this nonsense again. Stop tanking, keep tanking, we need to win for the culture, lose for the picks. I figured folks would realized by now that We honestly haven't been tanking on purpose, we just outright sucks. 1st year when harden left = basically our offense/best offensive player left and we had delusional folks thinking we could make it into playoffs w/ Wall and cousins after that win streak. Realistically a team sucks after their best player leaves = not tank, just suck. 2nd year we got a winstreak and delusional folks thought we can make play-in, rookies look awful (aside from sengun), silas has no gameplan, no pg and our vets aren't that good = not tanking, we just suck We have talent in the rookies, but the biggest reason y we are losing is b/c we have a coach who literally can't coach. I am pretty confident that if u play your vets this much, you should not b basically dead last. Idk if Silas has a big hand in rookie developmental, but they honestly look night and day different from when they first started out. It's just so happens that tanking and sucking has the same result, but don't get it confused we have not been intentional tanking until just recently w/ the benching of wood and gordon. It's not an on/off switch, where magically we will make playoff next year. Unless green takes it to the next level and carries us there, i fully expect us to still b in lottery, unless 9/10 seed is literally just us having a better sht record than the other bad teams.
If we hit on this upcoming draft. I’d prefer we shoot for a play in spot. That early playoff experience would be great for Green’s development.
I think we will be a lot better next season - dimly because the rookies will have a year under their belt - and it’s not like KPJ or Tate can’t improve more as well. Plus we will add a high draft pick that should help us. So if Green; Sengun and Christopher each take the next step, we should be able to at least compete for a play in spot. I am all for losing out this year but I wouldn’t mind playing to win (while trying to develope the young players as much as possible) next season…
I do not think you could base it on a few games against teams that either played their GLeague team or a team too shorthanded missing 3 or 4 legit starters or a couple All Star caliber dudes.......... The Spurs being a very competitive one though. I guess our rookies just went off.
I am not really basing this off the last couple of games. Green has looked great since February - he will add some muscle in the off-season. Sengun has looked great, but needs to work on his conditioning, defense without fouling and 3pt shot - he will work on that this off season. Christopher has looked really good for some stretches - hopefully he can become more consistent. KPJ looks like he has figured something out - the talent is there now we need him to get his head in straight. And the same goes for Wood - maybe once winning is a possibility and we get a different culture in the team he will play team ball and try on defense… Young guys tend to get better - and I am very encouraged by what I have been seeing this year. Maybe we even can get aggressive in FA soon…
They looked good so far....but it is a hectic end of a season for many teams. A lot of players had 50, 40 point performances after the All Star Break. A lot of suspect Defense. I think the consistency will come but I doubt it will come next Season. That said, it would not surprise me if they made the Play In........but I am no fan of the Play In.
I’ll put it this way: Stone should not sign any veterans. Maybe a Delfino type just for the locker room on a min deal but no Theis type of signings. Stone has shown no ability to turn vet players into tradable assets anyways. That way we go into the next season where we let the young core pieces show us early on if they are ready or not to truly compete and we know within weeks if they can be a competitive play in team or if we are tanking for the 2023 draft. I personally think we’ll be at the bottom again anyways even with improvement from Jalen and Sengun. One things for sure though… EG and Wood need to go. John Wall should come into camp ready to play so we can use or lose him. I’m convinced if Wall played even for a week before the deadline and showed he is healthy, we’d have that Lakers pick in our bag of assets. And lastly, the more I see of KPJ the more I see a 6th man scorer off the bench. Move the guy to 6th man either way.
I noticed that people do this every year. Cade was the next Doncic Chet the next Durant Now Wenbanyama is the next great thing. Hell Emoni Bates was supposed to be the next super duper star and after one season at Memphis that narrative has changed too. Draft narratives are always "next year's draft will be awesome" and before draft night it's suddenly no longer the case. Not saying that applies to everyone or that it's your fault or anything, it's just something I noticed.
