Hollinger & Duncan rank Rockets organization 23/24 of 30

the brightside is that without a lot of these dumbass decisions it wouldn't have let us truly bottom out so we can rebuild with a lot better assets.

we could have died a slow, painful death if Harden stayed.

 

Great nuance about the willingness to spend aspect.

....OKC is interesting because by all accounts they have played it safe and are taking a longer term view of how they build their team from scratch which in general is a good idea but I think Boston is a recent example of a front office that built a team in a similar way but never really "cashed the chips in" in a meaningful way that kind of wasted some of the promise they had a few years back with two potential foundational talents and a slew of assets similar to the first iteration of the Thunder with Harden/Russ/KD. I guess I openly wonder if OKC will be willing to change that strategy when the time calls because some would say they missed their title window earlier when they let Harden go for assets. Just thinking out loud really. "The things that protected you up until now, will hold you back in the future" as they say.

 

Agree - would have been really awful watching the Rox try to sell a contender built around present day Harden, Wall, and Wood ALTHOUGH it's worth noting the West is probably as weak as it has been in a while...but yeah - I suppose KPJ and Wood's suspensions and the promise of Green and Sengun is less painful than watching Harden getting embarrassed by the Dubs in the 2022 playoffs yet again. You can only live that same tragedy so many times....

 

That was the Ariza free agency decision, right? Felt like Morey misplayed that hand - in a vacuum he was right to not give Ariza a multi-year deal but outside of the vacuum, there were limited 3 and D guys available that year and after Ariza signed elsewhere, there were no other options left we could afford which is why we exhumed the career of Melo, tried rolling the dice on Michael Carter Williams, etc. Ariza has not been great since that year but at some point being 'not as great' but at least competent was better than what we ended up with.

 

Ahh - I forgot about Moute- you are right. He only played 7 more games total in the NBA after that unfortunately - couldn't overcome the injuries he sustained in '18 & '19.

The sentiment about Paul wasn't totally incorrect - even some of the more even keeled bball analysts were similarly writing Paul's obituary from NBA stardom. The fact that he moved to a plant based diet and managed to get even better at age 36 than he was at 33 was probably the least likely scenario after 2019. He solidified the "Point God" nickname with that little trick.....although it's worth noting CP is nearly a defensive liability at this point much like Stockton late into his career. At least in Stockton's day half the game was still being played in the post - now post players can shoot 3s and also may take you off the dribble from the 3pt line.