ESPN's Jonathan Givony would cut KPJ, says Rockets locker room/culture is bad

Yeesh, losing my fastball here... dab to Nook who was in first.
Serves me right for not reading EVERY POST

 

Disagree on this point. Stone would be hired to be director of basketball operations or team president, BUT NOT THE GM! The GM is required to be someone who has an understanding of basketball talent, assembling a roster, chemistry, etc. That does not appear to be Stone's strong suit. However, he is a wizard with the Cap and running the operations side. This is the reason why he was hired; the team knew they were going to tank, needed to clear cap, and stock draft picks. That's what he has done.

Now, the real scary part is that word on the street is that if/when someone is brought in to be the new GM, it will probably be Tilman Jr. So I guess we have that to look forward to. Yay!!

 

Exactly. Remember how all of Harden's triple doubles, sixty point games, lack of defense were bad things, even though the team contended every season he was here? Yet Jokic does the same thing and he is on his way to a 3rd straight MVP.

Honestly, if I am the NBAPA, I would seriously consider demanding that the media lose a large portion, if not all, of its votes for all NBA awards, as well as the All NBA Teams. No way I want Justin Termine or Jay Mariotti deciding whether I get a raise. No other profession would allow that.

 

Uh, yeah you are not getting any of those things. A "disciplinary' and no nonsense coach in today's NBA may literally get his ass kicked in the locker room. You believe any of these guys are gonna listen to JVG? People need to let it go. His career is done, so is his brother's, Thibodeaux is next, Karl is done, Kelvin Sampson would never get hired today and probably would not even apply because he already knows what would happen, same with Lionel Hollins. Carlisle is only still in the league because he is in Indiana and no one wants that job. He will probably be fired too.

Today's NBA, like most of the professional world, is about getting buy-in. Players are not employees; the work under a contract, and are not at will. Thus, the coaches and players have to work together to get things accomplished. The coaches who can get their best players to buy-in are the most successful. See Kerr, Rudy T in his prime, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, Doc, Ty Lue, Monte Williams, Mike Brown, Budenholzer, Popovich and Mike Malone for good examples.

 

You sound like he only watches college basketball. The guy does basketball for a living. He has to watch and know more NBA stuff than you ever dream of. A simple example: the best/worst case scenario for the draftees. You think he just pulled the player comparison from thin air?

 

The guy studies all players in the draft, including drafted and undrafted, EVERY damn year. A 2010 draftee is a 13 year veteran now. In that sense, he should be among the best scouts there is.

 

Popovich is a known disciplinarian. He served in the Air force.

He might be one of the most endearing and funniest tough guys out there but he is a tough cookie.

 

Yeah for real. What does the media not understand about tanking? The team is not trying to win games, its trying to stock young players. Some of those players will be traded, some will be kept. Whatever will be will be.

Look at the Kings. They drafted a lot of players, many of whom were eventually traded for other players. They got a great coach and now look at them.

I know the media is bored because (i) the Lakers suck (so no Lebron), (ii) Jokic will win another MVP, then probably lose in the first round a la Mike Trout, and (iii) we will probably be looking at a Bucks, Sixers or Celtics vs Suns, Memphis or Kings final, and they can't stand it. Hey, this is what happens when the media complains about "Super Teams" and player movement. You get a bunch of mediocre teams that look great in the regular season, but in the playoffs they fizzle out because they don't have the players.

 

Doesn't seem like anyone understands tanking, really. The whole point is to accumulate potential assets that you can consolidate later. When we're competing again, there may be only half of these guys left on our roster. What we look like right this second is of no consequence really. The only frustration should be that guys aren't developing good habits, but if they had good habits, we wouldn't be losing as often, thus shooting ourselves in the foot in the rebuilding stage. It's a tough thing to watch your favorite team tank, but you have no other option when you lose a superstar.

 

Like i said i agree with this man dunno why so many blind Rockets didnt listen what he told about kpj

 

Like I said 4 months ago... y'all remember everything I say, right?

SOFs are gonna SOF.

 

This is what a lot of folks don't understand. Players mostly are who they are. Even with the best development coach, just under half your picks in the first round won't pan out. You know why? Bad habits that you can't get rid of (the team already knew the skills/talent before drafting).

So when I see posters pointing at an isolated example on our roster about how tanking is causing bad habits, it's really dumb. If you draft 7 ultra young kids, some will have bad habits no matter what you do. Some will make it, others won't. We can improve or screw things up by 10% but mostly the player's character takes over pretty quickly.

Further, culture change is easy. I have no idea why it's so dramatized here, but if anyone was made the boss they would fire the staff and add 3 good vets to the roster and the culture changes. It's a myth that it's hard to get rid of.

 

Yeah, and everyone forgets about 2011, 2012 & 2013 when they were "the worst run organization in the league" losing 100 or more games each year - Now the talent they accumulated during those bad years is paying dividends .... and they are the best run team in the league.

 

There is some truth to that. The most glaring example is probably Steve Francis. Stevie in his first couple of years was 10x more hated by the media than Book/JGreen and was 10x better player than them.

 

And then Steve Francis led us to a championship.

Oh wait, that was Hakeem. A Center who didn't shoot threes.

 

The point is that Steve led us to a 45-37 record in his second year, while constantly being portrayed as a clueless moron by the white punditry that @fchowd0311 referred to. Compare that to Green who is one of the worst players on the worst team in basketball, and is only mildly criticized.
That's the point I was making.

 

Steve Francis barely led anything that season. It was going nowhere till others helped and it wasn't like Francis was masterfully running the offense. Mobley put up identical scoring numbers in volume and efficiency. The team was worthless until Mo Taylor caught fire for a bit and Hakeem showed signs of life late in the season. That's with Francis at 23 years old on a team doing everything it can to make the playoffs, designing the team around him, signing vets that suit him, etc.

Jalen Green to date has been mostly a 19/20 year old on a tanking team. He's not meant to lead a team to the playoffs right now, no one his age is doing that. Hell, no one but an MVP candidate could get this roster into the playoffs. Jalen Green won't be Steve Francis' age (for that season) for another 2 years. Not to mention he entered the NBA with less experience than Francis.

This is a down season for Jalen Green and he's scoring 21.7 points on 17.8 shots. Steve Francis' highest scoring season of his career is 21.6 points on 17.7 shots. Green at 21 is already as good a scorer as Francis.

It makes total sense why Francis is more criticized than Green. I'm not sure why that's surprising to you.

 

OMG, @Mathloom, all due respect but if you think Green is anywhere near Franchise level, there is nothing to discuss here. Stevie was flawed as a player early on, and then spiraled down, but c’mon, the dude was straight out baller. Green has been mostly trash with flashes of brilliance now and then.

 

When you give free reign to a shithead quitter like KPJ these are your results

 

Steve Francis joins the NBA two years from now at Green's age. He spent 4 years in various colleges before the league.

Jalen Green spent 15 games playing in a Gleague bubble tournament after high school. Jalen Green would be in his 4th season by the time in Francis'career in his second year.

Jalen Green also has zero history of illicit drug abuse and has a more stable life outside basketball.

I have no doubt as long as no catastrophe happens in Green's career like a severe injury derailment he will have a better career than Francis. I fully expect by the start of Jalen Green's 22 year old season which is 2 seasons from now, he will be a much better player than Francis was his rookie or sophomore year.