I was originally "sky is falling." Now I'm a little more optimistic. I think our floor just got lower by several pegs, but the potential ceiling is now much higher. The thing about FVV that I loved the most is he knows who he is, as a player and a person. I think this is the key to his leadership and success. Steady Freddie. We are going to miss that. I actually think Amen stepping into the PG role will hurt him. He's awesome and I believe will be one of the best players in the league someday. But giving him the PG responsibilities, the floor general if you will, might stifle his intuitive genius to play in space. That's why I hope Reed gets a real opportunity to step into the starting job. Like a previous poster said, teams aren't going to put much focus on Reed with Alpi and KD on the floor. Reed is good had hiding in the tall trees and shaking free for his 3. I wish FVV was leading us into the season and Reed would get to evolve coming off the bench, but you get what you get.
I agree, I think amen and Reed will be better this season, but I don’t think they are going to be contender go against the opponents best PG ready. it’s not even so much talent and skill, but there’s a lot of cerebral and pressure and experience needed. I think they are one more season away from needing to be in this position. Now it’s like getting promoted to a manager after being with the company 1-2 years fresh out of college.
Who would have thought that after last season you would go into the next year with 3 different starters? Pretty wild
Might turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Will allow Reed to step up and realize his potential as a "Steve Nash who can play defense" like so many were saying when the Rockets drafted him.
That might be true about FVV, but let's hope he makes a complete recovery and can come back as at least a backup next year, but if it works out I could see us trading his $25m salary. DD
For once DD is correct. FVV’s role was going to change this year anyway. The plan has always been to phase him to the bench or out when Amen is ready. All this really did was force the timeline forward. This puts some enormous pressure on Amen and he can succumb to that at times like we saw in the first few games of the playoffs. There will be some shaky moments early on, but he will settle into his role as one of the main facilitators in the half court offense. The old idea of PG’s is pretty archaic in the new NBA. Doncic, Jokic, Amen, Tatum, are all lead facilitators on their team and are not traditional PG’s. If you must use the nomenclature it is for who they guard on defense most of the time. Who brings the ball up between Amen, Reed, or other is immaterial to who initiates the offense. I do think without FVV they will look to get across the half-court line more quickly and not be walking it up as much. That will give more time on the shot clock to try multiple sets. There will also be a lot of isolation run for KD and if Sengun is confident with his outside shot, he may facilitate more from the high post. Neither Reed or Holiday will initiate the offense very often.
FVV has an implicit no trade clause so not only does Stones needs to find the right player to trade him for, but also it would be a place he wants to go. And the team getting him is willing to deal with his player option. The odds of all that happening is pretty low unless the Rockets are attaching one of their premium picks to the deal.
KD is here, and I doubt we're gonna mess around. We have the organic growth of Amen and Sengun to look forward to. - Amen, likely into a superstar... - Alperen, perhaps the same..at minimum an upper tier All Star Both will have offense run through them. KD is an elite closer, and an offense unto himself...still. That said, I do worry about having him do too much and getting hurt. It certainly raises the risk. - Reed will, at minimum, play good minutes...hopefully responding to being fast tracked into more. But, eventually....I think Stone is going to accelerate things and move FVV with picks for...what we need...probably a star. Admittedly, it's a tricky deal...and he would have to nail it...one way or another there are likely to be consequences regarding our "window". I think it's reasonable to expect that Amen blows up and Reed gives us 25-30 minutes of quality PT. I want to have Diamond Hands regarding those picks, but this might well force our hand.
A player option is not a no trade clause during the current season. That being said I don’t expect the Rockets to trade him unless they are trying to grab a close to max player. I think that is highly unlikely. We will see what Ime is made of after he has lost his coach on the floor. Will he step up?
^^^ rockets fans have no choice but to be OPEN-MINDED and realize that adversity strikes for a reason. the problem is it strikes far too often in H-TOWN, TX. (see the texans). at this all-important point, we need to trust in the administration and coaching to get us over the hump. we have all been here before. GO ROCKETS!
Even without Fred, I believe we're still a top 4 team in the west. The problem comes if we're trying to make the WCF or finals... unless one of Amen, Reed, Sengun make a huge leap this year.
