We don’t have 3 29 year olds vets that will be top 6 in minutes who were top 4 in wins added. And we don’t have a 4th year guy who projects to have the impact of Steph did that year. Feel free to not believe in win shares. 3 of their 4 most impactful players that season were 29 years old vets. And their most impactful was a 4th year player on his way to being an all time great. If we did have that, I could see a likely big jump in wins. That year of the jump 2nd year Klay and 1st year Dray were negative in most advanced stats. They weren’t the guys they eventually became. That team rode Steph and vets to a big improvement.
Best way to teach young players is to have some vets around to show the youngins what to do and hold them accountable for poor play. If all you have is young players, there is nobody around to show them what good looks like (in real time, not in film or on a whiteboard).
Disagree. If they are improving week over week, there is no sense in tanking. Having a mix of vets and youngins helps the kids develop. If the kids are hopeless and can't get out of their own way, then you mind as well play the vets then too to keep their trade value up.
It is called rebuilding. Tanking is giving up, it is a media made up term for bottom teams when every comp has bottom teams.
The Rockets aren't going to try to lose, but they will (as they have stated) prioritize the growth of their young players (rather than winning). I'm sure they'll also take absolutely no health risks with anyone, so you'll see guys sit out for minor injuries that on a playoff bound team would just "walk it off" and play through the pain. They also won't sign anyone to win now, unless that player is a foundational piece that turns Green & Jabari into a "big three". I can GUARANTEE the Rockets will not "change plans", even if they win 40 games this year... there is absolutely no way we are going to win a championship, so any other plan would be a sacrifice of future success. Finally, the difficulty of the Rocket's first 20 games makes it highly unlikely we'll get off to a hot start. My opinion on the overall season is that we shouldn't think about Wembanyama or Henderson. I seriously seriously doubt the Rockets will be in the bottom four of the league... we've just accumulated too much two-way talent over the last two years to be that bad. We'll end up being in the second tier of teams... lottery bound, but somewhere between 5 and 10. There is always a chance of getting the number one or two pick, like we did with Yao, but planning on that outcome is fool's gold. My hunch is that we'll have a very inconsistent season, with multiple losing streaks that are demoralizing, and multiple winning streaks that make us all worry we're going to be a play-in team. For the Rockets to improve more, the routes are - growth of our current players, trades, free agents, and finding "gems" in the draft. I think the last one is severely underrated since we were able to get Sengun and Eason in the last two drafts. Those two have a high potential to be starters or rotation pieces on a future playoff team. The more guys you draft like that, the higher the probability is that you'll eventually find the next Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler, Pascal Siakam, Draymond Green, Tobias Harris... all of these are non-lottery picks.
good is pretty subjective, but the rockets are going to be a lottery team. Under 25 wins. can’t wait to watch a young team that I expect to hustle every night, but the NBA is loaded. We in the mix for Wemby.
In the first 25 games I have us with 8 wins: Loss..........................Wins @Hawks Grizz @Bucks ....................................Jazz ...................................@Jazz ...................................@Blazers @ Suns @Clippers Clippers .....................................@Magic @ Raptors ......................................*@Pels Clippers @Mavs .......................................Pacers Warriors Hawks ......................................@Thunder @Nuggets @Nuggets @ Suns @Warriors 76ers .........................................@Spurs Hard to judge by preseason, but the Rockets have beaten one of the worst teams and one of the best teams in the Spurs and Raptors. Rockets could surprise many and actually win many. If Rockets are at 10 wins.... then that means we have beaten a playoff caliber team two or three times. I'm not betting against them. *I'm not as high on the Pels as others
this all day tank culture views young players improving too fast or not being at the bottom of the league as a bad thing
What exactly is the tank mode other than trading Eric Gordon? (which I assume we are already trying to do no matter what) Play a starting lineup of TyTy, Nix, Mathews, WCS, Boban, and sit Jalen, Jabari, Sengun out for the season?
I don't anticipate a hot start, if anything I anticipate a lot of overreactions because the Rockets likely will start off poorly due to the near historic levels of difficulty in the starting schedule. That also means a lot of the young players might struggle to get acclimated due to limited training/practice schedule due to the frequent road trips. If the Rockets, against all odds, manage to win even 30% of their first 25 games, they are already playing much better than expectations, and the fans would have a lot to be excited about.
If we start off hot, it will snowball. No, that doesn’t work. If we start out hot, by the All-Star break we’ll be firebombing the NBA like the Allies bombed Dresden.
That would be a .400 winning percentage. That would have been good for 8th worst record in the league last year, and you think we can do that against a brutal schedule? Your pessimistic post is actually thinly veiled optimism. I like it.
Isn't the plan for every NBA team to start off hot? (or any professional team?) ((or any team?)) (((or entity that is starting something new?))) The subtext of this whole thread suggests that tanking is the plan. Where did that come from? Other than random internet posters, who is thinking that tanking is even on the table?
Its basically this. I think of as of right now we have the 4th youngest team in the league. With the expectation of a Gordon trade we could wind up having the youngest team when weighted towards who actually sees minutes. The youngest team in the league is essentially always bad. We aren’t signing/trading for vets to take up minutes that our young guys need to develop. So the plan is to be young and develop, which means the plan is to be bad. Tanking is just the dirty word for teams planning to exclusively develop youth and avoid vets that actually can move the needle in the wins column.
If we're .500 or better after 10/20/30 wins, just keep playing Rockets' basketball, at that point. It'd be hard to tell your guys, face to face, to stop winning.
Hot start, cold start. The plan should be the same. Some here seem desperate to create a hypothetical scenario where we are contenders in 2022/23. Please, just stop.
