fair point….I just see building a winning culture…I stand by them playing for the playin this year and then 23-24 make playoffs 24-25 shooting for home court..25-26 playing for top 3-4 teams in league.…I see OKC(Durant, Westbrook, Harden and Serge) in the Rockets…expect I look at it Jalen, Jabari, Tari, and Şengün…these two draft classes will be best ever for Rockets.
Okc drafted 2 of the 30 best players ever plus russ, the odds that our guys even come close is basically zero. The whole winning culture stuff is irrelevant, good players win, not culture. As soon as the warriors lost steph, they were garbage. As soon as spurs lost kawhi, they were garbage. Their “winning culture” was irrelevant and worthless
They would have to trade for someone like giannis or jokic, someone that can play 70+ games at mvp level and do it without giving up anything meaningful
I don’t entirely disagree with your comment. ..however I still think that the will be competing I guess we will see…no one ever knew Harden, Durant and Westbrick would become who they did.. the warriors lost literally the player that makes the warriors the warriors. The year they stunk there was absolutely no way they would compete much less being without Clay and Steph. You take Steph off the Warriors they don’t win any of those championships…they had winning culture…loosing those guys that won you the rings…of course you tank…these guys have never one in the NBA…that really wasn’t a good comparison… Just gotta correct ya here…you also mention the Spurs and how as soon as the lost Kawhi they were garbage…they traded Kawhi in 2018 they were the 7th seed in the west in 2018, 7th seed in 2019 and 19th best record in the league(would have made playoffs in the east) I’ll come back here when they finish better then a 33 win season. I already put a 5 spot on it..
You proved the entire point, the warriors culture is worthless, their “culture” is curry. If you consider the spurs to have not been garbage the last few years that’s fine, but to me they have been the worst franchise in the nba the last few years
I bet there has been a 9-10th seed this young very few times, if ever. Taking the average age of all the minutes played by rocket players this year will probably be 21 years old. They will lose and lose... A LOT. They will win more than last year though. They will then transition next offseason, likely with a trade to get an older player that is still somewhat young and good. Also have Garuba, Sengun, Green, and Josh C in their 3rd year. That is a play in team along with the ability to scare the hell out of some older teams with talent and energy. I had this same conversation this time last year with the great @ApacheWarrior. I was correct about what the Rockets wanted to do, which was end up with a player like Jabari. I believe they want one more to 8 pick with the flexibility to keep the pick, move up in the draft, trade it and perhaps other assets for a vet. Or maybe a combination of 2 of those.
Hawks and Timberwolves are two teams recently that have gone from 20 wins to 40 wins approximately the next season. I don't think Silas survives a sub 30 win total.....so I believe we get in the 30's this season in wins. Silas is already talking about actually implementing his plays. I was only off by about 5 games as I predicted 25 wins (without John Wall) prior to the season. I didn't expect Stone pushing the trade values of House, Nwaba, and featuring Wood so much. Wood revolting to push Theis out as a starter and possibly getting Silas fired after 9 games in the process. My prediction as of right now......34 wins Only about 7 wins in the first 25 games; but then the schedule gets easier and things begin to click better as players get their timing down in a "Read-&-React offense."
Two questions….was curry a top five pick and was kawhi a top five pick? Third question….was Gia a top five pick? Tanking is for losers and guarantees nothing. We actually have talent this year….let’s enjoy watching it gel into a fun and competitive team and quit all the loser mentality talk on this board!!!!!!!!
Do you think the rockets are losers for tanking for hakeem? Or the spurs for duncan? My dream is for the rockets to become legit contenders 3-5 years from now, the most likely way that happens is getting lucky in the draft. The higher you pick, the more likely you are to get lucky. Would you trade the 3rd pick for the 15th? I would assume you would not.
Can't be trusted how? You act like he has done something that he is in danger of being out of the NBA or suspended for a long time.
Curry played with a lot of other lottery picks and he was a top 10 pick, so you would still have to tank to get him. Kawhi played with a number 1 pick and was picked in the lottery. Giannis was also a lottery pick so again what are you talking about and players like Giannis are very rare who became a MVP that low in lottery.
Drafting a generational player is all about luck. I agree that having another top pick would increase the odds. But even if we are the worst team again, getting the top 2 pick is still less probable than a coin flip. And the odds of being the worst team is quite low given an increased number of tanking team this season and the likely improvement of our young players. And if we do get a top 2 pick, who is to say that either Wemby or Scoot will turn out to be as good as Durant and Harden? And who is to say that Green, Jabari, Sengun, and Tari won't be? I've said it in the other poll thread. What we want and what will likely happen are two different things. What I want is to see this young team jump 20+ wins. That will mean that this group is really special and has the ability to contend for a chip in a few years. What will likely happen is that we will be one of bottom 10 teams and will end up with a 4th - 10th pick, which will probably turn into a good role player but not a superstar. There is also another factor: the Nets picks. If they are not imploding this season, sooner or later they will, and we still own their picks or can swap with them in the next 5 years. One of those may get us another top pick down the road.
If we just 20+ wins, sure, that would mean that like jalen and jabari are going to be superstars. But if you want to kinda talk about an absolute best case scenario that's more in the 95th percentile vs 99.999th percentile, you'd be looking at 30ish wins, maaaaaaaaaaay 34 if we have perfect health, lots of other teams have horrible health, etc. There's no guarantee with draft picks, all you can do is try to maximize the odds in your favor. It's like blackjack, you're not guaranteed to win if you double down on 11 vs a 5, but the odds are in your favor and that's all you can do.
I think we are not disagreeing here. The problem with the blackjack analogy is that it's not really a choice in our situation. The team will try to play the young guys. If they win, they win. If they lose, they lose. Going back to the difference between what you want and what you think will happen. What I want is for them to win more then they lose. But what will likely happen is that they will lose more than they win. The coaches and the players won't intentionally throw games like it's their choice to tank or to win. What management can do is to refrain from getting high performance value veteran role players, players like Gordon and Favors. There's a delicate balance they need to keep. You don't really want to get rid of all good veteran presence in your rotation and just let the kids run around. But you also don't want these veterans to take too much of development minutes from the kids and increase unnecessary wins in the process.
I guess for me, if we win 34 games i'll be incredibly disappointed, and if we win 22 games i'll be incredibly hopeful. If we win 44 games (laughable obviously) i would be more in the middle but closer to disappointed, but in the long run it would still lower my championship odds for the team
Yeah, I think our difference is that I'll be very happy if they win in the 40s. A young team that can improve so fast is very promising. 20s means a good chance for a top pick. I'll be fine with it, although it will probably mean that a couple of key young guys are disappointing. If they lose a lot of games by small margins, that will be good. If they get blown out 20+ points night in and night out, that will be concerning. The worst case scenario would be winning in the 30s. Look like mediocrity will ensue.
