We should look to trade Cam + Reed in the off-season for a win-now move. Ime has extra tight leashes on them for whatever reason so we need to act soon while they still have value.
I want to know if Cam can play, before we trade him. He is a much better POTENTIAL SG than Green, bigger, stronger, meaner - more aggressive.....but I don't yet know if he will be better than Green, equal to, or worse. Got to find that out.....it would be helpful if Green or Brooks missed some time and Cam got a chance to play big minutes. DD
he’s playing close to the same minutes as last year and shooting much more poorly. He’s only nominally improved in other areas if at all. Cam had a great rookie year but he’s hasn’t taken the step I’d hoped this season. He’s got to produce with the minutes he’s given. He’s super young, but given his lack of progress in season 2 I’d feel comfortable including him in trade packages. Unfortunately I’m pretty sure his value is much lower as a trade asset than last year.
Since Sengun was named an all star this team has really come back down to earth. So much so that what looked like a 50 win team I think will be lucky to end the season with 45 wins. If they go .500 the rest of the way I think they win 47 wins… and that means they likely slip to play in, and could not even get a full playoff series to test these youngsters. That how much they’ve come back down to earth. So I do think Stone and Tillman likely go into the offseason a little disappointed in their talent and look to move at least 2 of the youngsters for a decent sized move for a good player or two. I hope they aren’t and we have a good playoff run but I’m skeptical. I do think Cam and Reed unless they show something are pretty high on the list to get traded. A lot of that though depends on how the market looks at Jalen and what kind of close to the season these guys have. If I was Cam’s agent or mentor I’d be telling him to look at what got Amen and Tari minutes and favor. Just go crazy on defense for the next couple weeks and Ime will love you. We know you can score but we gotta get you seen as a permanent fixture for his defense so he fights to keep you in the lineup going into next year.
Is it possible that almost all teams decline during injuries and bounce back when they get healthy? I know coaches like to preach next man up and use depth on the bench, but this is just hearsay and motivational talk. In reality, most good and tough teams decline when there's injuries and bounce back after right? Are they really going to wield the axe on a roster to which they never gave even average spacing? Then blame them for not being able to get to the rim or absorb a radical increase in 3PA? Knowing full well every Ime roster ever has underpeformed on TS%? I hope they don't come and blame the players for their own roster construction and refusal to add shooting to a shooting-challenged roster. They have known this for 3 deadlines, so this is now an Ime AND Stone problem. Prior to the break, it became clear Amen is a big part of the future. At that point when you know you're going to start Amen and Sengun you have to ask yourself how you can improve the shooting. The obvious answer is make sure the bench is excellent at shooting and insert your best volume shooters around Amen and Sengun. Green can do everything you want to put shooters around him he'll tear it up, you want him to be catch and shoot he's 39.5%. Spacing has exponential benefits. It's not the 1 or 2 extra % a shooter makes over yours. It's the 1 or 2% that everyone in the lineup gets because defenders can't pack the paint. I hope that's not where we're headed. When they decided to stand pat, I hope they were accepting that they are sending their young hard workers into the playoffs with less spacing than all their peers and all the alleged stars and thus should expect the probable results of that. My view is if you don't have a superstar, then for sure don't send them without spacing. If anyone needs spacing, it's a team allegedly lacking stars. I really hope we don't regret not cementing our 2nd seed spot. That was totally achievable. We might not have become champions, but certainly it would have slowed or prevented this slide. My instinct tells me that the emergence of Jalen/Jabari/Brooks as shooters and the return of FVV will ignite a big winning streak that will at least take care of finishing in the top 6. For better or worse and regardless of this year's stats, FVV is our most feared off ball shooter and thus our best spacer.
I hope that's the case for sure. I think regardless of injuries, I just see signs that maybe they were overachieving a little bit earlier on with defensive intensity really carrying them. Even when everyone was healthy, the offense still showed signs of problems to come. There was ALOT of FVV iso, and that's kind of a problem. We'll see what happens. I just really don't want them to fall back into the play-in spot, and not get a full playoff series potentially, but I'm seeing concerns. With the Suns maybe imploding, and the unfortunate Wemby situation, maybe that helps the final sprint to the finish though, and we have a nice playoff series to see what Sengun, and Jalen are capable of in that situation, and go from there.
I'm starting to worry that Cam will turn into a Terrence Williams, not the style of game, but the lack of understanding of what he needs to improve on.
Even though he is instant offense off the bench, he still doesn't provide the defense Ime is looking for. He gambles way too much to get steals and gets out of position, he also doesn't box out very well on the defensive end (although to be fair, a few other Rockets that do get regular minutes struggle with this at times). On the offensive end, he doesn't have the dribbling ability to get past his man most of the time which is why he settles for jump shots more often than not. He also has a slow release, so even though he has all world athletic ability, he still has trouble getting the shot up in a timely manner to not be affected by a challenged shot. Currently, I don't know how anyone could project Cam to be better than Green with a serious face, and the way he plays the game can be a detriment to winning. I still want Ime to use him when the alternative is Tate, but when the line up is fully healthy, it's really hard to justify minutes for Cam unless the regular players are playing like hot garbage.
as much as i loved the idea of Cam and his scoring prowess, i was really hoping we would find a suitor at the deadline while his value is still in the "mystery box" tier. i couldn't disagree more with DD about potential vs Green... Cam hasn't show he can do anything beyond streaky 3 point shooting and bulldozing to the rim. he's giving me major Tyreke Evans vibes where if he was showcased on a bad time his numbers would look great.. but might never actually contribute to winning basketball on a meaningful level.
It's too late. Cam is already there IMO, but I'm still not sold on trading him because the return would be near zero. They may as well give him another shot next year. The light bulb just might turn on. It's possible next season Cam realizes his offensive skillset is mostly limited to being a marksman on set shot 3s, cutting to the basket (please just copy Amen) and finishing on the break. Focusing on these 3 things will make him a very wealthy man with a long NBA career, maybe with the Rockets.
I think your instinct is quite possible, but it won't change the fact a couple of the guys could be gone next year. Even if they finish well, I can't see the Rockets running it back two straight years. Changes are coming.
I welcome changes, but I hope we don't spend our assets to hide Ime's weakness. Great defensive coaches who need a superstar to coach the offense are a dime a dozen. We'd essentially be building around that. We should spend our assets on building towards something.
Updated my vote to no. I know this is very important to announce here, so I figured you guys would get this EXCLUSIVE to CF.
The Rockets last 2 seasons fit a pattern (not as bad as last year) but basically, they are defensively very sound in the begiinning of the season/high effort and high intesity - they get all the way up to #2 in defense - that carries them to some early success. Then as the season goes on the bottom drops out. The communication is not as good, the rotations are a step slow, other teams have figure out their identity & especially the veteran teams have optimized their offenses and are rising up in efficiency. Meanwhile the Rockets offensively are still kind of just cobbling whatever together and hoping to get enough to eek out some wins. The tone from all of the Feigen/Lerner/Iko articles are that the Rockets (Stonetitta) are very very very happy with all of their guys and probably value them more highly than the rest of the league. This resulted in not using RFA for Sengun or Green, not doing anything this year and probably getting passed up in the process. Iko did a podcast on the Athletic a few weeks ago where he expected a consolidation move in the offseason after the playoffs which shows how far away they are, but at this point unless somebody steps up their game, they may not even have a playoff series to evaluate
Maybe they are "preserving" him for the second game of a back-to-back tomorrow because Tari will sit out.
