I just don’t see what fans were expecting? what trade could leap us over the Spurs or OKC who didn’t even get better this summer. OKC hasn’t had moves that you could say will get them over the Spurs except that they were missing players to injury in their series. weren’t we missing 3 starters in Fred, KD and Adam’s in our first round series? We aren’t on KD’s timeline right? Our core of Amen, Tari, Bari and Sengun are pretty much on team control for the next 3-4 years. we have multiple first rounders and now assets for the next star who wants out. We are in a good place.
There a basically zero realistic moves we can make to elevate this group to the level of OKC, SAS. Our “franchise” players are too flawed. I’d like us to do a complete reset but that’s unrealistic. Tickets and merchandise have to be sold. We have a lot of assets but we have even more and be in a better position to poach/draft a star if we stopped pretending our young “core” will ever be good enough.
One thing I realized about Stone/Ime nut-huggers is that they not only dont understand basketball much, but also have trouble with general life knowledge such as how a marketplace work.
The Doomerz around here are a bit over the top. What's pretty funny is the overwhelming sentiment on this board seems to be wallowing in negativity and that Stone and Ime aren't qualified to work the fryer at Burger King but there's a poll where 70+% of the posters think next year we'll win 50+ games. If we win 50 games next season that will be only the third time in the nearly 60 year history of the franchise that there have been 3 consecutive 50+ win seasons and 1 of those stretches didn't have the same coach for all 3 seasons.
The West got better this season and the East got significantly better. The games will not be as easy with teams not allowed to tank. The Rockets didn't improve at all and you could make the case they got worse with the Smart signing. KD played the second most minutes in the NBA and played a ton of games. History says he will star to wear down or more than likely get injured. Ime is going to bank on playing a 38 year old high high minutes again. I wouldn't even be shocked if they didn't hit 48 wins this season. The offense is going to be really really awful rolling out a lineup of Smart, Amen, KD, Smith, Sengun. Spacing was horrible last season and that certainly isn't going to improve with Smart being here. Ime has proven to be a stubborn coach that shows zero ability to change or innovate on the offensive side of the ball and still deploys the attack my team and tell them to play harder method. Everyone on this board deep down knows exactly what this team is going to look like next season and it is going to be ugly basketball that will end up with the same result as the past two seasons.
Do we have major issues? Of course, but it is quite over the top from the narratives to the pessimism.
I am in a bind bc I really want to watch Peterson in spite of disliking the Jazz.... Boozer and Acuff in the West, Dybantsa, Caleb, MBJ, Kingston, Burries in the East.
Some fans may have wanted some blockbuster to compete with SA and OKC, but most of us that wanted change in order to prepare for a couple of years down the road when we might have a realistic chance. I didn’t want any part of Giannis, Brown, or Kawhi. What would be prudent is to re-balance the roster with younger players and horde draft picks by trading the geriatric crew. Fans like me are not interested in slowing the development of Amen, Reed, and Sengun by pursuing regular season wins by spamming KD iso ball or FVV dribbling around the perimeter and chunking up crap. Call it doomer if you want, I call it being a real fan, not a casual.
Doomer / Boomer what exactly are we being served by the organization. It seems like mediocrity and it’s really hard to chew. We were sold more and this it. Hopefully Stone/Patrick will make some magic happen. My fandom seems insulted so far this offseason. SRP overpay, signing of a few geriatric Journeymen, our young players scattered around instead of focused offseason building and getting a yield signing as the LONG awaited rebranding. Waiting and wanting more from the Rockets doesn’t make it happen.
I remember the days when Morey and Harden were criticized for not being able to get to the NBA finals. Now people dont like fans criticizing the team getting their ass kicked in the first round. Why is this the case? Is it because of the economy? Are peope these days living so badly that they cant even comprehend their sports team winning a playoff series anymore? And have to settle for winning 60% of regular season games as success?
He's been great in his role but he's injury prone and making a lot of money. Steven is coming off of his second major lower body injury requiring surgery in three years.
Oh right.... when Fred comes back, we'll be flirting with unforced 8 second violations again. Is that better than the turnover festival of last year.... probably, but it drives me absolutely insane.
Sure, look at Minnesota. They weren't good enough to compete with OKC (but clearly a tier above the Rockets) - so they mixed it up and acquired Ball. Same with Brown for Philly (and they weakend a rival) Using OKC/SAS as a crutch to not improve the team - a team that Stone conceded was not good enough before both 1) absolute meltdown vs an LAL scrub bunch 2) 7 games of virtuoso basketball in WCF that the Rockets could never play in a million years. And pretending like magical post ACL FVV is going to fix things - is simply not credible at all and kind of an insult to an informed fan. It's just kind of incoherent to make a win-now move in Durant and then follow it up with - win later? Maybe? When we get an actual franchise player and not a franchise albatross in the middle like Sengun and move on from the win now coach ?
