If you have time, I'd watch it. It is the most telling interview about the internal working of the Rockets that I've seen out of this era. Rafael Stone 1. He listens to the questions and you can see it in his eyes that the gears are churning while the question is being asked. So he's not some prepared robot that will answer your question with the old Robert McNamara adage: Answer the question you wish they'd asked. 2. He's choppy in delivery so you have to be paying close attention to get what he's saying. Trust me it's there. If you follow all the details, he's clear. If you don't actually pay attention, you might think he's a bumbling idiot. He is not. I would be afraid to play this guy in poker. You have no idea what his strategy is, but you know he's got one and is slowly taking your money whether you like it or not. 3. His answers aren't the tidbits people on here are pulling out. Like the John Wall part. He more or less is saying that any veteran of the game or smart player who wants to communicate ideas to him, he's listening. That doesn't mean he takes every piece of advice. He takes input from a lot of sources and makes decisions rather than just trusting his own gut and firing from the hip. 4. This interview solidifies to me that Tilman is more hands off with personnel acquisition and trades, etc. I think the Westbrook trade dilemma, (while huge and it may be costing us some valuable resources) is overblown. Tilman does not sound like some micro manager that's always looking over Stone's shoulder. But you can judge Stone's words yourself. Like I said, he's playing this interview like it's poker and it's hard to get a read on everything that's not said. I personally do not believe he lies even once during the interview. I believe he's saying what he believes to be true right now. Things change though.
https://www.espn.com/radio/play/_/id/31181556 MacMahon: Why did they trade Oladipo for three pairs of socks and two deflated basketballs? They knew he was leaving, get him gone and play KPJ those minutes was the better way to go now anyways. What he’s saying is he’s shorting Brooklyn and think those picks on the back end have a chance to be really, really high in the lottery. Windhorst: Nothing he is saying it out of line but problem is where he’s contradicting himself and that’s where you get worrisome. I also believe he said we’ll do a quick turn rebuild. TM: He basically said they can be competitive as they’re rebuilding. We want to compete on a slightly quicker time frame. We’re not going down this path with intent to lose games for years on end. Yeah, you shouldn’t go down that path. OKC still has a pick swap and two more of your picks. BW: He shouldn’t have said that they want to turn it around quickly. You can’t say that and then not trade for Simmons or LeVert/Allen when you have the opportunity. Your argument for not doing those is to build for 2027/2030. Not to build for 2022-2023-2024. TM: With LeVert/Allen, Allen was(wasn’t?) a positional fit... Bontemps: That’s nonsense... TM: They thought those guys... TB: They’re going to have money next year. Let’s just talk plainly. TM: Especially Allen. TB: Especially LeVert! They traded LeVert for Oladipo who they gave away. Let’s just call it for what it is. They didn’t want to pay Allen so they traded him for a late first which turned into a swap with the Bucks and turned LeVert into Oladipo who they gave away. TM: They didn’t feel like LeVert could do anything more than bump them towards mediocrity so they didn’t want to pay him. Honestly who gives a crap about LeVert. Whether you had LeVert or not, no one will look back on this trade in 5/6 years and have that be the difference. This comes down to we’ll see if they’re right about shorting Brooklyn and even if they are, we’ll see if they get a Ben Simmons caliber out of that. They didn’t think Ben Simmons was good enough to build around. If they don’t get an all-NBA talent out of that bundle of Brooklyn picks, it was a bad trade because Simmons is an all-NBA talent. TB: Even if they want to do this long term rebuild that isn’t gonna be a long term rebuild, whatever the explanation is, they would have gotten more for LeVert/Allen than they did in that trade but they specifically targeted players and assets that wouldn’t cost them money next year. They opted for A) the picks over Ben Simmons, which you can argue either way. The inexcusable part was not trading for Allen/LeVert. Even if you have those two, you’re not gonna be demonstratively better because they still have terrible players. If they said at the deadline “LeVert is available”, I can promise you he gets more than the pile of garbage they got from the Heat. Does anyone disagree? TM: They’ll be able to swap Brooklyn’s pick for Miami’s... TB: They dramatically minimized their return in the beginning by insisting on having guys that didn’t have money past this year on their team. You can argue Simmons vs picks. Any of these arguments about LeVert, Allen, his fit with Wood, or LeVert would help us win too many games is complete nonsense. TM: I’m not sure about Allen. Is any team going to give up significant assets and pay him? I don’t know. Good job by Cleveland wiggling their way in there. BW: If Magic traded Dwight Howard in August 2012 — they’ve made the playoffs one time since— can you imagine if Rob Hennigan, then-GM, said don’t evaluate me on this trade until 2021? TB: People go back to the original Thunder rebuild and what the Sixers did, and say “Hey, blow it up & build through the draft! This is the way to go!” It can work but that is not some guarantee path to success, especially after they’ve diminished these lottery odds. You look at the Kings, Timberwolves, Magic, Hornets, Bulls,...the idea you should blow it up...I’m not saying build through the draft is impossible but the idea it’s a sure fire idea for success, it is not. TM: It’s especially tough when you traded for Westbrook a year ago and still owe OKC draft picks. There will be some tight sphincters during the lottery in Minnesota and Houston. TB: That lottery night will have so much drama. TM: OKC is gonna try so hard to tank, fail miserably and still end up with the 1st and 5th picks. ...
The value of the picks swaps is ridiculously overblown. The ONLY way those picks swaps are even used is if Rockets improve to point where they are BETTER than either Heat or Nets. I do not see that happening anytime soon. Not next season, the season after or 4 seasons from now. Hoping Nets and/or Heat become a bottom of the NBA team soon severely underestimates Pat Riley as a GM and Joe "Deep Pockets" Tsai as an owner. Cannot help but chuckle everytime some poster count those picks swaps as an actual FRP acquired in Harden trade. Fairly ludicrous to say those picks swaps aggregate the FRP from 4 to 8. SMH
