Udoka/Stone changed the entire Rockets culture in 24 hours.

Agreed, there will always be some sort of positive spin on things no matter how bad it seems. I never loved the whole "locker room guy" "veteran presence" "culture setter" those can often just be a euphamism for random veterans around the league who may or may not have been passed around a bunch of teams.

Bottom line is we have no stars or all-star level players in our lineup. If we win over 35 games, that would be surprising.

 

Not the poor shooting culture. 200M for two guys with FG% below 40. I do not get it, though this sport is about putting the ball in the basket.

 

The big thing will be the locker room. It was a kids room the last two seasons with Eric Gordon sitting back and enjoying the show.

Now of those kids Nix, TyTy. Christopher, Garuba and KMJ are gone. Therefor we added FVV, Brooks and Jeff Green. There will be a huge difference. And I hope our six young guys greatly benefit from that.

 

i bet eric enjoyed watching green and gup go at it in the locker room

 

What's really annoying me is this:

Everyone and their mom knows that it would have been better to dump KPJ along with a future first than to dump Christopher, Tyty and Garuba with a bunch of second rounders. That would have created the requisite cap space they wanted. That would have let the kids know we're a serious and fair meritocracy. That would have reset the culture problem which had no connection to those 3 young guys. If we have a shooting problem, it doesn't matter that our BACKUP SG is a good shooter and it's a blip in the radar if we lose that.

However, that did not happen because the owner happens to like KPJ and the GM doesn't want to admit he f*cked up, and that's so f*cking annoying. While we changed a lot of the culture, the - by far - biggest cultural problem was protected by nepotism and that's not a good message to send. I hope it ends up not mattering.

I wish we had dumped KPJ and kept 2 of those 3 young guys. However, overall, I like that the roster is serious, professional, contains championship experience and puts Sengun/Jabari/Green on the hot seat without taking opportunities away from them.

I also do not believe for one second that the premium we paid for changing the culture in terms of overpaying players was how much we needed to pay to do it. I 100% believe the agents of Brooks and FVV deserve awards for how much money they extracted from us. I 100% believe that if we put our foot down with slightly lower offers for both, they still would have taken the deals. Both in length and in salary, Stone got his ass handed to him in my opinion. He could have had either salary or length under control.

 

so if kjp is in the team at season’s start, do we riot or naw?

 

I don’t. I had a really hard time seeing any playing time for either of them. Maybe TyTy if Amen starts in the G-league. I was surprised we had to attach picks to get rid of them, but I am not mad that they are gone.

KPJ on the other hand is pretty much a lock for playing time. He is still young, shoots a high percentage from three and can defend. If Ime can get him to buy into the system he can be great as a scoring spark of the bench. If not, it is very easy to get rid of him because of his contract.

 

You're just leaning towards your preferred player here. See, anyone can do it by copy/pasting your rationale:

Garuba is still young, shoots a high percentage from three and can defend. If Ime can get him to buy into the system he can be great as a defender with range off the bench. If not, it is very easy to get rid of him because of his contract.

Tyty is still young, passes the ball really well and can defend. If Ime can get him to buy into the system he can be great floor general off the bench. If not, it is very easy to get rid of him because of his contract.

That's difference between a reason and a narrative. What you've posted is a hindsight narrative. This is not what we're trying to do or how decisions are made. We were creating cap space to sign other players. Ultimately, there will always be players who don't earn minutes on all rosters. If we're just creating cap space, it was more time to give up on KPJ - who we practically designed the team around - than 3 other guys who barely got a chance to show what they can do on an organized team with well defined roles.

 

I actually don’t like KPJ that much. He was probably my least liked player last season.

The big difference is his contribution. KPJ was a 19-5-5 player with a pretty good percentage from three.He has shown his talent on the field. Those are fringe all star numbers.

Of course we all know that he was far from being an all-star. Now we need to see, if he is more Christian Wood (good numbers that don’t help winning) or if he can play within a system.

Garuba, TyTy and Christopher never showed much. They also rarely got the chance. I would just hope, that the Rockets got a good feel for their talent level after having them in the building for 1-2 years.

 

Good wall of text, my face was blue by the end but I read it all. I agree on your points.

 

Stone and Udoka went Night of the Long Knives on the franchise holy ****!

