Rockets fan since 1981 Finals so I have been through everything but this stupid front office's aversion to Harden and love affair with FVV is akin to Morey's fatal flaw with Ryan Anderson. That decision cratered the Harden era and this certainly didn't help ours. He went for next to nothing and we were NEVER in the mix because we didn't want him. He begged to come here. If we had him instead of FVV think of where we would be now. With our BS offense he would look like a magician here. Everyone says look at Harden's TOs. He gets 3 or 4 and FVV only gets 2. FVV also NEVER gets to the rim or the foul line with Harden getting an average of 8 and FVV 2. Doesn't that negate TO differential completely? Also, without any dribble penetration, FVV gets very few assists comparatively. Offense for the whole team is much more difficult with less open shots. If Harden was running the offense he would have TOs and guess who wouldn't average 9-10 TOs (Durant, Sengun, Amen). There are tons of positive things Harden does that no one else does and the only one we talk about are TOs. Hell, I even argued for letting Reed start and having Harden be the 6th man. Probably better-balanced team. Harden would have destroyed other teams backups with Capela and Tari getting KD the precious rest we need for him. Look how stupid we look now. What other discounted star can we get with FVV's salary? In the offseason maybe we resign Tari and decline FVVs option to sign him to what 4 yr $40M? Why? He gets to start and Reed stays on the bench. If this season already shows our current ceiling then we could grow by throwing Reed in as the starter. At best he is a Mark Price dish and drive with CP3's midrange and some Curry flash. He has a lot of room to grow and we wasted a lot of that last season. Let Amen be Amen and they complement each other. I definitely wanted to keep Dillon but they were renting our cap and Jalen's sorry ass had to go. FVV was NEVER the answer. We all like FVV, he's a good guy and a good teammate. If you want, change it to great and you won't get any pushback from me. You can like a guy personally but what he lacks in size, speed, defense, shooting, drive penetration, etc he makes up for in being able to hold the ball and slow the pace for 40 minutes a game except when he is not available for the entire season. Dumbass Udoka only knows how to coach an offense with Governor (as in on a school bus) FVV and overrebounding because we can't shoot. He got a contract based off of it. The Rockets before the 2024 All Star break were the same team that Silas had with the same record. After that time their record has been the same throughout. Look it up. Record after the 2024 ASB is the same as 2024-2025 and we are on the same pace again. It's not an accident, coincidence, anomaly...it's a feature of the system. He was given the keys to a different team this offseason and promptly **** the bed because he might have to do something different. I was pleasantly surprised at the beginning of the season because no FVV meant we had to do something new. Nope, we just stand around and do the same **** with different people. We need someone on the bench who shot 37% from the field and cannot play vs someone averaging 25/8. It would have cost 2028 1st we can't even use. James wanted out months ago.
To be honest, I do not disagree but there is tons of hindsight in this now. I surely did not even think Udoka would hit and last, I expected him to be marginally better than Silas and be fired within 2 seasons. Did not happen. There are coaches that like Harden and there are coaches that do not like Harden.......that is very normal. To be capable of threading the needles to get most of the transactions right and the draft picks right, you need the GM to be on Presti's level and the Coach on at least Zen Jackson level to recognize talent and prioritize both equally Offense and Defense. The Rox are just not that. Right now they are a great Regular Season team with major flaws that would not survive much of the Playoffs. They have tons of length as a team but other teams are honestly catching up with their draft picks and length.
In hindsight ime was a stupid hire. Any coach worth his salt would choose harden over fvv any day of the week. The fact that we would rather play without a starting pg rather than attempt to trade for harden is just crazy. Barring from choking, we grab harden i think we have a good chance of winning it all this season. Now? Its just a waste of a season.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...a-clippers-cleveland-cavaliers-darius-garland Harden's representatives began gauging which teams might be interested in him, trying to get ahead of potential trade discussions. Harden was interested in reuniting with the Houston Rockets, sources say, a natural fit because their point guard, Fred Van Vleet, had torn his ACL before the season. But the Rockets showed little interest in their former MVP.
James Harden had interest in getting traded back to Houston, but they showed little interest, per @ramonashelburne
LOL I knew it has a chance to upgrade significantly at PG and shows little interest, then sits there and tells us that this isn’t our year because of injuries to our PG and Stephen Adams
If there's one thing Stone has consistently shown in his tenure, it's that he will never, ever try to rectify a bad decision until it's too late. 1. KPJ - head case for 3 years and got a $20mil/yr extension before deciding he had enough money to beat up his GF in public 2. FVV - Major second year decline across the board, getting on the wrong side of 30, undersized PG... gave him an untradable contract and said player proceeded to get season-ending surgery 3. Jalen Green - Same player for 3 years and gave him a $35mil/yr extension. Ended up being the same player for the 4th year and finally let him go because Phoenix was desperate to get rid of KD 4. Jabari - had the opportunity to trade Jabari instead of Brooks and #10 pick. Decided to keep Jabari because like Jalen, he's a high lottery pick. Brooks is clearly a better player than Jabari and that #10 pick would be a high lottery pick in the next draft because the Pelicans are idiots. Imagine if the Rockets have the Pelicans pick right now and Dillon Brooks instead of Jabari. 5. Rockets can't shoot - Decide to just get more rebounding and more centers and more defense so they can rebound all the missed shots, then pikachu face when the single player necessary for that plan goes down. 6. Steven Adams - traded for after season-ending injury. Played decently but still often injured with the Rockets. Decided to give him a 3yr contract. Proceed to have another season-ending injury. If there's a GM who's a master at not willing to be flexible and change things up when things may look dicey, it's Stone.
Horrific malpractice and I don’t even like Harden but I’d be stupid to say he wouldn’t improve the team this season. Even as a rental.
Sure, Harden would solve the team's most obvious, floundering problem, lack of any coherent offensive orchestration and lack of ballhandlers that you have to guard up on, but "Maybe it's just not our year" - better off falling to the play-in and waiting till next year.
We are a not serious franchise. As teams get stronger, this bum of a hc and gm is gonna use fvv injuries as an excuse why we arent gonna go far instead of actually trying to improve the team. What was the point of grabbing kd?
