For years, folks wanted to trade Harden for picks and young players.

We've needed to rebuild for decades...impatient whiners can't handle it.

 

I think that’s precisely the problem. I’m supportive of the tank strategy but not supportive of watching the aimless, selfish basketball I see and the lack of player growth. I don’t see structure or accountability, and the development pathway for a #2 pick like Jalen just needs to be better. I don’t see this org developing our players well and I’m not prepared to both lose and underachieve on player development.

 

Not that cut and dry. Even in losing seasons you must develop winning habits, attention to detail, and a team mentality.

Many soured on the Harden era for the high level of iso ball and lack of flow.

Many got excited last year when we added a two guard in Green that didn’t need to be ball dominant and was scoring off fewer touches.

Fast forward a year and now ever player runs iso for themselves and if it’s not there passes down the line for the next iso attempt. Green has gone from being able to score off the ball to not being able to score.

Simply put - we have taken a step back in regards to team play. This is highly concerning and fans are upset understandably. If this team were playing right - we’d still suck, but we’d win a few more games and wouldn’t be leaning into bad habits.

 

@Aruba77, @studogg, couldn’t have said any better.

 

And we made the right call. We just have a lot of fair weather fans…..

It’s only been two seasons of tanking so far…. After how many winning seasons and playoffs?

Some of GARM needs a new hobby….

 

I’m ok with it, these are extremely young players and they need to get it out of their system that they can’t win games on talent alone and need each other to win. It’s like any job, some hotshot kid will come in trying to prove they can do it all then eventually learn to work together.

It would be much worst if they played well together but couldn’t win games due to talent. I want to see them individually struggle while they are young enough to learn from it then accept to play within the team as they grow. If they can’t then we’ll find new players to replace them. We all know this isn’t the team that will stay together for the next 5-7 years, likely 3-4 players will still be here and the rest will have moved on. We need to find who is the right players to keep based on talent and effort then mold them after a couple of years in the NBA. We are really looking at a development team, not a team that has its core ready to build a culture with.

 

Harden got little to do that the rebuild seems to be shaky or that Stone is not following up or that Silas and Gordon are still here.

 

Hard to both tank hard for the much vaunted 2023 draft class while getting player development. We added another 3 rookies on top of 4 rookies, along with a bunch of barely NBA rotation players.

While I’m slightly disappointed Green doesn’t look improved, it really doesn’t matter all that much considering where we are at.

Lots of folks want their cake and eat it to.

 

fair point. I certainly hope we avoid a big reset 3 or 4 yrs into the rebuild though. Bad teams tend to do that and they end up permanently in a rebuild.

I do think learning good habits is an important part of development. I believe too much hands off and not enough structure doesn’t do young developing players many favors. There’s got to be a balance and right now it feels like we are way off. Sure some of these guys may eventually learn how to play the right way through failure, but others will just end up reinforcing bad habits. I don’t understand making a top lotto pick investment in a young player and not providing the structure and coaching to maximize that potential. And not all players are built the same. Some can handle total freedom and others need structure. Also how players play affects the development of their teammates, especially ball dominant guards. I don’t think it’s a one size fits all approach. Part of being a good coach is identifying what players need to be successful; it’s not the same for every player.

 

Decades?

 

Les wouldn't let us do it.

 

actually its for the folks that didn't appreciate the 65 win contender Tilman inherited and didn't do a damn thing to build on it after that 1st season. Everyone on board with his dumb decisions in that span of 2 years that made them worse and worse, deserves what the rockets state is in now and how it's going to be like this for a long time

 

Imagine that, people soured on winning. I love winning, bring me back to this times.

 

I loved trying to figure out which playoff games to go to. These days going to a game isn't even a thought.

I loved discussing what the rockets needed to continue to improve the roster to reach the end. These days its about how the rockets can even reach 20 wins in a season

the rockets were continuously televised on national tv games. these days it isn't even a thought and nobody wants to watch this nonsense

"the rockets are never going to be the knicks" welcome to the Houston Knicks

 

Interesting, I wasn't aware that all players just fall into two categories neatly, or that if we traded Harden in 2019 we wouldve gotten Kevin Porter Jr and Jabari Smith. Could it be that people want to construct a competitive team and youre oversimplifying it? Great thread, will continue to ponder.

 

Thank you for this thread @glynch . People really need to chill the F out. These are KIDS. Like any of your kids or your nieces or nephews or brothers or sisters, they're going to f*ck up sometimes. You're going to feel like it's the end of the world and nothing can now stop them developing bad habits and ruining their entire future and ending up bums unless you make a grand dramatic gesture to reflect the importance of the error. You're not that important. People can self correct. 21 year olds change their entire character sometimes (for better or worse), we're not talking about 28 year olds. No one has ever gone this heavily into populating a rotation with the youngest players in the NBA. Surely you expected that some patch of our rebuild would be really ugly temporarily and there would be some dumb mistakes from the players?

42 games then you don't have to do any hypotheticals. You can actually know what these guys look like when they're actually designed and supported to win with some well placed motivated vets around them. It's going to make a universe of difference.

Just practice a little bit of acceptance and understand that most great players carve out their own destiny regardless of the circumstances. It's part of being a great player: not making many excuses.

 

lol the real problem on this team is vets are playing too much and aint any good.. wed be better of if young people get the keys here...ego played more this season than sengun, tari, bari, garuba, cristopher and this is the real tragedy...

 

You mean he actually cared enough to provide a good product for his paying customers? Imagine that.