From what I've read about Jabari's dad, I don't think he raised a kid who's likely to put up with much bs, but probably not a loose cannon either. I expect it'll all be for the good over time... For sure I think they're both all about winning, just hoping they're all smart enough to put their heads together and figure it out. Winning raises all boats...
I think EG is doing fine, and being very professional among the growing pains of this team. He shows his professionalism by example, Silas mentioned this in summer league, that he gets the guys into the gym and shows them how to be disciplined, he's not a vocal leader on the bench, and I think that is fine, we shouldn't ask him to be something he never has been.
With you on all of this, there appears to be some real talent on this team, I get they are young and going through growing pains, I am just not sure if Silas is capable of pulling the right strings, and when you have a young and talented team, it is important that the personalities mesh well and the coaching staff has complete control and the respect of the players. My fear is having a early 2000's T-Mac in Toronto situation, where you have all of this talent on that team, but way too young and just constant losing and emotions getting high and someone wanting out before you get the chance to take that next step.
My limited knowledge says his FT% is his most unique quality. Players, especially taller ones, can't shoot them well in general
I noticed this too. We finally have some high effort young guys on the team in Tari, Jabari, and Usman. The foundation for a great team culture is there (at least in our players). It would be funky, but I’d want to see a lineup with these three plus Tate and Jalen. Surround our primary scorer with defensive-first players and let him cook.
Remember when plenty of people said they wanted KPJ gone asap, so his loser attitude didn't rub off onto the players who are envisioned to be part of the future.
I have been really positive so far, but this was easily our most frustrating game and I'm starting to hate a lot of what I'm seeing, though there were still some positives. I'll try to keep it as concise, positive and contextual as possible with a rational approach rather than emotional since there are some things, which are my pet peeves like iso ball, boxing out and transition defense - which explains my hate for our play at times. Anyway, here are my 3 main things: Coaching I have very little faith in our coaching staff, but it's early so I'll hold off on the fire Silas or replace him talk until next year. However, I am not exaggerating when I say our offense looks eerily reminiscent of our early 2000 offense with Mobley & Franchise taking turns iso balling. I actually watched a game yesterday, granted Mobley went off, but trust me if you haven't watched those games and or weren't around, it's not just a lazy comparison. I'm a basketball game collector, have watched hundreds of games since 2008 of the Rockets going back to the 80s. This is an offense of much frustration where we see our guard dribbling out the clock, put up contested shots and constantly miss open guys. On top of that, just like our offense under Rudy T, there's not much cutting and off-the-ball movement, maximum one big inside the 3pt line as the rest is there to spread the court. While it makes sense to do that now even moreso given 3pt shooting emphasis, the issue is that Silas and co seem to be content - like Rudy T and co - of just allowing their ball handlers to do whatever. This has lead to iso ball extreme with our assist numbers reflecting that. If you don't believe the eye test or take my word for it, alright well then look at some of the reputable analysts on Twitter like @RooshWilliams, BiasedHouston, KellyIko, BradeauxNBA, JamesPiercey11, JTGatlin and see what they're seeing, noticing, thinking etc. Or better yet, let's look at some stats. I'll borrow from that thread and quote @flamingdts who I trust did his research: However, some pretty bad numbers that currently reflect the Rockets offense. Unassisted field goal made for most players have increased as a whole. 75% of KPJ's FGs are unassisted, up from 62% last season 60% of Green's FGs are unassisted, up from 48% last season 57% of Gordon's FGs are unassisted, up from 49% last season. 61% of Sengun's FGs are unassisted, up from 50% last season. For Green and Sengun, their unassisted FGM% is naturally going to increase as they develop. As long as they are scoring at least league average efficiency (TS 56%), you can always accept this as part of the offense. However, the unassisted FGM% is currently want too high for KPJ (and Gordon to an extent), especially since he is well below league average in efficiency (TS 53%). His unassisted FGM% is higher than even James Harden right now (71%). Whatever offense the Rockets are running right now, it's not working. Way too many isolations, and not enough ball movement. At some point we need to see improvement in this area in particular, but also in our offense in general. We're so young, it's not like we're a veteran team where you may want to minimize the amount of unnecessary movement, yet we're playing with 4 guys just standing and watching. The rare time someone makes a cut or we have (had) a player who likes to cut, usually good things happen. This brings me to my next 2 points, regarding our PG play and energy. PG play Let's get this out of the way: KPJ is not a natural PG and likely never will be. He has very little eye for teammates