Give Stone his credit

That's out of his control that's like saying me saying it's your fault you aren't the son of Bill Gates. They still got Amen who is a future stud so what are you complaining about? That Stone and Fertita put the team in the best possible position to get a top pick?
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Rox even got their cake and ate it too, on a 6 game ws with a mix of young up and coming studs and quality vets. You'd rather they be 3-6 like the Spurs? Lol.

 

You are discussing Micro events VS what I am getting at - Macro level of things.

The writing on the wall is that Fertitta is the driving force behind the direction the team is taking.

Those hit and misses I can neglect for a moment.

If you have a seriously dominant owner, you can only be a Yes man and somehow the owner liked Udoka who himself is a dominant character.

They became partners. Stone became the shadow man behind them.

If you want to be grateful to someone, just be grateful that Tilman met someone who is seeing eye to eye with him, and is smarter than him.

 

If Tilly and Stone didn't want FVV why would he be on the team? Does Udoka now own the Rockets? Do you have any proof Udoka now overrides both the GM and the owner on what happens on his team? Don't you think it's possible Stone likes both Harden AND FVV? Maybe he would be OK with any star pg to run the team ever thought of that?

Y'all would say anything to not give Stone and Fertita credit.

 

So now based on your logic since the team looks amazing Tilman and Stone get the credit right? Being a "seriously dominant" owner where other can only be yes men then obviously Fertita is the genius behind all the Rockets moves.

 

It was a single cap move of trading Westbrook for Wall that set this up, essentially making sure the Rockets had zero capspace for 2 years and gazillion for the 3rd year. That part wasn't special. It was just circumstance beyond Stone's control because he inherited Westbrook's contract.

As for this offseason the Rockets was the only team who could give out a full max contract and FVV was the only player (nearly) worthy of that contract. You can argue Harden but from all reports that was Udoka's call not Stone's call. You can argue on Brooks but the Rockets still had $30mil left over after the FVV deal do you really think another GM wouldn't have just signed a good player with that? Bruce Brown signed for similar money for instance. And they went from Brook Lopez to Jeff Green because they apparently didn't have an ironclad verbal agreement before trading away their youngsters. Not to mention Brook Lopez is looking kinda crappy right now so if we had signed him might've made the team worse.

And this isn't even including the whole KPJ debacle from beginning to end.

Everything above sounds like average at best level of GM. Because we are not comparing him to random fans who don't know what they're talking about, Stone should be judged compared to an average GM in the NBA who presumably also knows how to run a professional sports team. And Stone has certainly not differentiated in that area in his movemaking.

 

I am just basing off what actually happened.

If you can prove Tilman made all those calls, then sure I can get behind giving Tilman credit.

I think Tilman allowing the tank showed how great an owner he actually was.

The worst thing you can do is be an average to good team every year. See the Spurs for several years post Duncan.

 

How has Stone not differentiated himself when he completed his rebuild in 3 yrs? You realize Spurs started their rebuild when they traded Demar Derozan and now they are 3-6 while the Rockets are playoff bound? Who chose Green over Mobley? Who traded up for Sengun? Bari was someone who anybody would have gotten but what about Tari, Cam and Amen?

There were a gazillion free agents available Stone and FO get credit for choosing FVV, Brooks and Green who have all been instrumental this season. That's just common sense.

CF has some of the weirdest posters would literally not give the GM credit for drsftibg players, signing free agents and making trades. If not him who did those things? The ghost of Xmas past? Gimme a break.

 

I am saying you cannot go an giving grades at every weekly or monthly turn.

You give grades after Year 1, Year 2....5 years 10 years.

I have watched the NBA for 25-35 years of my precious life, I am not going to go emotional after every playoff run...if it ends up with a Finals appearance then Okay I give credit to everyone involved.
I can truly say I do not just watch the Rockets, I know something about other franchises.

We are still more than 70 games away.
I am not changing my modus operandi.
(enjoy the ride)

 

Just look at the team 3 yrs ago and now look at it now you should know if you should give credit or not.

I dunno why making the Finals is the standard when Morey had been GM for 13 yrs and never made that. You are just a hater seems more and more like it.

 

I mean if your argument is actually that we should take a "wait and see" approach then I have no issue with that.

