The Rockets going forward from now until next October

I think ownership is below average because Fertitta wants to run a nepotistic regimen.

 

I think the re-build is going very well. We are jumping to conclusions on our young players and how elite they will be. JG has superstar potential, Jabari just needs to let the game slow down and continue to muscle up and he will be the 3 and D guy we thought. Eason and Sengun were both steals and both have potential to be all-stars. Re-builds are always full of uncertainty. The goal has always been to suck until 24 and hope Brooklyn sucks from then on. We will finally have all the dead money off the roster and if JG or one of the other’s is not the superstar we need, we will trade and/or sign free agents or even get it in the draft. Re-builds can take 4 or 5 years we are in year 2 with a crap coach. It will get better.

 

Franz is fine for a utility guy but he's nowhere near Green. Cade is just a chucker right now. His vision is worse than Sengun's and his efficiency is pretty bad. He's not athletic either and doesn't have the tenacity of a Luka or Trae so....what is he exactly? Like smaller Julius Randle is what he's looking like. When Paolo was in the draft I kept saying he looked like what people thought Cade was. I still do not see what everyone saw in him or still see in him. He's going to be fine for like....25-6-6 on a bad team.

Mobley would have to improve to be bad on offense. I get his defensive upside but....that's it. He's never going to be even a good offensive player. Jabari will probably be better on offense than Mobley by the end of the year and just as useful defensively. I don't see All Star in him *at all*. If he was here he'd be labeled as a bust already.

 

Cade, Mobley, and Franz are all overrated in my opinion. Paola looks like the best of those by far. Both Sengun and Paolo can be sure fire all-stars for years if they develop 3 pt shots. JG is going to be better than all of them eventually.

 

Alright, there is enough truth in it, ain't it.

It is also true that you watch the Rockets more than the Magic, Cavs etc.

Kind of what we do here, hype up our own and dismiss players on other teams.

Only Stros are rated fairly.

 

I’ve watched the Cavs a lot and Mobley just seem special to me, but a very good defensive player with very limited offensive upside. Cade I am relying on less eye test and more stats, but don’t think either of them are franchise players as, at least Cade was anointed before he was drafted.

 

I don't think anyone expected this team to make the playoffs or playin. In fact, most knew that at this point we'd be about 2-10.

The biggest disappointment thus far has been more how raw Jabari Smith is versus anything else, but I see no reason to panic yet. It's still way too early. So far this season it started from awful but the team has looked better the last few games.

 

I mean...Paolo just pops man. You can see it. Cade has never looked like Paolo (or Sengun) does. Jalen does as well at *times*. He's just so damn inconsistent. Jalen has the natural talent to be the best player of his generation because he has physical abilities that others just don't. I just can't say he will because he's so child like at times. Aloof is a good word for Jalen. He is a much more gifted passer than I thought and that's why all the Booker/Lavine comparisons are mumbo jumbo. His floor is Booker. I don't want to say what his ceiling is because I'll get called an illogical homer.

Mobley and Barnes are doing about what I thought. Look the same as last year. Barnes tried to run the offense early on and was *atrocious*. I'm not sure Mobley knows what offense is.

 

Ideally every team only need one superstar or borderline superstar and could trade for other players, also Franz is a future All Star, I heard Magic use him as a 6'10 Point forward in limited minutes according to BSPN.

 

I just dont see how its a mediocre rebuild at thia point? Its going exactly as planned. We are on schedule to be a bad team and target a top lottery pick.

More often then not we have been competetive down the stretch of games this year. Whereas last year it felt we were being blown out consistently. There is solid value in that and it does show an improvement.

We have Green, who surely can be a franchise guy even if your lower on him. He looks to be at worse a low end #1 guy.
We have Jabari, who has struggled out the gate but that sounds familiar. Hes likely a #3 complimentary type guy.
We have KPJ who seems to be an amazing 6th man but likely becomes a trade asset.
We have Alperen, who shows legit talent to be an all-star.
We have Tari, who looks to be a high end 3nD player eventually if not more.
We have some decent tradeable assets in Gordon, Tate and KJ whos been picking it up a lot. As well as the Nets picks going forward in that hell hole.
We are going to have a ton of cap space this off-season to add 1 or 2 solid veteran role players/glue guys, or trade for them.

Our trajectory seems great imo. At least when it comes to player personel, assets and cap flexibility.

As for an identity and the coaching staff, i agree. I think we need to improve past what feels like a lot of YMCA ball. We are very undisciplined and thats a reflection of coaching staff.

