POLL: Rockets vs Thunder Starting 5 with FVV Out (Kool-Aid Goggles Edition)

Ridiculous claims. Dort and Williams clear Tari, Bari, DFS by a mile and I’m not so sure KD vs Chet is as clear cut as you present it. Thunder easily have the better starting 5, with or without FVV. That’s not to say we cannot beat them.

 

I don’t think it is as massive as you present, but yes I would say OKC has the better starting 5. The Rockets match up with OKC better than most. Amen showed he can shut down SGA and SGA is everything for the OKC offense. Dort and Williams are clearly better than Tari or Bari, but healthy Durant is better than Chet. Sengun is better than Hartenstein. I do think this is one of the starting line-ups in the league that Tari or DFS would be a better fit to start than Sheppard.

 

They still have a better starting 5 I think, as much as I do think Shai's overrated, I still think he's a top 5 guy (I just think Giannis and Luka are better tbh) and I think you really have to compare players by their standing/importance to the team more than position vs position, no team has the same strong positions so it's a silly comparison that way. That being said:

Star/Offensive focal point
KD vs Shai - KD may have the better overall career, right now it's clearly Shai.
"Robin"
Sengun vs Jwill - Both all stars, Sengun is on neither the all-nba or all-defense list, Jwill made both, and was #2 on a championship squad, JWill wins.
"Defensive upcoming star"
Amen vs Chet - I like Chet actually and I thought he was going to be a fragile bust when he was coming in, but Amen's a cut above him tbh, just a different tier of prospect. Amen wins this one
"Defensive specialist with spot offense"
Dort vs Tari - This is super close, but if we're looking for 3&D which is the role Tari's likely to play if he starts rather than being spark off the bench then Dort destroys him I'm afraid.
"Big man who could probably do more than he does but hasn't really been called to"
IHart vs Bari - I personally think Bari wins this one and I've never seen the Hartenstein hype. I think you can put this either way though.

I think I'd need to be much more of a homer than I am to put us above them just yet tbh.

 

Of all the major sports leagues, the NBA is as much a perception-driven league as any of the others. It's all in the eye of the beholder, how good players are and how good a team is. Every "great" player gets that way by bending the rules a little bit, and if the narrative says they're even greater, the officials will alter their whistles to support a reality where that team truly is the best in the league. Case in point: Golden State Warriors, a completely manufactured dynasty after Adam Silver talked to Steve Kerr the offseason after he joined them and realized all the money the NBA could print by having the little white and Asian kids dabbing on the jumbotron every time Curry ran around an illegal screen and knocked down an open three. Or had Draymond hip check a defender into the front row, Andrew Bogut swing his ass around like an assault-and-battery weapon, Klay/Looney/Zaza sliding their feet into the landing zones of opposing jump shooters, and just the all around holding shenanigans that the entire team got away with from 2015-2023.

All of us Rockets fans have an extreme responsibility to push the narrative this year that SGA is a no-athleticism all-trickery bad-for-the-game foul baiter, that their championship was only given to them by Silver as a pity vote, and that last year was an aberration in terms of how hurt all their opponents were. Speak it into existence. The league is bending more towards physicality and hard nosed defense now that Cash Cow Curry is on his way out, and we need to be the beneficiaries. Now deploy yourselves to every corner of the internet and spread the word.

 

^^^ please ask me again after preseason...

 

Considering they just won a ring, any votes for our own has to be bias or homerism.

I'm not just gonna say they are flat out worse than us until we prove it.