Bill Simmons: “In the whisper circles, everybody seems to think he’s going back to Houston.”

Contrary to a lot of the styles he has cultivated during his career, Collet is coaching Wembanyama differently than he had future NBA first-rounders in the past such as Batum, Alexis Ajinca and Frank Ntilikina. Collet allows for more mistakes, lets Wembanyama get away with more bad shots and is nurturing in a way he might not be if he were simply trying to win another league title.

Wembanyama likes to shoot jumpers. One-legged jumpers, spot-up jumpers -- and he averages four pull-up jumpers a game, which is not something normal for such a massive person. By Collet's own admission, if the rangy and super-talented Batum had tried this 15 years ago, the coach would've pulled him out of the game.

That freedom is something Wembanyama -- a player who now understands the power his talent has afforded him -- has come to prefer.

In 2019, when he was 15, Wembanyama had a lackluster outing in Spain at a showcase event, one of his first in front of major international scouts. He was being played out of his preferred position and wasn't a focal point of the offense. His effort and focus waned badly.

"I had literally zero responsibility. I never had the ball, even at practice. The coach played me at center," Wembanyama recalled. "I was really frustrated even coming to the game. I knew it wasn't going to go well. So it didn't go well."

seems more like he just didn’t like being used as some stereotypical low skill C like his previous coach had him as

if the Rockets don’t get Harden and instead splurge on the rest of the mediocre players in this free agent class who are not on his level and come nowhere close to him when it comes to making others better, then it will just be more losing and developing bad habits playing in meaningless games

I will gladly eat the last year or 2 of Harden’s contract if he has helped to develop these young guys giving them the floor general and playmaker thry so desperately need while also giving them a taste of playoff basketball

 

I can see that a certain group of posters wants Wemby almost more to see Sengun gone than to see the Rockets get better. Sengun and Wemby are very different players, with very complementary strengths. They would be perfect to play together.

Harden, Sengun, Wemby is a big three in itself.

Add a matured Green, a hopefully vastly improved Jabari, hustle king Tari, 3&D (and passing) ace Garuba, steady floater machine TyTy and possibly high-flying KMJ to that...oh my. Tate and some good vet to round out the roster...championship.

Need to get rid of KPJ and Nix on the way.

 

This isn't baseball. There's a salary floor that we'd be $50-60M below. If we don't sign FA's we pay out that money as bonuses to our current team. We have to spend the money.

It's also not baseball in that players don't just get better on their own because time passes while they are practicing with other bad players and losing by 20 every game. You have to achieve a level of competence to give them experience playing competitive NBA games, playing against good players every day in practice, and seeing what excellence looks like every day.

Since we don't have our picks, there is literally no cost to us in getting much closer to that environment by signing good FA's. Harden is by far the best FA, is a top 20 player right now, fits our team's needs, and apparently actually wants to be here. We should explore all avenues - but name a realistic alternative path that results in us not being bottom 4 level bad next year (and continuing to limit our prospects' growth environment)? Can't think of many.

Not to mention the cap will be shooting up to $171M in 2 years, so the last couple years of Harden's max contract would take up less than 30% of the cap. Basically similar to what Cp3 makes now which nobody complains about.

 

This about championships, not just being okay. Knicks are cool but they arent serious contenders.

 

these arguments against signing Harden aren’t making much sense

 

Sounds like many people around the league know we will get the no1 pick then Harden comes to complimemt...not too bad...

 

Then find other players to spend it on. Whats gonna happen if Harden doesnt sign here? All this for what could be a leverage play as well.

I know its not baseball, I dont even watch baseball. No need for condescension dude. The play against great players every night. What the hell do you mean? You think Harden is gonna magically make them play defense or shoot better. He will get them easier looks and make us better but it wont nearly be good enough. And him and Sengun is just a disaster defensively. Harden is great but he's not saving this team unless he's brining other players with him.

Bro....do you really think the whole "we dont have a point guard" is the only thing wrong with this team? Its not, we dont have shooting and we dont play defense and no matter how many open looks Harden gets these guys, its not gonna matter if they brick all the time.

Nobody complains about it because they have KD on their team and they are looking to contend, totally different situations.

Here are the FAs next year

I can see something we could work with here.

https://www.spotrac.com/nba/free-agents/

 

Would rather those last two be flipped.

 

As if Brunson had the Rockets on his radar. Come on. Complaining that the Rockets didn't obtain him when the f-ing Mavericks with Luka could retain him is needless complaining. There are enough mistakes to pin on Stone and Silas.

 

Harden and Wemby would be like Nash and STAT on steroids. Just sign a couple of vets and we're good. Who is going to stop us?

 

Harden has moved fifth in basketball reference rankings mvp rankings but apparently not good enough for the worst team in the league. Get real folks

 

We play against teams often resting players and playing at 80% effort who blow us out almost every game. How many truly competitive games this year have we played against non tanking teams? 20 max? Half the time our games are garbage time by midway through the second quarter and everyone is just going through the motions and collecting their stats. Huge difference between our games (and San Antonio's this year) and teams like Orlando or Indiana. Their guys get 2x or 3x the amount of competitive minutes our guys do.

That's the level we'd be at next year with Harden + a rotation vet or two who he'd bring because he's Harden. We need to get to that level next year, or else we're sabotaging ourselves in so many ways.

Not just development, but evaluation too. And organizational reputation. There is a real cost to being perceived as one of the worst organizations in the league. FA's not meeting with us, draft prospects not working out with us or sharing medical information, our players trade value going down because of the stink on them. We're close to there, if not there already.

Who on that list of FA's is leaving their team and wants to come to Houston? Who would get us to being semi-competitive? Van Vleet for $35M/yr? Porzingis max contract? Grant/Barnes/Kuzma for $30M+/yr?

You explore those pathways but IMO none of them are top 50 players, they'd all be perceived as "bad" contracts day one, and there's no reason they'd want to come here compared to their other options.

 

An NBA team needs to spend at least 90% each season. If we surround Green with a bunch of role players, we will just end up having another tank year only we don't have our pick to tank with.

 

How often does that even happen? Usually players usually play against us because they know its an easy win and they can warm up. And we actually have a better PD than San Antonio. I dont even know where this is coming from?

All for what? To get a level like idk what the Lakers are right now? Do you know how good the West is and how bad we are right now? And we want to sink in money into Harden for 4 years for what?

Then signing Harden and still being bad does what exactly?

Idk, that's the GMs job, the point is we have options. If Harden comes with like himself and mabye another all star player Ill consider this but other than that its bad move to sign him imo.

 

Lemme ask you something, do you see us being better than the Blazers next yea?

 

It might be a bad move in your opinion to sign Harden, but it would be an even worse move to sign a bunch of role players that does jack crap for us or even worse, to sign a lesser "star" player long term.

 

If we sign Harden, yes

 

I’m disappointed. I wanted Luka @ Giannis.

IMO - stealing a page from Sam the Sham Presti, I can envision many good quality vets teams would happily dump out of. After lotto draw night we’ll have some idea of direction/s to pursue draft night through July.

If it were Wemby would you say NO to Simmons/PHX 2 UFR picks for a heavily protected 2nd? Would either team say NO?

If JEHj were to come ‘home’ would Philly, desperate for $room trade Harris/FRP for heavily protected SRP?

and on. And on. Build Back Better while Building a Better Chance at tomorrow…

 

If we had good role players, we might be able to win way more games than we are now while having more flexibility for the future.

 

Bro...Lillard is better than Harden is right now and their team is much better than ours top to bottom and they are what, 13th in the West..man come on.