Houston, we have a problem…

nice post... id say i agree with 90%....

the one thing i would say about Reed... is i believe its totally a confidence thing... comparing like Bari and Reed, we've seen both examples of how to deal with it imo....
bari struggles and ime leaves him in... poor strategy or 'letting the guy work through his issues...'?
reed struggles and gets pulled... apply the same barometer...
it feels like a damned if u do and damned if u dont scenario,,,
bari already looks shook as hell... and often so does reed... both are like watching Ryan Anderson mentally fall apart...

i would def prefer to see bari coming off the bench... and i wouldnt mind seeing reed start a few games (although i think he is better suited to 6th man - so he gets more shots wo deferring to starters the whole time...)

 

No point in watching these trash play anymore....not going to go anywhere. Waste of time and effort. Won't be watching at all until we trash away trash cancer Durant....super overrated POS ever.

 

We do have a massive problem. If a coach trusts his deep bench guard in Aaron Holiday more than Reed and also refuses to make adjustments when one of his players is in a bad shooting slump (Jabari) then this screams favoritism more than anything. We need a coach that can effectively level up our players and not force feed his plays that obviously don't work. Funny enough when things were working, you immediately change it up when changes were not necessary (doubling Deni Avdija). Last night we were getting beat by rookie big men but there was no adjustments. The funny thing is that each and every loss, he never owns up to his **** and just keeps blaming the players

 

This 99er must have been on hibernation sleep on his spaceship and landed back to earth recently

 

Thanks @kjayp, I'll take 90% success rate on CF.

 

its not just deny KD. Its deny reed or KD and let everyone shoot

People keep saying we're missing open shots...

There is a reason Jabari, Amen, Holiday, Okogie etc are always open

 

They've lost to teams actively looking to lose/tank

Those are excuses.

THe issues were there from the beginning, its just being exposed.

Deny the ball to KD and Reed (the defense on both is aggressive starting at halfcourt), watch the rest of the team miss open shots. Every team is doing it

 

Buncha hairs-on-fire fair-weathered fans unable to look past the last bad shot and making long-range conclusions from the last loss.

Get a grip. It's a marathon not a sprint.

 

There's the things that occurred prior to FVV going down and then there's the aftermath ....

They have, out of necessity gotten ahead of themselves but part of that is forced on them:

Particularly with Amen as the point guard - He isn't ready for that.

No, it doesn't appear that Reed's development matters much this season, but I do think his problems will have to be solved in the offseason - you just don't have time to work on things like that in season. Ball handling and beating pressure, that's an offseason issue.

Before the injury, some of us wanted guard depth but we got DFS (Capela was a throw in on the Durant deal) .... We were told how much they were going to help bla bla bla .... well, we were already thin at guard before and thinner after - DFS has played a grand total of 139 minutes all season and the team was just fine without him. The Forward spots were and still are the strength of the team.

I wanted them to go after Ty Jerome in the offseason - He went to Memphis for ~8M. I know he's yet to play this season ... but a healthy Jerome was a .440 shooter and one of the most efficient guards in the league in the pick & roll.
He's everything you hope Reed turns into .... that would have given you a very solid guard rotation and the forward spots are still an embarrassment of riches with KD, Amen, Jabari, Tari, Okogie, Tate and Green as well as Sengun when you play the double big lineup.

With a healthy FVV your guard rotation is FVV, Reed & Holiday .... mainly playing a 3rd forward with a single guard to Reed and Holiday and while Reed is a great shooter, he doesn't have the point guard chops "Yet?" to run a team.

Point blank, in hindsight, the DFS signing was a colossal mistake. You already had 7 guys fighting for minutes at 3 spots.

There's plenty of talent on this roster to compete right away - but not without a competent point guard. Without FVV, you just don't have that - and FVV is entirely replaceable. It's not simply about the player but the total lack of the skillset on the roster.

This team, with a competent point guard might be 8-9 wins better than they are currently.

The real question is, do they do something about it between now and the deadline or are we playing for next year?

 

So in other words, if FVV was reasonably healthy this year, the Rockets are pushing OKC for the best record in the NBA. Personally, I'd guess the Rockets would have the 2nd or 3rd best record right now with FVV.

OKC was the best team going into this year. I fully expect the Rockets to be a Top 4 seed this year. To Hemingway's chagrin, I think the Rockets are hoping on FVV returning so the Rockets have a PG 1-2 punch of FVV and Reed with Amen playing the rest of the guard minutes.

