Who would think the Knicks were going to win championship before playoffs? The idiot GM Stone even already gave up the season before trade deadline. "It's just not our year" **** Stone. **** the loser. #16
Yup - everything is about saving the general managers job .... from the claims to not judge the Harden trade for like a decade, to claiming predictable injury issues were just bad luck, to distracting from the lack of development from all of the high lottery picks on the roster by trading for veterans. It is why the Rockets don't have a President of Basketball Operations as well.... everything must give the appearance of protecting the general manager.
They want to win now but they are so far from being contenders. Fred was a single point of failure coming off a bad yr? They should be taking swings on young talent in the draft but they fumbled away 2yrs of potentially franchise altering Nets picks (the big payoff from the Harden trade). Clown show!
How many years is Stone into the rebuild? You think we should've been on OKC level roster wise? I'm just trying to get what the standard expectations are for a GM after trading a superstar 6 years ago
I think that it is on a scale and we can debate where on the scale a team should be. I will just say this --- after 5 to 6 years, a team that has had a handful of upper lottery picks should have won playoff series by now and should have an arguable franchise player.
I definitely agree with this. 4 top 5 picks back to back should've put us a lot further than we are. We're starting to look like one of the sorry teams on mediocrity treadmill who fluffed our picks and will have to start the process again in a couple years tbh.
Looking and revisiting the 2018 NBA Draft (#33 Brunson) and our scouts were on point with the #46th pick with De'Anthony Melton. Best pick from 43rd - 60th. Good times. Too bad scouts and GM we have now are clueless.
On crippling, not having draft picks obviously caused the loss of the franchise player in this situation. So to your question for this situation, being crippled with draft picks was worse as it was both, while the losing a franchise player does not cause a team to lack picks. While I can't find you disputing that Stone ends up having more picks than he started, you disputed that Stone started crippled by a lack of picks and disputed that the number of picks Stone started with is relevant in this conversation. I think it is obvious the Rockets were crippled by a lack of picks and that this is relevant. In context, there are 30 teams for which a good portion have been rebuilding in this time period. Getting more picks should be assumed while rebuilding. Getting as many picks as Stone did even with trading Harden, no, that should not be assumed. Even with making a killing in the Durant trade, the Nets are only tied in the net FRPs with Stone. Getting as many picks and young players as Stone did while building a good team is not easy. While the Rockets have a bunch of old players, they still have a good amount of young players. For rebuilding a team, overall value matters. I'd say young talent and picks matter more than old. That said, the old talent on Rockets is probably about as good as the old talent he started while the value in young players and picks is more than it was. Granted, I think the Rockets are about as good as they can be without a star, such that I expect the Rockets to have a backside in value in a year or 2, but to still be better than when Stone started. On Harden not forcing his way out, the Rockets were a dying team. Stone not trading Harden would have been a huge mistake. Stone choosing any of the other main packages would have been a mistake. Stone maybe made a mistake with the ancillary parts of the deal like Allen, but it was still better than the trades involving other teams or keeping Harden.
We’ve got Chris Wallace now as head of scouting, the guy who picked Thabeet over Harden and Reed over Castle. He got fired from Memphis and Stoner grabbed him when he hired the other gem Stephen Silas. Must be nice to be Fertitta’s personal lawyer to help ensure your job security as GM.
To argue about Stone's accomplishment with acquiring picks and young prospect needs a lot of detailed analysis which I don't have the time. But do you have any evidence to believe that (1) the lack of picks caused Harden to want to leave; and (2) Stone would have traded Harden even if he did not force the team to trade him? These seem to be your main assumptions.
Here's the real question ... Is this stone acting for his own preservation ?... Or is this setting the stage for little fertitita to enter this sheltered role I think it's very obvious stone has been lucky vs good . Imo tilman is now hearing some griping and I think stone will need a good year next year . That being said , I'm fairly sure he wasn't negligent . He may have tried to get a replacement for FVV , but the asking price was too high .
I'm fully expecting Stone to make a bad "win now" move to help save his own ass at the future expense of the organization. I'd be shocked if something like that doesn't happen.
