Yeah, I get that. But I never thought Jalen or Jabari was that guy until they proved it, so I tempered my expectations. Jalen could still be, and Jabari, I'll wait and see. I never thought either was in the class of a Jordan, Magic, Bird, Lebron, Kobe or Hakeem, etc., but ... they're also just kids with bodies like kids. So maybe it'll take 2 or 3 years. I'm willing to wait. In another 2 or 3 years, Jalen will still only be 22 years old - basically a college senior. Jabari will be even younger. The rest of the guys outside of maybe Sengun and Tari are future fodder for trades or roster spots as far as I'm concerned. And if they don't turn out to be that guy then, whatever, maybe they'll be a cog in the machine until we do find that guy. Such is the lottery.
All fair (and balanced, LOL). It's amazing how my intense but otherwise quiet fandom runs away with me, even subconsciously. I so wanted, and even just a tiny bit expected, for them to surprise people this year. Like "oh crap, this team is scrappy and tenacious now." I had no real reason to even hope for that, given last season and like two new young players.
The Rockets right now are missing a floor general, a defensive centerpiece at the center position, general defensive ability on the wings, experience in general and the foundational cornerstones we are building around are still inconsistent in what they should be elite at in the future. This is a recipe for a poorly performing team, one of the worst in the league. Its an incomplete team, its a transition team, its a rebuilding team, whatever you want to call it. But this should be the expectation for a rebuilding team that still hasn't even completely washed itself of all the remnants of the former era. As a fan, you should be focusing on the brief flashes of upside that Green, Eason, Sengun, and Smith are showing, and envisioning what that will look like in the future. This team, the players, and even the coach, should not be judged on what the product looks like on the floor. That is standard that should not be relevant for probably another 2-3 years. Fans, for whatever reason, do not fully understand what it means to rebuild. There are no shortcuts.
I honestly believe Jalen has Kobe-like talent. What he should develop is strength like Ja so he can intersect defense with straight-line drives
Rockets Positives: we have a starting backcourt that both guys will average 20+ points a game. You have a Center(Sengun) who can average 20 points a game and average 10 rebounds on 10 to 12 attempts efficiently if you play him at least 28 minutes a game. Also, you have a young power forward who is a very good 2 way player. During the year, working with Coach Lucas he will average 18 points a game and 8 rebounds for his rookie year, by working on his handles and learning to shoot more efficiently for every shot attempt. Rockets Negative: no shot blocker, no pick and roll defense, they are not passing the ball for a good shot. Honestly, the coach is not coaching. Too many iso in this offense and you can tell the guys do no listen to him. Every post game interview, he said we were suppose to pass the ball more and less iso but did not…..who fault is that??? I believe he is trying to be a buddy buddy with the players or trying to be a father figure to the players and not being a coach, because a coach will lead his players and provide discipline. Houston, we have a problem
Times have changed. Players like Dream and MJ don't exist anymore. Those guys were seniors in college when they got drafted and were just more impactful than any player will be these days. Dreams rookie season was insane. Paolo is putting up numbers but looks like a defensive sieve. His concerns are still there. Wemby will make an impact defensively next year. Offensively he's going to struggle. It's why everyone was so high on Barnes/Mobley last year. This year it's crickets. Why? Because developing offensive ability is freaking hard. You can just hustle and be physically imposing on D. You can't just learn to break defenses down off the dribble. Toronto has experimented with Barnes at point-forward and he makes KPj look like prime Stockton. We don't know if we have "that guy" yet. Jalen probably is but he's looked pretty bad the last couple of games. Jabari is still a 19 year old and has a lot of things to fix, one of which is his attitude. He's shown symptoms of being a hot head and his play doesn't backup that bark. But he has shown flashes of what he could be. He's just way more raw than any of us wished. He's more raw now than Jalen was a year ago. Tari has looked lost as well but no one doubts his ability. I'm getting more concerned about Sengun by the day. Seems like Silas is trying to put him in positions to succeed by playing him against reserves and he's still underperformed. Him and Jalen haven't progressed seemingly at all from what we saw at the end of last year.
They didn’t even attempt to get a vet PG like Schroeder or DJ They knew we’d win too much if we had a Schroeder type vet off the bench again. Stone using Nix as the ultimate sandbag The fix is in
It’s so ironic that Silas ever told James Harden not to play Iso ball any more, but then he develops KPJ as an ISO player by himself.
Times have changed, but basketball hasn't. You still need a good coach for the team to be successful. Stats doesn't lie: more than 2 years Stephen Silas has been installed to the head coach position, till today we virtually ran 0 plays to open up anything. The reason we can keep the games close because of the Eric-me-first Gordon, he's contributing 15 points with over 48% shooting and 37% from the deep, and he's not even in our long-term plan. If you wants to develop young players, Gordon shouldn't play significant minutes. If you wants to win, you should just throw the ball to Gordon and let him shoot the sky out, we'd have a better chance winning having him jacking up shots than KPJ and Green, both are shooting 41% and 39%, respectively, and KPJ turnover the balls at a ridiculous rate, at 3.8 TO per game. Supposedly the Rockets half court offense should be initiated at the low post most of the time because our guards are good spot up shooters but not very good at ball-handling. We can play better defense to create fast break opportunities and our guards are good at fast breaks and the team is young and can outrun everyone (except Nix). That may not be the final form of the offense, but it'd be a good start. Instead, we are playing like a G league team that most players don't know if they can get consistent playing times except our selfish guards. How would the team be good in this environment? Therefore, every players coming off the bench like playing rubbish minutes, nobody is sharing the ball because they don't know if the next game they will be DNP. Once we have a competent coach, then we can evaluate whether we have that guy. Now the Rockets plays like a G league team. Adam Silver doesn't even need to demote us, we demoted ourselves.
Its not really about the results, but rather the way they are playing and the lack of progression as a team….amongst other things outside of the win loss column. Whether this is intentional or not is the real question.