 

Yes we can create a narrative and rationalization about anything. Just because he did 1 thing well doesn't mean he should not be traded. We're keeping him as a backup SG that's the fact. He's been demoted. No one on earth saw him as a fringe all star. Even non-Rocket fans know he selfishly secured himself the stats and bled tons of points on the other side of the court and barely improved at running the PG position in 2 years. He can excel in his demoted role now, I know. That still doesn't mean he shouldn't be traded. It's ok if we lose a backup SG you invested a second round pick in. That's not a reason why anyone lost a lot of value. Good backup SG's are available really cheap.

What is a problem is we invested 3 first rounders in Tyty, Christopher and Garuba as well as some buyout money for Garuba as well as multiple second rounders to dump them. Imagine having 3 additional mediocre FRP's in hand right now. That's what we invested. Christopher got some minutes and played stupid, I get it. Garuba gained weight, barely got some minutes and it was sometimes because of guys like Bruno Fernando - he never got to play with competent wing/poa defense and he way exceeded expectations as a 3pt shooter. Tyty was just injured and barely got a chance when he was back so that Nix could play. Role players are not going to shine without roles in a tanking season with no scoring stars, it's just not going to happen. If we knew we're going to tank like that and choke minutes like that, why make the picks? Stone is the one drafting and he's the one at practices and he's the one cutting them. Why make the picks when we could have filled those roster spots with G League players and rolled over the picks?

The problem is they traded away players who we don't know what they're going to be yet. I'm not SURE these guys will all pan out. But most good role players careers are not different than these guys' first two seasons. Most young role players take time. If we weren't going to give them the time, there was no reason to draft them in the first place.

It's just lazy management to make up for nepotism. No one on this roster has been less professional than KPJ. Certainly, he should be the one dumped for cap space and we would have lost a second round pick and a backup SG. Big deal.

 

I am really worried that we're now headed for mediocrity treadmill status. The added vets put us into 30-35 win range, and kneecapping the under 22 talent (you never know who can get injured, and suddenly we need Ty Ty or Garbua to play 20min each night) in favor of old, has-been role players might seem like a short term gain. But all it means is that the fate of the Rockets in the next 5-7 years is going to be tied completely into whether or not Green, Jabari, or Thompson pan out. And for Thompson, Tari, and Whitmore, the road to playing time just got a hell of a lot more difficult.

Some of this is mitigated by the fact that we don't own our next three years' picks (or in 2025's case, we have every incentive to have a better record than OKC to negate the swap). But if this is how we're going to view our recent draft picks, how are we going to use Brooklyn's picks coming up? Probably they're going to be traded away at the deadline for roster upgrades the way Morey did the past decade. I don't see how any of this leads to sustainable success. Of course, there's always the mediocrity treadmill...

 

No offense, but I think that's what you are doing. Porter is a headcase and I understand why you don't like him, but he clearly has more upside than all of those players. That's really not questionable IMO. It makes perfect sense to see what Udoka can do with him, especially since his contract is so team friendly.

The team still has SEVEN players in their early 20's. We can't keep all the kids, and trading multiple ones makes sense. I'm not liking the returns so far, but the combined deal isn't done yet so we still don't know what we are going to wind up with.

 

The meaning of mediocrity is very different.

Due to the underwhelming performance of Dallas, Clippers, Lakers, Blazers, Warriors etc. the 5-10th place were all within 5-6 games.

Even the 3-4th places were within reach.

10-13 is another tier.

 

He's gone, but folks are still posting about "future DPOY" "Draymond with more lateral quickness" Usman Garuba.

Free advice man, sometimes you gotta just take the L. I know this from experience.

 

Team went from trying to put the ball in the basket to kidnapping fan dreams and telling them to put the lotion in the basket!

 

What did you expect for this offseason? That we would land a top 5 franchise guy we could build around?

Our future is hanging on the young core we have. If they pan out, we will break the treadmill cycle. If they don't, whatever we get this offseason won't matter. Stone could have managed the assets better. I don't like the TyTy-Garuba for nothing trade. I don't like the Brooks signing. But if a couple of the kids turn into stars, we'll be good regardless.

 

I see us as an a play in team. Hopefully a taste of winning will cause them to want to work harder. And if that doesn't work then Ime needs to trade them out for someone of value before the rest of the league sees what he sees behind the scenes.