. When you balance everything out, though... Harden deal, Ime hire, good selections ... Terrific job by Stone/Eli So far... On Reed, I've always thought he had a high floor. Like, 6th man or borderline starter. But, now...seeing him with the ball in his hands...
Sengun and Tari are the two great picks given the draft position. Our top picks other than Amen has been meh imo. It really comes down to what Jalens ceiling is, because he has fierce competition in his draft class. Cade, Mobley, Barnes and Franz were all maxed.
I think a lot of the worst nightmares come from names like Milicic, Olowokandi, Bennett, Kwame Brown etc........but I think more than not you should at least get an All Star or a productive player out of the Top 3.... some of the other franchises do. Amen is just an alien, not from this world.
Objectivity implies context. For example Scottie Barnes is doing his thing on a bad team. On bad teams no matter how much versatile you think Scottie is, on bad teams high usage offensive players are given the freedom to take entire quarters off without being benched. These are luxuries that Jalen Green doesn't have. Also there is the fact that players on opposing teams approach the level of competitiveness and energy expenditure they will use based on the level of opponent they face. The Rockets often face the opposing team's best effort. Scottie also has worse scoring efficiency for someone with less burdens and less pressure. Goofing on a tanking team makes things like scoring easier. And then the assist thing. Players of Barnes archetype, big men playmakers often have inflated assists because a lot of them come from things like dho hand offs where there is no genuine skill in breaking down the defense as a playmaker. It's literally a hand off. Jalen Green doesn't get these easy type of assists. His assists purely come from breaking perimeter defenses and the way opposing teams blitz the pnr with Jalen a lot of his playmaking comes from secondary and tertiary assists that come from Green creating a 4 on 3 advantage for his teammates off the pnr. Guys like Mobley are specialized elite role players. Jalen Green has an archetype that has the longest development time because being an efficient off the dribble scorer against opposing NBA team POA defenses is a lot harder for a young guard regardless of how physically gifted and skilled they are compared to young big athletic freaks with specialized defensive roles. The former takes a lot more reps and gametime to become good at. Guys like Mobley hit their ceiling a lot earlier than young scoring guards. Bancharo barely has a higher scoring efficiency for the season and for their careers Bancharo is lower. Also there is the aspect of Green doing this while playing 80 games on a second seed while Bancharo missing half the season and still with the games he played the Magic have a losing season with 20-25. Also like with Green, a lot of Magic fans are perplexed by Bancharo's on/off numbers especially on a sub .500 team where it's much easier to have a positive on/off. My point is none of these guys are pulling out ahead in some fashion where Green can't easily catch up the moment he shows out in like one playoff series. Jalen Green has a hot March stretch last season and national publications were already creating headlines like "is it time to crown Jalen Green the best of the 2021 draft". Narratives for young highly talented inconsistent scoring guards flip on a dime the moment they do something like show an impressive playoff series. Also given that every national media criticism of this current rocket squad is "they are a 1A offensive option away from being a contender" drafting Mobley would have made us further from that goal than we are now as Green is SIGNIFICANTLY more closer to that desire of a 1A offensive option than Mobley.
I love Green but imagining Mobley with Ime is crazy to think about. In hindsight our defense would be too good with Mobley to have gotten Bari and Amen the years after and I doubt we take Sengun after Mobley. So I’m grateful for our guys.
These are valid points - and I agree with your overreaching premise that Green could catch or pass these guys. What I would say for Mobley is that currently he is better basketball player - and agree that hinges of whether or not Green becomes a true A-1 offensive engine. I don't like comparing Banchero to Green because they are not in the same draft class. If you were to tell me that I could have one of them going forward, I would take Banchero because he has less time in the NBA, is already a better scorer and has shown the aptitude to possibly be a primary offensive engine.... then again, Banchero could get hurt and not develop into anything, or he could chafe at Udoka's requirements on the defensive side.
I hope that my english will be enough to explain. I dont know exactly how they doing but if i am going to target someone ( lets say Jalen) firstly i call NBA player ( example brooks) and let play them and i can see how he can handle with a real nba player. I remember Alperen and Doncic which they were playing like a prime players in their 16 and 17 years old.
Remember that in their respective sophomore years they had similar ppg and similar efficiency but one player from their second to third year had to transition from a loose coaching system that allowed defensive lapses and stretches of lazy effort to a new coaching regime with entirely new standards for players. Remember Green's sophomore age 20 scoring numbers are some of the highest in NBA history. The list of NBA players at age 20-21 to average 22 ppg is very very small. So why didn't he continue that trajectory? Someone of that trajectory you'd expect to be a 25+ ppg scorer in their 4th season. So did Green devolve in terms of offensive skillsets? Are we sure he wouldn't have better scoring numbers than Paolo if he was in Devin Booker's shoes where he got to play on a doggy doodoo team for hist first 5 seasons? Today if Green was transplanted to a bad NBA team what do you think his scoring average would be?
Since Mobley is the only one mentioned above who could possibly be considered near-franchise-level at this point in their careers, I think there's only real mistake Stone made regarding these picks. It's a gigantic one, though: He put keeping KPJ ahead of drafting Mobley. On the surface, that's borderline unforgivable. Only Jalen eventually becoming a franchise guy (very much in question now) would set that right. HUGE mistake. Mobley would be a defensive MONSTER under Ime.
We'd go from being ranked 4th to 2nd in defensive rating! Any national media would still say we are pretenders because we don't have a 1A. At least for now the media is like "the Rockets are looking for a 1A either through internal development or through trade" But if Mobley was our centerpiece rebuild player there wouldn't even be the "from internal growth" part even mentioned because no amount of internal growth is making Mobley a 1A offensive option. This team is a consistent Jalen Green away from being seen as a "true contender". This team isn't one elite defensive player away from being "true contenders".
Moot point considering Mobley’s dad flat out said something to the effect of not wanting his son on the Rockets because of KPJ if I recall correctly.
This is all true, but there is no guarantee we would have gotten picks high enough to get Jabari and Amen if we had Mobley. Our defense would have improved too much. Also very likely we take someone like Jalen Johnson or Trey Murphy instead of Sengun at 16 if we went Mobley. So it's hard to gauge this. But sitting at 2nd seed with our current guys
I said Booker is better, not that he is a dude, and I don't think he fits with Amen as our clear leader. Dude means superstar to me DD
Rockets would easily be No. 1 this season with Mobley instead of Green. Mobley shooting a wide open 3 once a week wouldn't help the offense though. The offense would be ugly. Removing a guard from a guard starved team would be bad.