 

This is total and utter bs. Anyone with a brain understood that Amen would struggle initially with his new role. What do you think a pg is? Before the season started everybody said who is going to bring the ball up? Amen does that just fine. Who is going to initiate the offense? Amen does that regularly and is getting to the hoop anytime the other team is in man. Is a PG supposed to drive and either score or dish? Amen has done that from the start, but has gotten considerably better over the last 20 games or so. His expected assists numbers are through the roof. His actual assists numbers for the season are on an equal basis to FVV and better over the last 20 games. Amen can’t make our shooters shoot well.

His turnovers are reasonable for a point guard, Hell the best PG’s in the league often lead the league in TO’s (see Harden, Curry). I guess the definition of a PG is to dribble around the perimeter and chuck up a bad shot, like last year’s PG. Maybe, it’s Reed who can’t wait to hand the ball to Durant soon as he steps across the half-court line or dribbles around like FVV and then passes out after eating up the shot clock. Amen has one deficiency and that is 3 pt shooting. That is not a pre-requisite for a PG, although it would make him an MVP candidate. Reed is a sg that needs to be spotting up and getting an occasional turn in PnR since he can’t create his own space or rarely gets to the hoop.

Nobody you bring in at PG is going to make a lick of difference if they can’t play defense or if our shooters continue to shoot sub 25% from 3. A lot is on Ime as a terrible bench coach. They do run plays, but they rely on ISO too much. The rotations aren’t just perplexing, they are atrocious. Injuries are also an issue. Many of us wanted Reed insurance before the year and I still support that, but there is no way to get a top-notch PG without blowing up the team. This team is too talented not to make a run eventually, but as long as Ime is coach we won’t be championship competitors. By its very nature, Narcissism is almost impossible to overcome, unless you really are as great and all-knowing as you think you are. Ime is a narcissist.

 

and they always butcher the quote just like people do with Rudy T’s famous catchphrase (DON’T EVER underestimate…, not NEVER)

the famous words were: “oka Houston, we’ve had a problem here…”

 

Actually, it offends me more when they misquote Darth Vader's line as, "Luke, I am your father, when it was clearly:



Yes, I'm a middle-aged nerd. No, not nerd enough to wear a Star Wars costume to one of the series' opening nights, which would scream, "WHAT is a vagina?" That would be a nerd raised to the fourth power.

 

Hahaha.

 

Are you the one that made up that "Houston, we have a problem" Millions and millions of people copy you while deriding Houston teams. And they all act like they're so damn cute and that they've thought of a putdown nobody else has. You should get royalties.

 

I'm with you tbh, I think we lucked out massively on Sengun who outperformed his draft position, but then Tari would've been the same but he has health concerns, Jalen was a miss, Jabari a miss, Amen questionable whether he's more than just a defensive specialist, everyone else full blown bust...I'm not sure we did the best move trading Jalen for Durant. It might have been better to have given them Bari like they asked and used the Jalen fool's gold and other bits to try and get more actual ability...

 

Amen and Reed should each continue to get about 12 to 15 minutes a game at point guard to develop them. The other minutes should be occupied by somebody that is not currently on the roster. I like Holiday as a little spark, plug shooting guard type.

I’d prefer as well that we had a few minutes of Sengun initiating offense. we get that now but it’s not quite diverse enough if that makes sense. I mean a little bit more of him passing out of the high post a little bit like a Rick Adelman type of set up.

 

Partly. Players are not a static entity, they develop, at least they are supposed to. At the rate they are developing, you would be right. But I think coaching has been the problem here, both Silas and Ime.

Silas literally offered nothing to the players in terms of development, to the extent that he was stopping the players from developing with his minute allocation and roles given to players. Ime forces players actively to develop on defense, to which sengun responded positively. But he doesn't offer anything for offensive development. I think it played a huge role in Sengun and Reed's development. Both players have huge offensive upside in my opinion, Sengun more as a player who lifts the whole team up and Reed as an individual scorer. These are players who will reach their potential through offensive development and should aim for average on D, and it is okay if it takes time. But Ime has a very short leash for defensive mistakes and cannot put the players in plays that will support their development on offense.

And now it looks like he lost the team completely. They are bunch of unhappy players destined for failure with a coach blaming them for not putting in the effort. It is just so sad to see a team this talented, full of positive energy come to where it is today.

 

Oct–Nov: Shot the lights out. #1 three-point percentage in the NBA.

Dec–mid-Jan: Can’t shoot. Probably one of the lowest three-point percentages in NBA history for that stretch.

Talent? Maybe just a regression to the mean.

Poor shooting is contagious.

 

Let’s be honest …… last years roster was not going to move the needle this year. A trade had to be made for aging KD….
I believe if this roster was healthy we’d be riding high right now on W’s…….