Rockets sign Jabari Smith Jr. to 5-year, $122M extension

What impact metrics are you talking about?

 

All the ones i know of, epm, ws, ws/48, vorp, bpm. It's not a criticism, he's just old. It's the same with curry, lebron, it's why those teams now win 44 games instead of 55 games.

 

By impact you mean the overall threat of JDub right?

But purely as a scorer KD was more efficient than even SGA himself. We have lots of guys who can do the other stuff but scoring wise KD is better than JDub or almost anyone tbh.

 

Not too point too fine a point on it
Playing next to Shai and Chet (and refs *grin*)
versus
Playing next to Booker and Beal . . . . . might make some difference

I expect KD to have more assists

but that is neither here nor there
Expect JaBaRi Smith Jr to be GREAT next Season

Rocket River

 

Durant is a stop gap. Everybody knows he's not the future of the Rockets. And the price we paid to get him is minimal unless you believe Jalen Green and the #10 pick would make a great impact down the road. Durant is basically an opportunity you jump on rather something you plan your future on. The OKC Big 3 is clearly what they bet on for a long dominance. It's a deliberate long term plan, not just an opportunity you grab when it happens.

Stone seems to be betting on his #3 pick last year than on Durant long term. Although I am a Reed fan, I am taking a wait-and-see stance. And I don't like how we did not make any move to bring more depth to the backcourt.

 

At times it feels like Ime and Stone are playing cat and mouse with each other. Stone forced his hand to play Jalen last year by not having a meaningful competitor to him on the team. Ime delivered success and got the cache to say bring me Durant because Stone was wrong about Jalen. Now Stone is doing the Jalen thing with Reed. Basically I'm not giving you any worthwhile backups because if I do you'll end up playing less talented players that have more experience. Ultimately it's the correct approach as Jalen proved without a shadow of a doubt that he wasn't *that guy* but we needed to know that. Now it's Reed's turn to see if he can be that guy and without anyone behind him, he will have every opportunity to prove that.

 

The Celtics model is probably the most realistic one because Presti is on a planet of himself on his model.

• The Celtics go way back when Tatum was 22 and Jaylen Brown 24 or something, and they were yearly outclassed by either Lebron or another team.
• They have been retooling ever since.
• Sengün and Amen might be the constant if not given up upon.
• I don't fault them for fire selling half the farm as they have actually been paying a lot of money since Kyrie Irving first joined the Celtics and Gordon Hayward.

 

Ya as an overall player jdub was better last season, and the gap should widen even more with each passing season. KD is still a good player, but he’s more like the 30th best guy now vs what he used to be.

 

Thats what I figured but wanted to be sure. Most of those stats arent worthless, but they are highly influenced by team success. Personally I think those stats are best used to compare teammates. For instance, Jalen Green had a 5.1 ws vs kd who had a 5.2. Fred also had a ws of 5.2. Nobody thinks Jalen or Fred were close to the player kd was last season. Jarret Allen had a ws of 11.6 last year. Steph has only posted a higher ws than that 5 times in his entire career and hasnt had a ws higher than 10 in the last 8 seasons.

The difference in vorp between kd and jdub was .4 jdubs way. Not much of a difference. Same with epm which was even less of a difference. But again we're talking about a guy who was on a lottery team with maybe one other player who was worth a damn vs a guy who was on a team that was only 5 games away from tying the all time record.

But kd was pretty far out ahead in all the hard shooting data thats not subjective. FG%, 3pt, FT, 2pt, ts%... And he absolutely smoked him as an iso scorer. He was also a better rebounder and shot blocker. Jdub is probably the better defender, and playmaker... Maybe... But again thats influenced by your teammates as well.
KD is an offensive engine... He's a go to guy... He's a guy that we're hoping can go toe to toe in big games with Jokic, Shai, Luka, Ant, Steph... Jdub is Robin. A very good one, not to take anything away from him. But still. He's Robin.

We need to be hoping Sengun and/or Amen can be better than jdub. If the Rockets thought KD was going to be outperformed by teams second best players theres no way they make that trade.

 

Part of why the suns sucked (and teams like the warriors and lakers who have old stars) is because KD is a shell of what he once was. If the suns had prime kd last season they’re a solid playoff team. Obviously everything is influenced by your teammates though. These super super old guys can’t influence the game like they used to, it’s impossible. If Durant is our best player we are going nowhere, he needs to be clearly number 2 or ideally 3.

 

Agree to disagree. No biggie.

 

I mean there are role players and there are ROLE players.

Dort and Heartenstein are the latter. They do not win without those guys. It really is that simple. I'd be very surprised if another team doesn't give them a silly offer after next season. Also the one thing about OKC is they have had a VERY hard time of retaining guys since moving there because...it's OKC. Reality is if the Lakers, Knicks, or Miami comes calling those guys are packing their bags because there is a human element and OKC as a location is just not very attractive for players. They will not be easy to replace just like it would be difficult for us to replace Fred or Adams. It's possible for sure.

And the question marks for Chet are very real. Every move in the NBA has risks, I think the one OKC took with Chet is bigger than the one we took with Bari personally.

Now they will be contenders as long as they have SGA and Jdub no one is doubting that...but there are levels of contendership in today's NBA and losing their depth would put them where Denver is now for example. Always a contender but beatable. Hell, I think they (OKC) were beatable this year and if Haliburton was healthy that series I think we're talking about the Pacers being a champion.

 

Yeah, you can be a "roleplayer" and still be a key starter on a championship team. Jrue Holiday (with both Boston and Milwaukee) jumps to mind. OKC has a number of guys who are either already "very good 4th/5th starter" material or else have strong potential to get there. Because of these three max contracts, they will probably have to pick just 1 of those guys to hang onto long-term, and fill out the rest of the roster with rookie contracts and vet minimum deals. Because we've been savvy with the contracts we've given out so far, that's not necessarily the case for us. I think we can retain our depth for another good five or six years, potentially.

On the flip side we don't have any young guy as good as SGA or honestly maybe even Jalen Williams (yet--Amen will at least get to J-Dub's level IMO, and Sengun is at least close).

 

Stone/Fertitta/Udoka saw an opportunity to seriously contend for a title this year and took it. Waiting for Jalen to finally figure it out would have likely meant not seeing the WCF for another year or two. With KD, anything less than the WCF (and/or a long series against OKC) will be a failure.

I think Stone is confident he can replace Durant with a star when the time comes, and that our window will remain open. I really doubt that star will be Sheppard, but stranger things have happened.

 

Getting a star player on KD's level in his prime is extremely hard. You either hit the jackpot from the draft or get a disgruntled one wanting to join you. We still don't know for sure what the team will look like after KD is gone.

 

Just hope the Reed fandom is not going Jalen Green levels, that was toxic.

 

I'd say I'm cautiously extremely optimistic. If he doesn't pan out, it is basically like last season except KD is on the floor when FVV is off. If he pans out, holy Toledo!

 

There will be a guy that looks like Ausar Thompson's twin. Sengun and Reed will likely be here. One of JSJ and Tari will likely be here. The Rockets will have young guys in Tyran Stokes and that French wing Hugo Yimga Moukouri.

 

Fandom will always get toxic in the days of the current social media culture

I stabbed a PlayStation fan for saying I had a shitbox 360 just last week

 

LOL. I like it!