What will Ime and Stone's exit interviews tell us??

It's his fourth year, he is not a 2nd year player. You seems to avoid talking about his retrogressive performance in first three years becoz you think Silas impeded his growth. Yes, to some extent, I agree, but everything has two sides. It's only under Silas tanking years, his minutes were guaranteed, he can play free-style as he wishes, he basically can do whatever he wants. Compare Year 2 to Year 1, his minutes increased but his FG% and 3P% dropped (3P% dropped further in Year 3). These are already early signs of his incompetence.

Under Silas years, Sengun even needed to fight for his starter position with Fernando. And see what Sengun becomes now, so I really think Jalen should not use Silas years as excuses.

Since day one, the Rockets treated him as the future franchise player, after two years guaranteed heavy minutes of free-style playing and after two years strict, defense-oriented coaching, he still can't score consistently. The answer is clear to me at least.

 

“We like the year we had but obviously not satisfied.”

“We love our roster.”

“Again, we love our roster and we’re not looking to make major changes but it’s my job to see what’s out there, my job to listen.”

“Did I mention we love our roster? We think we can largely return the same core and take another step to where we want to go/be.”

“We love Fred. I think there’s a mutual interest but we’ll have those conversations at the appropriate time.”
“We love Jalen. He’ll tell you he didn’t have the postseason he wanted and while he struggled, it’s not the end all be all. It’s just one small data point. We’re excited to have Jalen back next year and watch him take another step forward.”
“We love Dillon. Great veteran. Yeah, we expect to have him back.”
“We love Amen. Great kid. Bright future. Really excited to see him after another year of development.”
“We love Sengun. Had a nice series. Excited to see him and his future development.”
“We love Jabari. Had the hand injury but thought he came back and played well. Excited for him.”
“We love Reed. Saw glimpses of what he could be. Really excited to see him in his 2nd year.”
“We love Cam. Competitor, really wants to be out there. Really excited to see him next year.”
”We love Steven, Jeff, and Aaron. Great veterans and even better people. We’d love to have them back but we’ll see. They’re free agents. We have no control over that.”

LOL @ thinking you’ll learn anything from this.

 

i’m not sure jalen would have struggled had we drawn a different first round matchup, such as memphis or dallas or minny etc

he’s played poorly against GS defense all year. we’ve seen in past postseasons some guys have a great series depending on the team. kenny smith used to kill utah and then struggle vs the sonics

so although jalen is clearly not the consistent killer we hoped he could become, he’s also not the worthless scrub this board has made him out to be the past few days. imo stone could still get decent value for him if he decides to go that route

 

He already tried to trade him TWICE!

 

Well, some players even develop further at their 30s. I have no objection of you saying that he is not fully developed.

As far as I am concerned, four years sample size is big enough especially considering his inconsistency throughout the four years which also led to his disaster performance in his first playoff series. I would prefer to cut ties now even as his value is not at the highest point. I even wish we didn't extend his contract, but anyway, it's too late.

Regarding KPJ, that's totally different. Milwaukee is considering to extent a bench player, a role player, they basically have nothing to lose, while we are trying to find our franchise player to make us a true contender, that's not the same level considerations. And about KPJ, I posted nothing about him before and I have no doubt that he can still be a NBA player for some years.

 

agree 4 years was enough for Alpi

and Amen has only 1/3rd NBA playing time JG has

 

Here's proof from Shams,


A year later, did Stone see anything that would make him change his mind?

 

he'll for sure lower his expectations now

 

Players like Amen, a kid who can barely shoot, year 1 you can already tell he is so special and now year 2 I think most of us will definitely agree that he is not on the table for trade.

Players like Alpi, coming from the bench year 1, improved year by year and becomes our only all-star in his fourth year.

A true star doesn't need to be fully developed or perfect in their first couple of years and you can already tell. I don't see this from Jalen at all. Actually, I already gave up the idea of him being the franchise player since year 3, all I want is he can be average and does his job as a competent shooting guard. Even this, he failed again.

 

Lol ... Truly Verbatim!!!


Go Rockets!!!
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You are playing checkers......others are playing Chess or Goh.

One thing is for sure, I truly hate Stone and his useless press conferences......

 

"An ellipsis ( ... ) consists of three evenly spaced periods and is used to indicate the omission of words or suggest an incomplete thought."

GrammarMamba out
*mic drop*

 

OP, You really expect to get clarity or anything of subtance about how the FO feels about the team from the lawyer Stone? Maybe You can gleem something from what Stone doesn't say, but I doubt it.

 

the presser is at 1 pm for those who seek it

 

They will probably point out that we did what we needed to do - the team frankly overachieved and discovered things about themselves in the playoffs probably ahead of schedule. We like the effort and buy in by everyone on the team but we also discovered we need to make changes to bring more offensive continuity into the team.

....what won't be said but likely implied is we need a true #1 option. This series exposed Jalen is definitely not that guy but in addition Alpi is also not that guy. This offseason becomes a question of what is it going to cost to get that guy and if we can't get a true #1, what can we do to provide more consistent offense?

For a #1 guy - is Giannis or Durant a viable option as our #1 at their age? Do we have the ability or desire to get a Jalen Brown, LeMelo Ball or Tyrese Maxey...maybe Tyler Herro or Devin Booker? Is Ja Morant an option? Zion? I think virtually all these options would require us to lose Alpi in the acquisition.

...and if those guys aren't options - do you make moves around the edges to just get better offensive play? Does Brandon Ingram make us any better? Desmond Bane? Dejounte Murray, RJ Barrett, Anfernee Simons, Coby White, Collin Sexton, (gulp) Austin Reeves, Donte DiVencenzo, Malik Monk, Zach Levine, Trae Young? This may be the trade Jalen(and picks, maybe Tari or Cam) for this person route.

....and finally - we gotta come to better contract terms for Dillon/Fred long term. All those options mentioned above add significant payroll that doesn't easily coexist with Fred making $40mil(as an example).