So far it looks good.

 

His argument is literally blaming Stone for not getting Wemby.

 

We were winning with veterans playing out of their minds.

If you want to prematurely grade the 3 years of tanking.

I am not particularly happy with everyone young outside of Sengün.

They are playing like role players to stars like FVV and DB who should not be stars.

 

Just letting you know I can't respond to this comment because it's basically off topic from what I was originally responding to. And not because I want to ignore you.

 

Some MFers choose to be miserable.

"yeahhhh we're doing pretty good, BUT you know I just cant get over all those "mistakes" from 2 years ago - it really keeps me up at night Im such a better judge of talent I should be the GM I would NEVER miss"

 

Once again, because you failed to answer my question before.

What would you have done differently? What are you unhappy about? You have yet to explain that part.

 

Raffy's plan involved hiring Vogel and bringing Harden back. Tilman made the call on Udoka and it was the right one.

 

Weird to me that some of you are so unwilling to give Stone any credit. Even if some of this speculation is true, (that it was Tillman who insisted on Udoka, that it was Udoka who insisted on FVV and Brooks, etc) it is still Stone who successfully implemented their vision. It is Stone who made those deals happen. It is Stone who brought in Jae'Sean Tate, who btw is looking like exactly the type of player so many of us thought he could be in a winning situation, and it is Stone who fleeced the Thunder to pick up Alperen Sengun. It is Stone who made the trades that allowed us to pick up Eason and Whitmore. It is Stone who drafted all six of our young promising players. Now, I know that all six of these guys won't break out. A few of them might not even stick in the NBA. But right now, it actually looks like all six are going to be NBA players and you are fooling yourself if you think that's easy. You can look at franchises with front offices who have received a lot of kudos in recent years, Golden State and Memphis come to mind, and see that even very good front offices don't always get that right. Wiseman is a total bust and Zaire Williams is looking awful this year. And Memphis didn't just draft Zaire, they made some of their moves this past offseason believing that Zaire was ready to step up and be a real NBA starter.

I do understand why people felt like guys like KJ Martin, Garuba, TyTy and FUTURE 10 TIME MVP JOSH CHRISTOPHER, were just given away, but sometimes you've got to break some eggs to make an omelette. Stone has done a fantastic job at looking at the big picture and doing what's necessary to put together this team.

It's just absolutely wild to me the mental gymnastics some of you are willing to do to avoid giving Stone his due here. He's done a fantastic job of putting this franchise in a position to succeed long-term.

I'll add that I may have been wrong about Tillman too. He's spending money. The team is winning. And I think I may have said he will be worse than James Dolan. It's looking like I was wrong and he deserves some props too. Especially if Udoka was really his hire.

 

Let's think through things logically rather then get defensive about Stone/Fertitta. Since Stone's tenure started he has been pretty damn insistent on a few things:

• Develop KPJ (even after year 1 it seems this was an absolute failure).
• Develop Daishen Nix (he was obsessed with trying to hit this diamond in the rough).
• Interrupt Rockets practices and mingle in coaching affairs.

This year, if it wasn't for KPJ beating up his GF, he would of kept KPJ on the roster even knowing damn well of all his bullshit antics in the past. The fact that he decided the franchise should treat an empty stats player like a franchise player was disgusting.

I don't think Stone's roster construction has been great. He's thankfully had a few high draft picks to be able to rebuild, but there are other questionable moves that make you doubt him. Harden noise was incredibly loud until Udoka was hired. Udoka probably advocated with both Tilly/Stone and gave into what Udoka wanted. Tilly probably decided to shut up and listen for once.

 

Didn't really want to dive in but I may have to for the conversation.

If folks focus on negative without positive, it makes me question if they are fault finding and not truly open to actually changing their minds based on facts or evidence.

KPJ was a swing for very little or nothing that didn't work out, big deal we're winning and a rising team now. Stone signed FVV and drafted Amen, so change and improvement was inevitable.

Nix didn't pan out, think about all your favorite GMs all time whose draft picks don't pan out each year. Segun is a true steal and might be an all star and best player in his draft at 16. Stone did that, look at everything.

Stone hired Ime, we're winning with no info about practice control by Stone. Look at the present and projected trending results. He's killing it