I legit despise Stone. If you guys don't know what he's doing or not doing then wake up. He has conned the fanbase and the media by consistently mentioning internal improvement. Basically you can't judge him until 3-4 years from now. He's just buying time. He knows that if you make a move, you get judged and the clock starts ticking. By not making moves and gaslighting fans and the media, he gets to hide. Not to mention the biggest Rocket media members are getting bought for good PR. This clown has zero idea what he's doing. Imagine trading for 37 year old Durant and then preaching internal improvement. What a clown.
Braden Smith would be nice to have as a pure PG off of the bench, but there is ZERO chance of that happening on an Udoka team. Absolutely no chance whatsoever.
every move (or typically non-move) on his part is centered around stretching out extending his own employment under tilfuk. nothing is about actually constructing a team that will ever have a chance of contending. he’s a dumbfuk but even he knows that once tilfuk finally wakes up he’s getting canned and no other team will ever offer an interview
How bad is it? We are not mentioned in the "Draft Day Losers" stories even though we were certainly Draft Day losers. We are a non-entity. Nobody cares. If you're an owner who deals in nepotism, wouldn't you want to get a legit NBA GM for your failson to try and emulate? But no, we are riding with Stone, whose only talents are picking the guy/doing the trade that everyone expects him to, kissing posteriors above him, and squirming out of ever saying or doing anything decisive. His squirminess must be a nightmare for other GMs to deal with, and probably agents too. Not one part of a championship organization can be found anywhere between owner and coach. The thing that has annoyed me from the beginning of this era is the lack of a plan. Sure, we planned to tank, but we didn't plan on how to tank, so we wasted years of development under Silas. Losing while developing is hard and we just punted. Now, we have a coach who won some games at his previous stop and we have enough talent to be a good team, but where is the plan? How do we use Amen and Sengun and Durant? You can't just throw them out there and expect to win anything. There is no system besides "play harder" and have Amen and Durant play lots of minutes. Playing harder is not a plan. Hope is not a strategy. I get that winning NBA championships is really tough. But if you have a front office with a vision, that helps immensely. Our front office is like the guy at pickup games who has no feel or understanding of basketball and messes up everyone's game because he just doesn't know where to go or how to communicate. But he always looks like he's playing really hard and he'll absolutely tell you he's playing really hard if you don't immediately praise him for it. He'll also demand that you play hard just like him because your effort is what's holding the team back. The players and fans deserve better.
The Rockets were never getting a difference maker in this draft, why would anyone freak out as if they expected differently?
For me it's just the reinforcement of how gloom our current situation is. I didn't expect us to make a big swing to get into the lottery. I'm not even sure it would've been ideal. But the alternative is us stuck on a slightly above average treadmill with a GM who's, at least seemingly, sole objective is self preservation.
I'm telling you. Dillon Mitchell. Forward who can defend but can't shoot at all. Prototypical Rockets draft pick. I fully expect them to take him...
I know this probably will never happen, Jason Kidd needs to replace Ime. A new GM is a must. Witus should be made the interim GM. Stone needs to go.
Take both of the SRPs and turn them into Henry Veesaar and place him on a low FRP type contract. Stone will be the hero of this draft.
100%. He knows this is his only chance. No other team will give him a shot because he has zero connections and zero basketball background. He’s looking out for himself and not the team.
So if I understand the logic correctly, we could have offered five SRPs to NYKs for pick #24? We could have then drafted Chris Cenac Jr. before he went to the Celtics? I know hindsight is 20-20, but I think I would have made that work.
