Weisman and Cam have very similar reasons to their stunted development. Good comparison. Weisman drafted to a tanking team would have developed his on ball game and developed a better offensive flow. But being drafted to a contender, he couldn't make the same mistakes he could on a tanking team. Cam is going through the same thing. There just isn't minutes available for this team to experiment with young guys making mistakes and learning from them. Sucks for them they weren't drafted during the Silas era to get those reps in. People say the Silas era was useless for Jalen and Alpi development but I disagree big time on that. Jalen and Alpi developed a lot of muscle memory from attacking point of attack defenses in their freshman and sophomore years. They developed their tighter handles from that. They trained their processing speed against POA defenses to make quicker accurate decisions. It takes reps to develop that stuff. They are the only guys on this roster besides Fred that can handle blitzes and aggressive double teams without falling party because of this.
There are minutes available, any minutes given to Tate or Holiday should be to Cam and Reed the org has a responsibility to figure out the best options for when the team is a contender or whom to trade now to unlock others. DD
I'm still rooting for him. I really do believe in his talent, and I know he comes from a military family so he probably is quite disciplined in his personal life as well. But for whatever reason (including likely some we just mentioned) this season it just doesn't seem to be working out. I just don't know what the future looks like with him anymore.
I appreciate you are trying to protect him but I'm sorry, he doesn't deserve it. He's the only one on this team who has behaved this way, being a grouch during his teammates' success. Why can't he pout for the 21 hours before and after the game and just be a normal guy during the game? I don't need him to BE happy, I just need him to ACT ok. Just ok. Do you really think he's pouting in his 18 awake hours and he can't possibly shake it off for 2 hours to support his teammates who are shattering expectations on the court? He has to act like they're not all that and he's just like them but treated unfairly? I don't see Reed Sheppard being a whiny b*tch about it. Jalen Green cheered for his teammates when he was benched, his attitude has been impeccable off court. Jabari took it like a champ when he lost his spot only because of injury. Amen is coming back and many are calling him a superstar, do you think he's going to whine and stop cheering for his teammates and pout because he lost some status? What about Sengun he came off the bench for his first 1.5 years and there actually WEREN'T ANY better C's than him on the roster? Anyone can create a narrative for something to pout about. But to make it out as though he's being unfairly treated is total bullshit. It's so god damn unfair to this core we have. They earned their minutes, every single one of them. Every young player on this roster when they were age 20 showed far better attitude than Cam in good times and bad. It's totally wrong for people to act like there's no difference. You have to call it out. Our guys have excellent attitude - even compared to other young teams - and they performed better than him overall. That's a fact and if he can't accept that, our role is not to sit here and drag everyone else down to make Cam not seem so far from them. What you're unintentionally doing here is exactly what Cam is doing in his head and that's what make 20 year olds do what you described. No it's not all 20 year olds. It was me at 16 too. Maybe it was you when you were younger. But I promise you, factually it's not even half of 20 year olds and it's certainly not the ones who make it to the big league. Someone has to tell him straight to his face: you obviously never learned acceptance in your life, you are copying someone in your life who would withdraw rather than communicate in tough times, you lost the minutes fair and square, a healthy person reacts to this with more passion rather than looking so sad on the bench. Acceptance is: these teammates are talented and whooped my ass. I should take notes from them, I should always cheer them and bring energy like they brought for every single one of my points. Has that ever occurred to you? What about this core that would jump and cheer and do backflips for Cam? Do you think they trust a guy who when he was sitting he didn't bother being the same for them? You don't think they were worried about their own **** sometimes? That's a brotherhood thing. You can't bail on that as part of a team. This is not tennis. It's a team sport. Cam is just not good enough for this elite young core at the moment and the sooner he realizes that the sooner he can have the infinite motivation to get better and outpace them slowly. This core is good on both sides of the basketball court and in the head. It's a very high bar. He can reach it if he changes, but not if he makes up a story about how it's ok for him to be depressive. It's totally legitimate to say he's been an a$$hole to this team and this team has not been an a$$hole to him. Don't worry about defining someone forever we can't do that, we don't know the future like that. Right now is what we know and if people around him sit and relativize it or withdraw like him, he'll never understand he has a problem that's in the way of a career. And before you call me overly critical, I have not criticized ANY player from the core like this before. I'm SO optimistic about everyone in good times and bad times. I always tell the board to chill and wait and be patient. This is a whole nother level of f*ckery though. I can't stand a guy who can't force himself to be there for his teammates. I would rather he sucks at basketball and we teach him basketball skills, than we see if a basketball coach can fix his psychology. A basketball coach who thinks he can fix 20 years of psychological conditioning is like a spiritual guru who says he can do your taxes for you. It's not going to go well.
