new orleans is still 28th out of 30 in 3P%. this team is definitely better than i expected and probably above the upper range of my expectations (41-31). but i also don't think there was any reason to think we would be terrible. a huge part of this team involved taking risks on the health of john wall (missed the last 2 seasons) and oladipo, who missed 2/3 of the games the last 2 seasons and looked bad last year. if we reverse houston's tradition of injuries and actually get some injury luck for once with these 2 guys, then we went from expecting: trade westbrook for basically nothing because wall is injured/terrible trade harden for picks to trade westbrook for better player/fit (because westbrook doesn't fit in anything) trade harden for pretty good player in oladipo that's a lot of extra talent than was expected. when you get lucky on the high risk/high reward moves, you exceed expectations. the reason a lot of people wanted christian wood last year shows in how he's playing this year and tate/nwaba are the exact kind of random role players we've been digging up for years around here. so we had talent. championship talent? certainly doesn't seem so. so ultimately you can't blame harden for wanting to team up for once in his career after always facing super teams himself. how this talent fits in to an overall rebuild? tougher to say. if the nets picks become really good in a couple of years, is wall still any good at age 33? gordon and tucker are almost certainly a lot worse. do you wanna sign oladipo to a big contract? but do you tear down a feel good team right now? is there a way to use the future nets picks to add a valuable player now? as for people who say they want to see us against good teams, you will have to wait. we play an almost ridiculously easy first half schedule. by the time we play 35 games, we won't have played any games against the nets, bucks, celtics in the east and only 1 game against philly. even a middle team like the hawks we won't have played. in the west we don't play the clippers or the jazz and only 1 game against denver (which we've already played). so this roster will basically have played 1 game against a top 8 team in like 25 games together.
It's not a fluke if the Rockets keep up the defensive intensity. High level defense allows a team to weather the inevitable offensive cold streaks and stay in the game. You can always control your defensive effort, but sometimes the ball just doesn't go through the hoop for awhile.
What If you are never "happy" with the talent? You tank for 5 years? 10 years? There are many teams that have been on this hamster wheel for years. It's a silly, simpleton way to build a championship organization in the 4th biggest city in the US that doesn't tax, IMO. Especially considering the fact that we own Brooklyn's future, as well as Detroit's and Washington's. To really understand how much of a lottery the draft is, 3 of the top 5 players I'd choose to build around right now were picked at 15, 15 and 41. New Orleans is wasting their time building around Zion. Sacramento is wasting their time building around Fox and Bagley. T'Wolves are wasting their time building around KAT. You can go on down the list. These teams could tank for 20 years and not find the desired talent to compete against Lebron. A whole lot of their problems come in the form of TANKING. Because once these tanking franchises land these star players, their organizational culture and foundation of talent (also veteran talent) has been completely decimated. We are seeing this with Dallas right now. This leads to big time players sprinting for organizations that have a CULTURE IN PLACE. It is not impossible to do both. Houston did it with James. San Antonio did it with Kawhi. Miami did it with Jimmy Butler. Etc. It's a myth that it takes time to establish a culture? Have you ever tried to establish a culture? Even in your own life? It most certainly takes time, often lots of it. How someone can be so flippant about culture is so bizarre. In business, in sports, in life. Culture and discipline and toughness and all of that stuff takes time to put in place. Part of what has made Silas so damn remarkable is how quickly he is cultivating this atmosphere.
Looking like it tonight for sure. In the last games rockets have won they have not played any real playoff teams beside a beat up blazers team. I just say ya this team is new and just kinda meh. I would try to trade dipo tucker and gordon at the deadline for picks.
