Pretty happy with his drafting--solid hit rate on first rounders, some misses late, but that's to be expected. No straight-up busts before pick 23 and I think this group will produce at least two all-stars, maybe more. Asset management has been mediocre-to-poor, giving away second rounders like they're worthless, slight overpays on free agent signings, missing opportunities to acquire useful bench players or picks. Player evaluation has been okay, nothing special. FVV and Dillon are fine fits--Fred has been as expected and Dillon has outplayed expectations on offense but I think slightly underperformed on defense. The guys we've dumped don't appear to have been worth much. He hasn't found any real hidden gems, and his biggest attempt was a total wash that made the organization look bad (KPJ). I'm feeling generous, so I'll give him a B- overall. Mainly because I don't think he botched the rebuild and performed his most important role adequately, perhaps even above average, which was of course the draft. That said, I think he is on the hot seat now that we are trying to make the playoffs. I don't think his strengths seem well-suited to building a championship-contending roster. Probably only has one more offseason to prove himself in that regard--we need to make not just the play-in, but actually be in the playoffs, not this year but the one after.
On Top End Talent: This is where I have issues with Stone. I like Sengun, Amen, and Cam as potential stars, but right now the Rockets are one of the worst teams in top end developed talent. If the Rockets young guys/picks don't develop more or he doesn't make a trade, Stone will go down as a horrible GM. If these guys develop or Stone gets a star(s) via trade or other means, he's likely a great GM. I'd consider the stuff below the small stuff. On Asset Management: Using a holistic approach going through Rockets transaction history, Stone is only down 2 SRPs net ,1 star (Harden), and some vets who's contracts would be over or almost over (Covington, Tucker, Gordon notables) and up 5 FRPs net (Tari, 2 BKN picks, Sengun, Whitmore), 2 FRP swaps, Brooks, and Adams by my count. I think the Harden trade still impacts this a lot which I don't see as skill either way (bad or good), but if you take out the Brooklyn picks and Harden...he's down 2 SRPs and up 2 FRPs. Granted, he would be up more FRPs, but he used asset management to turn 2 FRPs, both acquired by him, into one better pick that became Sengun and turned another FRP he acquired with additional assets to make it a better one that became Whitmore. People act like Stone wasn't amassing a hoard of SRPs prior to the last 8 months such that his blowing a bunch is viewed much more negatively than his amassing the hoard of SRPs was viewed positively. I think the positives of getting Sengun and Cam outweigh the negatives of using a lot of SRPs recently. On Signings: KPJ and Landale look bad, but Landale is at least matching salary. FVV and Brooks contracts look fine and shouldn't hurt the Rockets. Brook Lopez debacle was horrible. Theis ended up not working, but didn't cost the Rockets anything lasting. Holiday, Tate, and Jeff Green deals have been okay. Really wish Holiday was more than a 1 year deal. Overall, I think Stone did a decent job creating space for guys, but didn't hit a home run with it, though I've liked Brooks and FVV. On Depth: The Rockets bench depth is great. The Rockets have not had a good backup center, but win more games due to winning the minutes the backup center is playing than the Rockets lose due to their play while the backup center is playing. Tari when healthy is one of the most impactful guys off the bench. When/if the Rockets actually have Amen, Cam, and Tari healthy later this season, I expect the Rockets will crush opposing bench units like they did when Tari was healthy. Next year, roster has a chance to really whallop teams when the bench is in. Overall: B-, but I really like Sengun, Cam, and Amen such that I think the Rockets get at least a No.2 and a No. 3 guy out of them. Only time, development, and the really hard or lucky part to go.
C for me. Literally done nothing spectacular, or nothing particularly heinous. Even the Ime and Silas hires are really pretty obvious moves when you look at it. Silas was an inexperienced/bad coach for the tank, Ime was the best coach on the market. He's just an average, mediocre person doing his job to me. It's not like when we had Morey and the GM seemed as important as the coach or the star player, Morey's philosophy penetrated the team and even the fanbase (which is why everybody here is metrics obsessed - even more than typical fanbases by some distance.) I feel like Morey as a GM impacted the on-court product as much as D'Antoni did, if not more so. This team is all Ime right now, and when Stone WAS "impacting the team" with Silas it wasn't with a vision and an identity, it was just reinforcing the crap decisions and direction. We never had an identity under Stone until a real coach came along and gave us one.