when he gets into his iso mode and just cannot run an offense if we ever want to have Jabari, Sengun and whoever we get in next year's draft to get their shots. Green can get his, but even he does not get to run the offense enough due to KPJ and our coaches being fine with that. The quote by Silas, if we understand that correctly, does put the onus on them way more than KPJ. So this is not a KPJ criticism necessarily. He's actually a great scorer, apparently shooting 80% on catch and shoot threes (credit to Bradeaux) so off the ball makes a lot of sense for KPJ. Run plays for the guy as much as we can for all I care, but handling the ball, initiating the offense, I rather see it much less. This game too much iso ball was evident lwith Green not getting a single point in the 4th, very little touches, and this also counts for Jabari. Another way this was obvious was the late shots, end of quarter situations and 2-for-1 possessions, the latter which have been solely run by KPJ and has lead to just iso situations where KPJ is 0 for 4 (credit to Roosh). The staggering of their time on the court together was finally there and maybe that is the only solution, but to me this seems like a way around the issue moreso than an actual solution. It's like a last resort to give Green the ball more and this is not necessarily the case since Gordon handles the ball a ton too. So not sure what our plan is, but if it is to just see whoever feels like it between KPJ, Green and Gordon then we should be prepared to be very frustrated. None of them are PGs, all have the intent to score, it's in their DNA and there's nothing wrong with that. But if we continue to look this bad on offense, insisting on a simple iso offense where we basically just rely on 1-on-1 talent, then we might need a PG (Scoot Henderson) more than we do a C (Wemby). Energy This is where I am particularly not as down as KPJ as I've seen on here and in the Twitter sphere. He brought energy, especially in getting rebounds and tipping rebounds. He made hustle plays. The ones who brought this the most was obviously Tari Eason & Garuba, what a spark they provided for a team that seemed just as dead as the Jazz as if we also played the night before. What was that lethargic play of ours, especially early on? We should've jumped on them, outrun them and hit them in the mouth so they couldn't even get close. Yes we had some guys out, a new starting line up and different rotation. And yes the Jazz are a solid team, but there's no excuse to how we just allowed them to hang around. This has been obvious in all 4 games, but our transition defense is just awful. Granted it was a bit better today. Even our defense was solid in stretches. However, I didn't see the energy until our bench unit came in and showed the starters how it's done. The most obvious area to me where energy was lacking on defense was on the boards, save KPJ & Tari. Even Jabari was sometimes forgetting to box out or just allowed someone to come in and take it. I want to see way more commitment to getting those boards. Garuba tries but he has butter fingers and not the length to really get to them. Jazz are much taller and stronger and since we only lost 47-49 on the boards and got a ton on offense, it's kind of forgiven, but definitely need all 5 guys to be ready to box out and not care too much about who gets it, which is something I've seen too much to my liking. On offense, we didn't push the tempo at all so that's another area where energy was clearly lacking. Especially against a team on a back-to-back, overtime at that, you need to run. We're young, so whenever we do get the rebound, we should at least be able to get that going. We still got enough rebounds off of misses to really get out there and run, but we just didn't. Energy is my only explanation for it, though some strategy might be behind it as when we did decide to get something going in transition, I didn't look good. Bad spacing and forced passes was the name of that game. Overall So all in all, while we did win, it was ugly and it was way harder than it had to be. I want to have faith in KPJ's game more and our coaches more, since we don't know what's being taught and what our strategy is, so e.g. giving minutes to Mathews among other things might just be for the tank, but it doesn't help that two of our players got into it over something likely to do with our lack of structure and or players executing the game plan / looking for mismatches and getting an open guy a shot instead of iso ball or what have you. In the end not a big deal, I actually love the fire both showed, but we need some clear leadership from our coaching staff, which they are seemingly not providing enough of. Only with Jaygup, who's clearly not getting minutes after making 1 or 2 mistakes, though there was talk of him slapping Lucas' hand away when he tried to explain Jaygup something during a time-out, which might have caused his basically DNP status after that. Not a good sign either if a player dares to do that to Lucas. This brings me to my final little nugget, which is from the Jazz broadcast - actually like them, they have a female as a 3rd colour analyst and I'd love if Rockets go that way in the future with Cayleigh if she wantst to come back - that all guys were kind of goofing around, dancing pre-game and Boban came in and apparently said: "Come on guys, time to get serious" (paraphrasing). That is why he's valuable and it's also a reflection on how we approached the game to me, just a bit too loose.
