The last two years we were playing to win. So what the comments were about Jalen, Jabari, Sengun’s rookie years and how much they were played vs. Reed and Cam. The fact that we were going for the playoffs this year instead of concentrating on further development was the point and why there is such a disparity in their minutes vs. Jalen and Jabari in their rookie years. I called it right after Reed was selected. I said he was probably going to be in RGV at least until the 2nd half of the season and would not get meaningful rotation minutes all year. It turns out he should’ve been in RGV the first half of the season and then he may even have gotten some playing time to prove himself. Ime didn’t really do a disservice to Reed, but the organization did when they decided to pause the development of Amen, Cam, and Reed to try to win a few more games. Reed will get his chance again this year, since the are going to re-sign FVV and force Amen out of position.
2nd in the west is so ****ING meaningless. The point, the ENTIRE ****ING POINT is to win a championship and to build a team that can actually contend. This team as assembled - or at least the top 8 that Ime played can't....it will never win **** - we need more shooting. Now we have shooters on the bench - guys that are both 20 years old that are better shooters than what we have at the SG and SF spots, and will only get better. It was SHORT sighted to chase a high seed without also developing both at the same time - because when we got to the playoffs we were exposed as one dimensional - and defense always loses against good offense...always...... You need balance. I am just PISSED off because it is so obvious and it is frustrating to watch them eek by all year knowing that playing harder during the season NEVER equates to playoff success, where everyone plays hard and SKILL is magnified. Ime's job is to get this team to contender status, and he is failing, because he is trying to play role players style - and ignoring competent offense - Ime is the kind of guy that leaves a 19 year old Kobe on the bench all year, we need a Phil Jackson type who understands the bigger picture. IMHO, the only way that happens is stone trades away Ime's favorites and forces him to play a balanced lineup. Guys who should be moved or gone by next year if you want to accelerate to a contender. 1. FVV - too slow, too small, too inconsistent - in the way 2. Jalen Green - wuss - scared - never was a starter in AAU even, shouldn't be a starter here Get them out of the way for Reed and Cam - IMHO - if you bring in Durant - great - but you have to play the young players that have actual SHOOTING skill, IMHO. DD
I used Amen and Jabari as examples, not Sengun or Jalen. In fact I purposely didn't use them as examples for the reason you are giving. Please re-read what I said. Amen played minutes for a team trying to win every game. He wasn't just given minutes because of tanking.
Amen played because his best skill is defense -- Ime values defense over offense - that is a problem. DD
That's why in retrospect I don't understand why the Rockets picked Reed over Castle or Clingan. Castle and Clingan are both clearly Ime's type of player. And if he's the guy the Rockets want to be their coach for the next 5 years, why would they draft someone who Ime wouldn't like?
The Ime hate is fascinating. Dude got his team to overachieve and finish in the #2 seed. Shortlisted for coach of the year. Doesn’t really have shooters on the roster (Dillon was our best shooter on volume this season). And folks are killing Ime because he didn’t play a sulking Cam Whitmore who is still learning fundamentals of the game, and rookie Reed Shepherd who was clearly not ready for minutes until the end of the season, when he broke his finger. Lol.
And the narrative that Udoka doesn't develop young guys despite Al P becoming an all-star and Amen making the all-defensive first team. Five of the core seven draftees are heavily featured in the rotation. Four are averaging 30+ mpg and Tari gets all the minutes he can physically handle. Cam had his shot this year and blew it, but people act like he's in the doghouse for no reason at all. Yeah, he played poorly and his media responses showed a complete lack of awareness, but if Ime just gave him more minutes (at someone else's expense) he'd suddenly be good. I promise!
By this logic he also got this #2 seed to underachieve in the playoffs to lose to a #7 seed. It is a bit ironic to see Rockets fans of all people defend someone for overachievement in the regular season and underachievement in the postseason, because presumably most people here have seen this multiple times in the Harden era.