I think if the rockets can trade wood for a upper-mid first round pick, Gordon for a lower first round upper second round pick then you have more draft capital. Once you get rid of wall, that capital plus salary cap room can turn into trading for a young player who is ready for a max deal but isn't going to get from current team. (like how we got harden). That might be how you get your third player to go along with green and the 2022 draft pick. Someone like Rubio might not be a bad idea if you don't draft ivey, he seems to gel well with young players and it would make morey jealous as hell.
Still not sure that everyone understands that THIS team didnt tank. It REALLY wasnt that good. Next year it will be a little better, but the team will still lose a bunch of games and be back in the lottery - while not "competing" for a top 5 slot the ROX could still get lucky and land a great player if not win the lottery outright. Landing Victor Wembanyama wouldnt be a bad thing.
Correction: we will not be able to tank next season. I feel like they will stupidly try to tank though.
I disagree about next year. I thought we were looking to 2024 for making moves, but the progression of Jaylen has changed the timetable. With Sengun getting 30 mins or more a night (after adding muscle and a 3 pt shot over the summer) and Green adding a bit of muscle our offense is going to be excellent. If we get just a bit of defensive help in the draft and/or trade/fa we will compete for the playoffs next year. The real wild card is Silas. If he just can’t coach defense then we will be bad again. If this was just a personnel thing on that side of the ball we will compete with a rim protector.
A lot depends on the draft and the off-season and upcoming trade deadline. I still say follow the Celtics big 4 model. They drafted Tatum and Brown, traded for Irving and signed Hayward. That 2017 team should have been the start of a dynasty but of course Hayward got hurt and Irving went mental and it fell apart but the idea was right. Right now the Rockets have their Tatum (Green) and they need a top 4 pick and draft their Brown. Then they need to package up Wall, Wood, Tate, young guys and future picks for a disgruntled star like Irving was. Let’s say Zion. Then you sign a Hayward max guy in 2023. Let’s say Jokic. KPJ Green Jabari Smith Zion Jokic That’s how you build a dynasty but you need to hit on your draft picks, find a disgruntled star to trade for and convince another star to sign with you. Not easy.
In 2023 the Rox still have their pick, according to reports 2023 is a super deep class. I see no reason not to tank next year every good tank job takes 3-5 years before the team goes off. Rox are in yr 1 of rebuild not surprised Rox wants a quick fix lmao. Some posters here are treating the FO like clowns when they set up the Rox in just 1 freaking year. This is like The Process but on crack it took Sixers 4 yrs to get Simmons and Embiid Rox got Tate, Josh C, Kmart jr, KPJ, Green, Sengun and somebody else in just 1.5 yr. If you think the Rox FO are dumb, sorry but you're the dumb one here.
I like the enthusiasm. This team will still be young and inexperienced next year while Silas plays placeholder. Its romantic to think that the rebuild will only take 2 years. There is a myriad of things that would have to go right in order for this team to be a playoff team next season (as you noted a few of them). Experience is the most important one for me and it goes beyond just a good coach - playing good D is more than just X's and O's. I think this team will go from 20 wins this year to about 30-32 next season. 2024 they make the jump to play in team with another top pick and new coach (Spoelstra) plus your foundation pieces reaching year 3 and 2025 we win the whole damn thing!
It’s extremely unlikely that this team will compete for the playoffs next year, there’s a very good chance they’ll be bottom 5 again. Growing pains.
I’m really we’re more competitive next year. Our picks start going to OKC in 2024, and we just can’t expect to radically improve that season.
It's hard to gauge where this team will be next year. Big factors are the draft, free agency, and coaching.
My prediction. Next season we graduate to the next level of bad team. No longer a lock for a bottom 5 record, but not a lock for the play in either. 27-30 wins. The NEXT year. That’s when we make our first playoff appearance with our promising young core and we begin to be talked about as a future problem. I hope.