JC is such a low IQ player. I was paying close attention to him out there and he just looks lost. Nix surprisingly played well for the first time in his life
KPJ has his faults, but he has clearly been working on them. His FT shooting is much better, he has developed a really good floater, his defense was much better last night, but is not where it can be. KPJ was being tentative the first 3 games. He came out and absolutely took over the game breaking down the defense in the first quarter. They adjusted and Silas’ did not. Utah was taking away JG as much as they could, which will be a consistent theme this year. All this hate for the guy that basically did what he had to do is ridiculous. The whole team will progress if the coaching staff is capable. Jabari and Garuba are both going to be really good on the defensive end. If Silas is all in on either winning or developing why is Boban and Matthews even sniffing the floor until garbage time? Gordon also plays iso ball, but gets nothing but love from this board even when KPJ is more effective and is playing better defense. The turnovers are frustrating to watch, but what do you expect from an entire team of 1st and 2nd year players and a guy in his second year at pg? They are not playing as a team and that is on the coach and his asinine experimentations. Start the immediate future together and let them develop chemistry win or lose. KPJ, Green, Bari, Tari, Sengun should all be getting starter minutes and playing together as much as possible. Gordon, Tate, Garuba, KJM, and JC are the only other players that should get minutes outside of garbage time.
Not sure what was said and why? Losing weighs heavy on all of their shoulders. I just know Green, Jabari, Tari, Tate would throw grandmother over a cliff to win.......may not be their own grandmother.....but grandma go weeeeeeeee !! Dust ups happen more than we know. Winning solves everything. Lucas and Lionel Hollins are also in charge of order.
Exactly! I also wonder if some members have ever played sports before. Heated discussions is normal. Happens on sidelines, practice, and in locker rooms
Yeah, when it's about winning, they usually work things out and get on the same page. When it's about women.....that's another story. Jabari wanted more ball movement? 17 assists.......not wrong Jalen wanted for Scoot and him to seal the victory by any means necessary?....not wrong The team needed a win! They can go for 30 assists in Utah
I watched the game. KPJ absolutely did what he needed to do in the first quarter when Utah was trying to take away Green. Unfortunately, Silas and KPJ did not adjust when Utah starting to pay more attention to KPJ. KPJ was tentative the first 3 games and I’m sure he was told that. HIs intensity on defense and rebounding was outstanding. HIs ISO ball was frustrating and he and JG were missing wide open teammates all night. Defense and hustle won this game tonight. KPJ will be fine if Silas will quit screwing around with lineups and let the core play together and develop chemistry. I can only conclude that we are tanking again and Silas will be sent packing next year. We were beating their ass until NIx and Matthews were inserted. They should not be getting any minutes and Gordon should be getting less. Garuba should get all the backup center minutes when Sengun gets back. He was really good on defense and will be better offensively once the game slows down for him. I was encouraged by the fire the team showed, but disappointed with the chemistry which is clearly on Silas not the players.
on Filipino heritage night no less. Bari must feel Jalen is too feminine but seriously it looked like nothing but watching the game yesterday does show me one thing and thats Bari ABSOLUTELY has that alpha dog in him. He was clapping at KPJ for the ball a few times but KPJ went iso instead
Baby steps It's not a coincidence that the first game of Jabari playing the 5.....we win Utah doesn't play a true center and had been undefeated until we did that to them. Jalen, Porter, and Jabari all getting 20+ is a good thing.....just need to expand on it. JC has been a disappointment from what I was expecting this year. Has forced Porter to have the ball more in his hands. Still way too much dribbling of over 7 dribbles by Porter. Fact is: Porter, Green, JC have a good mid tier to 6 foot pull up that is good. Have anytime they want it. From there they can hit slashers and cutters. It's a read and react offense......cutters are just ball watching right now. They need to read the defense better. With no Gobert, the Rockets can abuse Conley and Jordan Clarkson all day and get in front of the rack. Even Nix was effective around the paint. Add more Pick-n-Pop with Jabari so he can increase his repertoire.... and we golden. Jabari is the key to unlocking our full potential. At least with the crew we got, at their level of experience. *side note: playing Boban is grounds for "tanking evidence" Don't do that Silas