 

Rebuilding involves a lot of luck too. Not every draft produces franchise level players. Even if it does, they can easily be missed even by the best talent evaluators, not to mention injuries as a fact of life.

We still don't know how the classes of '21 and '22 will turn out. Great rookies may turn into disappointments and young guys who get written off may be great late bloomers.

I think that's why Morey generally weren't very keen on getting talents through the draft. He preferred to use picks to get proven veterans.

 

You and @Stephen_A both replied to my comment so I'll reply to both there. The comment I replied to was talking about how good they are right now. I'm talking about current skill level not potential. It's about consistency of production rather than glimpses. Mason Jones had glimpses. Sure Jalen has shown higher peaks than some of these guys but night in and night out they're better. When judging how good a guy is right now, you rather have someone score 20, 20, 20, 20 in 4 nights than 30, 8, 27, 12. Consistency is the biggest difference between good players and stars.

Given that here are the averages so far.

Cade: 19.9 6.2 6.0 41.5%
Mobley: 15.3 6.0 1.9 56.6%
Franz: 18.8 3.8 4.7 49.2%
Jalen: 20.8 4.2 2.6 41.1%

In terms of they're role in the offense I'd say it's Cade > Jalen >>> Franz >>>>>> Mobley.

The scoring isn't too differnt but my problem with Jalen is that the variance is just so high right now. I really like Jalen but when his shot is off he doesn't really do anything for the team. He needs to find other ways to contribute too. It's not really his fault, I just think he plays the least important potition in basketball. It was cool in 90s when most point guards and non star centers scored in single digits but now everyone scores so the SG has to do other things too.

Potential-wise though Jalen is up there with all of them. Probably the highest of the 4 or at least second to Mobley.

Edit: One last thing. Of the 6 20+ pt games from Jalen this season, he had 3+ 3s in 5. That tells me that his offense is very reliant on the 3ball, which by nature is a high variance shot. As opposed to Cade who's even had 35 without a single 3 and gets a lot of his offense from floaters and baby pull-ups. Jalen's style of play right now doesn't help his consistency. It probably gets better when he bulks up and improves his finishing but, again, I'm talking about right now.

 

The biggest thing is that after two straight worst place finishes, we still don't know if we have a franchise player. Some of that is on the front office/coaching staff and some of that is just the luck of drafting (Paolo going first in the 11th hour).

On the other hand, we do have a draft pick/young player war chest, lots of cap space coming up, and a relatively great city for players. It's not a foregone conclusion we won't use this years draft pick (assuming it's not 1 or 2) for a major trade.

 

Great overview.

I have been impressed with how hard this team plays and the fact that they are very competitive with the currently constructed roster, I am surprised you don't have much praise for Silas, I would think that is all you would want at this point in a rebuild.

I don't see players really picking up any bad habits that cannot be fixed with a better roster, I can't really discuss X and O's, but I don't see the talent being this great that it is overcoming bad coaching, so that makes me think Silas is bringing something to the table.

I mean even you think there is no franchise type player so I don't understand what you think Silas is doing wrong?

 

Yes, there is one thing he's bringing: "embarrassment". Omg, what to read here, what a loser franchise

 

How do you know Silas is clearly not the right guy when you admit we have been in an asset collection strategy?

And then you say we players that complement each other but say Silas is clearly not the answer?

 

I'd say we've seen plenty of flashes of "special" from a few of our players. I'd say the biggest issue right now is the coaching. Slot Green, Sengun or Tari on to a roster with a great system and a good coach and they'd be making some of the successes other guys had in their rookie years that people fawned over look pedestrian. The talent is there, the utilization of that talent is piss poor.

 

KPJ is nothing like Crawford or Ricky Davis, he is a much better passer and playmaker and is not a guy that is just looking to get his.

He is more like a Chauncy Billups or Brandon Jennings if you don't like him.

How can you say he does not win when the majority of his playing time has been on rebuilding teams?

 

Please allow me to compliment you for this most excellent post.

 

Yes the culture that took on a troubled young guy and are seeing the benefits.

Why are you still going back to that one incident, do you see a total lack of discipline with this team since then?

Nobody currently on this team cares about that one incident, no the team did not reward KPJ for quitting they rewarded him for coming back from that and developing into a good NBA player.

I have no idea if they have a culture or not but getting rid of KPJ is not setting any kind of culture either, this is not HS basketball, it's the NBA.

What kind of culture was GS setting when they let Draymond get into it constantly with Ker and he still out here acting crazy.

Its amazing that people are still judging KPJ by that incident.