The him talk is mostly done hindsight. Dirk is him because he won it, if he didn’t we would say Dallas couldn’t win it because they didn’t have him. Could say it for kwahi. Nobody even thought Giannis and jokic are hims. (@roslolian I think jokic would win a lot more if he played for a big market and had a good supporting casts, very underrated overall) It is true you need top caliber player but it is impossible to see who will make the jump. It could be Jalen, alpi or amen. Maybe nine, but then it is very hard to get him via trades. Rockets have done their part. Drafted 3 potential hims. Have a decent coach, probably not the best match with Sengun but Sengun is hell of a guy. He can still make it. so the him thing is real but there is not much to talk about it.
I guess it differs from person to person but it's not a hindsight thing to me. Dirk was always on the list for me. Harden was on the list too, same with Giannis, I have posted on here that Tatum was a dude too. I argued with people on here that Jokic was a dude. So I dunno, maybe some people make the list way more exclusive and only add people after the fact, but that's not how I do it.
I swear I have heard Jalen Green has turned the corner at least 30 times the last two and a half seasons. Yes - the Rockets win when they have someone perform like a franchise player, and when Green does that, the Rockets are elite. It just doesn’t happen near enough.
There are also some “the dudes” that come close and don’t win it, but they are still “dudes”. Charles Barkley, Elgin Baylor, James Harden, George Gervin… Chris Paul and Karl Malone were all good enough to lead a team to a championship in their primes and most of them came very close. The problem is when you build your team and your best player is Allan Houston or Zach Randolph and you try to convince yourself they are in the conversation for being a dude.
but at what point did you see it? What do you see in our guys? The line for being the dude or not is very thin. All of our big 3 are good character, hard working guys. They all have different strengths. The weakest is green imo but if figures some things out, suddenly he is miles ahead of the other two. I think we are lucky. Both green and Sengun have good contracts and amen has the highest potential. So we have the luxury of waiting at least 1 and a half seasons to make a decision.
Also a good question and also relevant. I am not claiming that none of our guys could ever be in that category, so maybe that's the confusion. For Giannis I would say I was maybe ~50% sure after year 4, and then ~90% sure after year 5. Same for Jokic but 1 year earlier, about 50% after year 3 and then 90% after year 4. For Tatum it was about the same as Jokic. Once these guys start racking up all star appearances, become all star starters, and making all NBA teams, that's usually enough for me. It's also important to see a steep increase of year over year improvement, which is something all these guys had. For our guys I would say...less than 10% on both Sengun and Green. For Amen it's too early for me to have any degree of confidence on where he's going to end up. He's still in that beginning stage where we're seeing massive improvement year over year and the sky is the limit. Maybe he'll get there, but until he plateaus I really have no idea. I like what I'm seeing a lot from Amen so far. But it would be really unlikely in my opinion for Jalen or Sengun to get there. That doesn't mean I think they're done improving or can't get better, I just don't ever see them getting to that level.
I mean Amen is clearly the most talented here and I think most would put Alpi behind him and then Jalen. There is case to be made for Fred's importance to the team given we are a .500 team without him. I prefer Jalen to Fred, but I see the argument. I do think "Good Jalen" is better than Alpi but unfortunately we only get Good Jalen in spurts. Right now the consistency is what keeps Alpi ahead of Jalen in my mind.
Why would we want those three guys taking like 30 shots a game and not playing defense..... I dont' think Udoka would care for them
Some general thoughts: - You should have never been pro-tanking if you are ignorant of the effects of it. It means OUR draftees will develop later than what is average. If them developing later is alarming to you, why did you bother tanking? - I think it's really dumb to think about building around one player. You can count on one hand the players you should have done that for in history, because there have been many with incredible early stats who's mental didn't allow them to play with another ego or their defense was unavoidably bad or whatever. Hindsight is 20/20 and please stop acting like you're not using hindsight just cause you selectively remember your person good picks and forgot the bad takes. One of our guys will end up peaking but it's dumb to build around one player. In hindsight the fans of the one that peaked will act like they knew, but that's not what knowing means. I'm shocked the Harden experience didn't teach you that having a superstar is not enough at all. You need multiple stars and depth and a great coach - any of these things can sink you. - If we were sitting on two Jaylen Browns before their mid 20's, there's no one on this board who could predict we're sitting on two Finals MVP's. We'd be having this same "oh poor us" conversation for nothing. You just have to check your ego and understand that you don't know. You think you're a 80% good predictor on this particular thing but you're a coin flip. - I remember when Hakeem retired and every C we drafted we hyper-criticized. It would take another 20 years for a C of that calibre to show up in the NBA. We had unrealistic expectations and the game was changing in the meantime. Right up until we got James Harden there were still people thinking you can't win without a dominant big. That was our bias. - The most successful player in the history of the NBA was a clutch 30ppg scorer who averaged 4ish assists and played excellent defense. He never played without a PG, not because he couldn't do a decent job at it but because it allowed him to optimize his game. Michael Jordan was erroneously considered a low IQ player for the first few years of his career - it was an era where shooting a lot was frowned upon, he actually didn't know how to be a team player and was not a good player without the ball that early in his career. He's one of the highest IQ players of all time probably. Not a guy who's only interested in getting 30 as many labeled him. - The SG who plays PG is not a successful model. They are shockingly missing from the huge majority of championships. Clearly defined roles in the backcourt has dominated the championships. Probably the reason you think we should be interested in doing that is cultural or because we had Harden or because ESPN loves those guys. Defense is more important than assists - that's a fact. A James Harden solves a non-existent problem but creates a bigger one: now everyone cover for his defense and no one else is allowed to have a bad defensive night if you want to win. The most successful season of Harden's career is with an elite PG next to him. Sidekicks like Westbrook (wants to do everything too) and Howard didn't work. Don't worry about this comparison-hypnosis. Can you improve Jalen's spacing, improve his 3PT shot by 2% and raise his FT's by 2 attempts in the next couple of years? Along with him continuing to fill out, gain playoff experience and slight improvement to his defense? Let's say by age 25 the start of any player's prime? Great, you have a two-way player who can average 25 efficient points and while not a PG he is very unselfish and coachable. Go look up SG's who can do that. MAYBE you'll find it's one of the most successful archetypes in NBA history. If any of Amen or Sengun learns to shoot, we will have 3 guys who are at minimum All Star calibre very shortly. There are no teams that have 3 all stars without one of those 3 magically being considered a superstar later or during. ESPN usually picks the best points+assists player and then everyone follows suit in bowing to that player. We have everything we need. Don't worry.
I agree its mostly hindsight thats why I dont care about it. Its just a justification people make once a team wins because in reality there are lots of teams with 1A option who didnt win a ring since only 1 team can win every year.
