Durant traded to Houston for Green, Brooks, #10 pick, and multiple 2nd rounders

This is what we wished Jalen could do. Use gravity to give teammates easy baskets.

If Durant is healthy and motivated, our offense will look much better.

 

Absolutely agree with this. Jalen HAS to get to the line more. He had way too many games where he didn't, and he could probably add 4-5 ppg if he would seek contact, drive to the hoop, and stop settling for bad jump shots.

 

In retrospect the KD trade happened at the right time, as with Spurs getting both Dylan Harper and Carter Bryant in addition to Wemby and Castle and OKC just added Sorber and Topic to their big 3 I think Rox would have been leaped over in the "young talent" department.

I love Amen and Sengun but I dont think just the 2 of them are enough, esp since none of the other young guys look like they're gonna be stars at their tier. At least now we have KD we can go for it for the next 2-5 yrs and compete with the best.

 

The Spurs had Wemby. If they are ahead of the Rockets, it is because of Wemby. The vast majority of their value is in Wemby.
OKC...I think they are the defending champs with a young roster, but for the most part, their young guys are 1-3 years older than the Rockets'
young guys. I would not count SGA as a young guy. OKC young guys are probably better than the Rockets young guys, but I think the Rockets have more internal growth to come. I think the Rockets needed more growth to catch them and don't see Topic and Sorber as big difference makers as it see it mostly as Chet/JW versus Amen/Sengun.

 

Jalen has been reliably healthy over the course of his career. Avoiding contact probably plays into it. But he has to bite the bullet and take some hits. Not like James Harden, who's built like a tank, maybe. But certainly not shy away from contact so much.

 

Yeah, that's the paradox. Simplest explanation is that Jalen has an aversion to seeking contact, and this aversion causes both his reliable availability (non-injury) and his limits as an offensive player.

I'm imagining trade conversations in which Stone pointed out to other GMs how reliable Jalen is as an injury-free starter, hoping they wouldn't make the connection.

 

Lmao, SGA came into the league as a 21-22 yr old and also missed 1-2 seasons due to injury.....

Dude's mileage is like 25 year old if he were to start like a normal 19 year old......

The lack of mileage speaks for itself and still enough experience to go deep.
He didn't truly play that many seasons.

 

SGA is a 27-year-old in his prime, and is closer in age to FVV than most of the Rockets young players. If he's still considered young, that just puts OKC further ahead. I'd say, it is hard enough to compare young players 2 years apart much less 5-6 years.

 

Dude came into the league as a ready young player at age 21.......he had 70% of his arsenal at disposal.....

So much for that theory of him ever being young and raw......watch his Kentucky days.....

You are right that someone who entered the league 21 and won it at 26......that is earlier than Steph Curry.

That is as early as you can win a chip, MVP, Finals MVP and Scoring Champion in one season and early in his career.

The only gripe is that the Thunder are much younger than the last Dynasty GSW and probably not as guaranteed to win that many chips .....they are still in the race.

 

The problem with FVV is not that he is close in age to SGA , young or old, he is just not that good compared to the best players.

Never really was.

 

This is like the draymond green argument. I don't know if you've seen the Gil's arena clip where Kenyon says he can name 200 players better than Draymond. You can name probably 200 players better than Fred. But for our team and for the warriors those two guys are soo important that replacing them with someone you think is better isn't necessarily a good move. The warriors are not the warriors without Draymond. He does all the intangibles just like Fred. There is only one ball and having more than one player initiate offense is more of a luxury. But you need the guy who plays solid defense doesn't turn it over and just set an identity. Replacing Fred with someone who you think is better doesn't necessarily make the team better. Like when suns traded cp3 for Bradley Beal.

 

Before it was just Wemby but now with Harper and Carter Bryant they have a solid young core even without Wemby. Harper is the unanimous second afrer Cooper and CB already showed out in SL.

OKC young guys before were only SgA, Chet and Jdub, the rest were busts or role players. Now Sorber and Topic give them more quantity. They now have both quantity and quality.

Rox already had some internal growth we saw Sengun become an All Star and Amen broke out. However we lost our high potential guys Jalen and Cam Whitmore I dont see Tari, Jabari and Reed breaking out tbh, maybe Jabari if KD mentors him?

I dont think we have arguably the best young core anymore we have 2 all star level talent and some roleplayers. Thats decent but not good enough compared to other teams.

But again this KD trade changes things we are now an old team in win now mode. The timeline shifted to now and we got old guys like Adams, FVV, Capela, DFS and Okogie to assist KD.

I guess my point is lets enjoy the next 4 yrs and who know maybe PHX gives us more lotto picks to help improve the young core again in 2027 and 2029.

 

Man KD working with Alpi is going to be awesome.

 

Spurs are overrated.

Wemby is special, but I am skeptical about how long he will last. If he has a long and durable career, he will be an outlier for dudes his size.

Harper might be good. Hard to know about Carter Bryant at this point but I wouldn’t take him over Jabari or Reed or Tari if the Spurs offered him. Castle sucks and is grossly overrated. The rest of their dudes are meh.

I don’t see it with them.

 

Sat next to a Rockets scout on a plane ride back from Germany a few days ago. I got the sense that he wasn't really tied into much insider info because he was always traveling, but he said Phoenix was really 'pissed' at the return they got for KD, but it was the best they could get.

Not really much other info than what you can find on this board, other than scouts have to go under cover to attend USA-based high school ball games to scout.

 

I'm skeptical that one can know a young core's value precisely enough to say SA and OKC had less young player value than the Rockets prior to the draft, but now, based on a non-Cooper Flagg prospects, they have enough definite value that they are better than the Rockets.

I'd say the odds are better that if the Spurs now have more value than the Rockets, it is because Wemby remains healthy and becomes a perennial MVP candidate going forward such that other players are irrelevant. i'd take the Rockets young players minus Amen over the Spurs young players minus Wemby. If Wemby and Amen are viewed closely in talent, the Rockets win. Topic and Sorber have not done anything to change my opinion of the Thunder who probably had better young player talent before the draft.