Its' really hard to tell how good Stone is at actually evaluating talent. Sengun is the only player of the core prospects that felt like an actual shrewd move on Stones part. I still find it inexplicable that Whitmore and Eason fell as far as they did, and the top 5 picks were mostly pretty clear cut IMO aside from Thompson. Regardless of whether it's luck or skill, he has been an outstanding drafter, it's impossible to argue.
I agree. I give him credit for Tari, Sengun, and Whitmore. But I think our two highest picks, Jalen and Jabri, are probably the two that have underperformed the most. The way I look at it, it’s not hard to tank and when u tank u expect to draft really good prospects. On the whole that’s what Stone’s done, but I see that as what is expected. It’s not above and beyond. He’s handled the cap beautifully so that’s something he deserves great credit for.
One thing that bothers me about NBA fans in general is that many of them don't seem to understand that drafting is a low percentage activity. I see people everywhere saying "he drafted this guy, what a bad pick, that's not a good front office" or something similar. Drafting in the NBA is like, I dunno, hitting in baseball. The best guys in the world have a success rate of about 38 percent. Most of your at bats don't result in hits, that doesn't make you bad. Similarly in the NBA, most draft picks are not good. That's just the way it works. If you go look at any GM or any front office, more than half of their draft picks are players that didn't help their team at all and were shortly out of the league, that's just the way it goes. You wouldn't look at Jose Altuve going 2/5 in a game and call him trash, and you shouldn't do that for GMs either. People also negatively judge GMs for making "bad picks" when there was no good pick available. Like Jabari for example, okay sure he's underperformed, who should we have taken? Keegan Murray? Jaden Ivey? The only good player available in that entire draft was Jalen Williams I guess, and it's totally unrealistic to expect anyone to take Jalen Williams at pick 3. You can be upset at Jabari's performance but to act like it's a strike against Stone doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Sometimes there just isn't a reasonable pick that would've worked out, which is why it's such a low probability event.
WOW, really happened and by the grace of God the players themselves kept it from happening. Not the front office.
Houston Chronicle: Houston Rockets, the most improved team in NBA, show real signs of optimism for future
Stone deserves a A+ across the board. Very pleased with the direction we've been going for a few years. Kudos to Stone for rebuilding this organization from the Harden debacle
"The challenge of figuring out how Jalen Green and Şengün can best play together is a much more fun offseason task than determining if Green can play at all." - Jerome Solomon Clearly Mr Solomon hasn't been to clutchfans.net ...
Quick history lesson: WOW was the team that was sold to us after the Harden trade and pre Porter jr. All of them where offered big money at the time. Wall, Olaidpo & Wood. -> Victor turned down max money to leave. (later the next season, VO signed a minimum contract trying to just stay in the league. Wall while receiving top pay across the league is asked to just stay away from the team). This is part of Stone’s legend that the organization wants you to forget about. It really did happen.
I say B- only because he didn’t acquire any winning vets the first 2 years. Those guys are crucial to the development of young players.
I'm sure Ime is the reason we got 7 prospects in 3 years I don't use whatifs to judge a person I use actual results and the reality is and under the Stone regime we got JG, Sengun, Jabari, Amen, Cam, Tari and now IRS. CF has a lot of outsiders acting like they know the inner workings of Front office. You got posters claiming Ime hates Sengun without any actual proof besides "where there's smoke there's fire" and you have people like you who somehow know who did what and what Stone wanted before he got vetoed. You realize Ime was pushing for vets this year? If Stone always gets pushed around how come we didnt make any big trades? Ainge and Morey have an actual team behind them but nobody dissects the actual responsibilities like CF does with Stone. I believe Eli Wheatus has been there since Morey but nobody said he was the one making decisions for Morey right? Its only with Stone this BS happens and thats because Y'all can't admit the Sports Lawyer is a good gm.
So what? Stone still ended up getting 7 prospects in 3 yrs and thats the reason this team ended up the way it is no matter what happened with the Wow era.
You wont have any young players if you acquired winning vets D'oh. Jabari, Tari and Sengun are developing just fine. I doubt a vet would have sorted out JG's inconsistency thats on him.
Don’t be an a&&hole. That is not true at all. A couple key signings mixing vets with rookies was possible. I did not say high priced vets but maybe mid level players. Players with winning experience. Players that have been locker room leaders or a major part of winning teams in some way. This does not necessarily mean star or max players. Or long contracts. You undervalue the guidance and leadership of vets. Fine technical details are explained or discussed such as how to play against certain defenses or decision making such as when to drive or be aggressive or even the mental aspects of a grueling schedule etc. there’s a lot of value in vet guidance. You look at some of the biggest stars today and most if not all had vet guidance.
Quick lesson on not re-writing history: If Victor was actually offered that contract he would have been a fool to turn it down. You can't believe fake news and every headline. Things are leaked to the press that are not always true like Rockets drafting Clingan.