He deserves credit for trading up for Sengun. Drafting Tari/Cam but that was more luck than anything. Jabari/Jalen/Amen a 3rd grader would've done. Gave a locker room cancer an extension only to lose draft picks because he went haywire. Is currently enabling another problematic player because he doesn't want to look like he fumbled his first draft pick. Jock Landale. FVV was fine. DB was fine. Drafted Josh ****ing Christopher to please Jalen Green. Fumbled the trade deadline. Fairly certain he's going to fumble this offseason by just drafting with the Nets pick. If he signs Jalen to an extension I think it'll truly test how much attention I'll be paying this team moving forward. Have better **** to do than support a group giving the likes of KPj and Jalen Green a bunch of money. D for me.
C. internet tells me that Stone is a bad asset manager, but dude can draft. even the children we lost, I still think they could hoop if they were given a chance. the KPJ debacle and Silas was kinda bad... whatever.
C. After desperation attempts to form the boy band known as WOW, he appears to be following "The Process" and The Process is incomplete.
I really don't like this terminology used on CF such as "phase" or "chapter" as if there is a playbook or how-to manual for building a successful team. It's actually one of the reasons to dislike Stone, as he likely thinks (being a lawyer) that he can follow such a procedural path to success. Being a good GM in professional sports requires more creativity, flexibility, and (although I hate corporate speak) thinking outside of the box.
Totally agree with you there - the phase based approach is the reason why we punted on development for our young guys the first couple of years and it was not necessary and hurt our asset managemetn strategy in "Phase 2" - we could have provided more support for Jalen, Alpi, Jabari, and Tari than what they got...and poor Josh Christopher and TyTy having to watch Dasihen Nix minutes was a travesty. At this stage we should KNOW a lot more about Jalen for instance and it feels like he is about 50 games into frankly the first time in his career he has been challenged to be a more versatile player.
That's fine we can agree to disagree here, it's really semantics and not a big deal. I look at it as having goals for a rebuild, most sports teams or team-based goals are similar. I personally just didn't want the team to be short-sighted and become a mediocre playoff treadmill team. I'd rather be bad for a period, draft players with star potential then develop into a real contender with patience. First the team lacked talent after Harden is gone, Morey left for family and the vets moved on to compete for a contender. The only way to rebuild is free agency or the draft. Likely superstars aren't coming to a team with John Wall, older cousins, etc. We had to tank to draft players with star potential. Then the team needs to develop to reach a goal, which can be the playoffs or a championship. Likely that the same team isn't ring-hunting so a playoff goal would make sense. We didn't compete for rings with top picks at first until more talent was added and given time to develop, like Sampson getting Hakeem, Yao getting Tmac, Harden with the other stars etc. As long as we're progressing I'm fine with any perspective, it makes sense to be organized for a goal IMO. But to each their own, we're all supporting the Rockets getting better hopefully. I'll engage for a bit, can you provide an example of NBA GMs with a successful rebuild in your eyes? Hopefully a few if possible.
Lol. He's only been here 3-4 years. Getting by on selling hope for too long? Some of these weird narratives about Stone don't even add up
D. I probably should have given him a little better because i'm sure working for Tilman is an enormous handicap, but punting the trade deadline for this season and the Jock Landale debacle have me miffed. The roster has some glaring holes.
D He'd done some good things but I dont like how he handled the two most important picks in jalen and jabari. Actually changing my grade to a D. I do not believe in the tanking multiple years strategy. And they let Silas roam the sideline for far too long.
Lol. How can the Ime hire be a "pretty obvious move:? Ime chose us because of our cap space & draft capital. We clearly wanted him as the best coach on the market. None of this happens if our rebuild wasn't going in the right direction. Yall won't give Stone full credit for any of the great things he's done
I'll go C. Pretty good drafting, good coaching hire, not great free agency/trades/roster construction. Would go B if there were an element of being extra shrewd in his game or not having to overpay vets.
You don't think it was obvious that the team that made its name on reclamation projects would try and sign the elite-tier reclamation project coach? I'm not sure what to say if you think that was an out of the blue, left curve, WWE level swerve.
C I would have given him an incomplete if not for his fetish attachment to KPJ and the whole Silas thing.