They picked the best player in the draft class instead of bad players Ime would like. Maybe they'll fix that this time around by giving him Giannis' little brother
He does have shooters, he just refuses to play them..... and that's why the Rockets became the 7th team in NBA history to be a 2 seed losing to a 7 seed. He's a coach that prioritizes meaningless regular season wins so he can be on the short list for coach of the year and he doesn't care about winning when it matters
GS's seeding was due to early season struggles and lack of star talent outside of Curry. They were a below .500 team at the time of the Butler trade and were 14 games above by season's end. With Butler in the lineup they were 23-6. Yeah, I'm pissed to lose to them yet again but saying we underachieved because we lost to a #7 seed ignores a lot of context. Our record was not that much better than theirs despite them having Butler for less than half a season. The teams were far more evenly matched than you think. This is like saying the Lakers underachieved against Minnesota because #3 seed lost to #6 seed. They were literally one game apart in the standings. The Lakers had no bigs at all and Minny was on a roll to end the season once all their players were healthy. The result was shocking to no one.
Rockets shop has $20 Reed face shirts if anyone wanted to know. I got one of Reed and Adams. @Bobbythegreat
I know eras are diff and players on teams. Who do you think had a better offensive game plan, gundy or udoka?
Well I don't see Lakers fans thumping their chest saying JJ Redick is an awesome coach for taking his team to the #3 seed. If you want to chest thump for an accomplishment that you later take back as being basically meaningless, then there's no point in chest thumping in the first place. What Ime Udoka did was take the Rockets to a 1st round playoff exit. That achievement came after 3 straight years of some of the most blatant tanking in NBA history and $80+mil of capspace to achieve. It's not that amazing of an accomplishment. JVG did it with a team led by Steve Francis and a 2nd year Yao Ming.
Well unfortunately 3 good starts doesn’t amount to much in terms of sample size. Holiday outplayed him overall
Lakers are a good example of a paper tiger. Rockets are the same but opposite. Lakers cant stop a cold and the Rockets couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat. The Warriors had an issue and went out and solved the issue. The Rockets have an issue and we'll see if they solve it or not. Im happy with the results this year but the process is flawed. Like losing a war to win a battle. Should've developed Reed more this year (and Cam probably). Instead we sacrificed development for wins and if we do this same thing next year, we're going to get bounced again in the first round. A more developed Reed (and Cam) while being a 6th seed is much better than less developed and being the 2 seed. We literally threw up our home court advantage in ****ing Game 1 lol. Hang the banner.
For me, I saw that the Rockets defense was ready in the playoffs. I saw that the offense wasn't. I've seen a ton of development in Amen. Heck, he looked better before getting hurt in Game 7 than he did in Game 1. I don't get the rah rah our young guys are so great, but let's bank on them not being quite ready and not hold them accountable. I am very happy with where this team is. I expect good things from Reed.
I was just curious about what Reed did up until the first game where he got a dnp. Here's the first 24 games of the season. The 25th game is the first game Reed did not play in. I highlighted games where he got at least 15 mins. 7 games out of 24 he got at least 15 mins and 6 of those games were in blowouts. So really just 1 game where he got a good amount of minutes in a close game. He's also got quite a few games in there where he wasn't even getting 10 mins. I did look at some of the individual games to see a breakdown of his minutes by quarter and he was getting like 2-4 min spurts of action in most of those games. That's pretty tough to expect a rookie to come in and produce under those circumstances IMO. Reed compared to other Rookies that played more than 15 games and averaged less than 12 mins over the first 24 games: Reed compared to Jalen and Fred over that time frame: The Rookies who played under similar circumstances to Reed were also all on winning teams. Reed didn't shoot well but he pretty much outperformed those other guys in totality. Only one of those guys was the same age as Reed the others quite a bit older. Jalen and Fred over that timespan weren't exactly lighting it up themselves. I understand you have to play those guys, but if they were better it wasn't by much at all. Just my takeaways from looking at the "chance" Ime gave him at the beginning of the year to be a part of the rotation.
I haven't walked back on anything. I knew our inexperience would be a disadvantage in the playoffs. Building a contender is a process and it wasn't second round or bust for me. Sorry you were so surprised and disappointed at our loss. Udoka's been here for two years and turned the franchise around. What's he's done with a very young roster has impressed me. If losing to an experienced and hot team in the 1st round invalidates that for you, then you're more than entitled to your opinion. It doesn't to me. If we lose in the first round again I'll probably feel the same way you do. For context, I think most people would agree that Mark Daigneault is doing a great job in OKC. They might be the championship favorites right now. They didn't make the playoffs at all in his first three seasons and last year they lost as the #1 seed to the #5 in the semis. It wasn't a massive upset. Everyone knew they were just getting started. It was Chet and JWill's first playoff run. If OKC fans were like you they'd be saying Daigneault wasn't very good and last season's success was basically meaningless.