Get him away from this team till the summer. We're on such a high, such a good vibe. The team is coming together beautifully. We are about to add Amen Thompson to a team that steamrolled 8 straight easy games. It's the playoffs we've been waiting for forever. Get the party pooper out of here. I don't know why Udoka is even letting him near the team to be honest.
I'm disappointed with his trajectory this season, but I still believe in him. I think he has as much star potential as Amen, but there appears to be something going on behind the scenes.
See that is MY issue, the "Don't KNOW" part - we should know...there should be a plan.......I don't believe Ime has one, it took him 2/3rds the season to try double bigs, the guy is not exactly an innovator. So, now Stone is going to have to make major franchise altering decisions with incomplete information. DD
Damn this is legit the first time I've read you typing anything negative about any of our "core 7"...I can't say I know what's going on in Cam's head because I'm not him, but it IS clear to me that something has got to be off for him to not be getting any playing time at all--especially while we're shorthanded. There's still time to turn it around, I think. But it's gotta come from Cam, and it's gotta come soon.
The part where I 100% agree with you, even when I've been critical of Cam, is that I hope to just see him on the court. He is an exciting player and oozes talent. I also get frustrated when I DON'T see him play. But now I also don't really know if Cam is truly "franchise altering", even if we let him go. What if he ends up like a Ricky Davis? That isn't really a loss for the franchise. What if he becomes Carmelo? Then we ****ed up big time. But in my opinion we can't say that any decision involving Cam will truly change the course of the Rockets.
Similar to girls that keep going after the "bad boys" because they think they can "fix" them. DD is fixated with athletic players that have attitude problems. He has a type. It's an obsession. once Cam gets dumped, he will find another player to obsess over.
100% wrong. I just want Stone to be able to make decisions with as much information as possible. I don't love Cam as a player, hell, I don't know if he is going to be a bust, a superstar, or an average player, have no idea - which is entirely the point. People get lazy here though and don't try to understand or think a little more deeply, it sucks at times. DD
Cam feels like Trade bait. Which maybe good somewhere else I wish him luck But he just seems like the odd man out Rocket River
Double d is now saying we need to do our due diligence, to give cam a chance. After spending the majority of the season btching and moaning that we need to get rid of green ASAP bc he was hindering cam greatness. Got to change his tune since green is proving all the haters wrong.
There were always going to be some casualties to talent hoarding. If you trade any of the "core 7" then there is a likelihood that they are going to blossom somewhere else. But they are all talents and we shouldn't be taking back a protected 1st for any of them. Cam is a potential franchise cornerstone and we need something good for it (i.e. a good backup center plus a first or a few seconds).
Wanna bet? And it is not just about Cam, it is about the entire roster, whom to keep, whom to move, what style should we play to be most effective, who fits that style, who doesn't.... Do you trade some of your better players now knowing you can get more for them but also knowing they don't fit what Ime is trying to do? If Stone screws it up and anyone traded becomes a monster, we borked our shot, this is so much harder and more delicate than drafting - it is paramount to get it right, he has drafted well, but his trade game has been none-existant. Now, we can't keep everyone, can't pay them all - so it is where the rubber hits the road. DD
On his trade game, he traded for picks that became Sengun, Eason, Reed, and Cam. He's also traded for Brooks and Adams. Stone has taken the trades for others slower as he wants to see who develops and how. Really, the only big weakness currently is backup PG, but that may get fixed internally.
Wanna bet? Sure, like I said, the @DaDakota "The Rockets are making HUGE mistake by letting this guy go" all stars are almost uniformly guys who not only didn't turn into stars, but guys who never even came close to replicating their period of success with Houston, to the extent they even had any. Go look at the list again - they mostly were out of the league within a few years of your prognostication. Maybe Goran Dragic went on to have a good career, but ultimately it didn't matter because the Rockets replaced him with Jeremy Lin James Harden that same offseason. I don't have any particular confidence in Ime Udoka or Rafael Stone, I do have confidence in the fact that the guy who hasn't really done anything in the NBA to merit him being in a rotation on a good team (and appears to be actively sabotaging his own career by not even trying half the time) is more likely than not to NOT become a monster so I'm just not going to worry about it very much.
I think Cam could possibly be a great scorer in this league. But, the Rockets are currently the second seed in the West, which is much better than I thought possible. So, I’m really not in the mood to second guess Ime or Stone at this point. We have Cam under contract for two more years, so there is still plenty of time.
