Former Player Says Kevin Durant Hates Key Rockets Teammate

I wonder if KD will respect Giannis game, a guy who also cannot shoot free throws (he's worse then Sengun), also can't shoot from anywhere on the floor, and is known to airball both 3s and free throws. Surely we can expect to have great chemistry there.

 

Is he taking a fully clothed bubble bath or is that weed smoke?

The KD trade ruined the rebuild. Rockets need to wise up and trade him this offseason. He's an all time great but I believe the rumors about him being a locker room cancer.

 

If KD is truly the problem, we can get Giannis without trading Sengun:
Rockets receive: Giannis/Ryan Rollins
Bucks receive: KD/DFS/Capela/multiple FRPs
Our starting lineup next season:
Sengun
Giannis
Jabari
Amen
FVV
Our bench would be better as well with acquiring another primary ballhandler with Rollins and Reed will be our 6th man
We'll have around $18M in cap space to fill out the rest of the bench...FVV could decline his player option and restructure his contract to give us more cap space to sign key role players

 

If this is true Stone and Ime should both be fired yesterday for building a team that no one else feels make sense.

 

Spoiler

 

The whole idea is not to gut our draft picks for a Giannis rental (another fading star that demands the super max). I don’t want Giannis, this whole exercise was from a SamFisher suggestion of a trade with the Bucks and assuming Stone is bound and determined to get Giannis. Giannis is not worth 3 frp’s. Hell he isn’t even worth Sengun with no picks. I’d give them KD and 1 pick, just to save us from a panicked Stone, but I’m sure the Bucks are going to get more. They should have traded him last year. Unless Stone is a total dumbass(he might be) the Bucks are going to get back an albatross contract like KAT and 2-3 crappy picks or something like that. No GM in his right mind is going to give 3 future lottery picks for Giannis on an expiring contract.

 

Has he ever liked anyone other than Harden and maybe Steph a little...

 

It is so obvious - you can see it on the court and in the way they communicate, it is a tolerance but no more.

KD before he came here - "Love me some Sengun that boy can play".......KD gets here and goes, wait, what? He wants the ball too? Man, **** Sengun....runs to Ime, I want the ball late - Ime - of course you will have it.

Ime to Sengun - "KD is getting ball late" ....Sengun is pissed....man, **** KD.

Everywhere KD goes if someone is taking away his shine he b****es.....and wants to leave.....Booker is LOVING life without this old parasite hanging on.

Now, the org has a choice, a 23 year old all star or a 37 year old one.

DD

 

Well KD isn’t our franchise player. He is 38. If he doesn’t like Sengun he should suck it up. Sengun is our franchise player until (if) we trade him for a new one.

 

KD is a lazy whiny b****. His opinion about pretty much anything should be irrelevant.

 

While I agree with your post, the problem is that he is still on this team. It doesn't matter if his opinion is "irrelevant", this isn't about the legitimacy of his opinion. It's about the relationships on this team and how it affects the vibes and chemistry.

 

What's the point of having all those draft picks with an incompetent GM??? Might as well trade those Suns draft picks because they're a rising team. We should've kept those Brooklyn picks if the team's strategy was to build through the draft. Instead, they pivoted to a "win-now" mode strategy. No point of going back now.

 

Hopefully after this team gets swept in the first round Katy demands a trade. That's probably the best thing that could happen other than Ime being fired.

 

Was English language a barrier?

Do co-workers have to like each other, if they keep it professional? Do you *clap clap* and back pat all your co-workers and managers?

Is it ok for players (and coaches) with diverse views / different opinions on solving the same problem without labeling it as 'bad vibe' check?

 

Are they competing on clutch time turnovers? If so, we're all losing.

 

That was on full display the other night when he suddenly started bringing the ball up in OT resulting in TO after TO. I think he wants full control of his shots, and having Sengun playmake annoys him even though Sengun is the only one capable of getting the ball to him reliably and consistently or still making a good play out of it if he can’t. Watching game after game if I’m KD I want Sengun on the court w me at all times. It’s legit puzzling. I’m wondering if someone else controlling the game gives him an easy scapegoat even when he’s bricking wide open shots - but then it looks even messier and sloppier when he’s initiating unless he can score on isos with zero ball movement.

 

I’m in favor of getting rid of both Stone and Ime, but Ime is by far the bigger issue. You don’t trade away (well Stone might) because you know your GM sucks at drafting (which he doesn’t) or that he is not good at trades. It’s all about patience not that we don’t have good young players. Whether we have a franchise player or not, you’re not going to get one by trading your draft picks for a geriatric forward that can’t shoot and will require a super max contract to keep. If you are trading away Sengun and our draft picks, you better be getting back a Maxey or Ant or we are screwed for a decade.

 

There is a difference between individual contributors and a team game in basketball - one basketball but 5 guys have to figure out how to share it strategically in live action or how to share duties in stopping the other team with it. It's not like multiple coworkers working on a shared powerpoint - its more like 5 people holding a single egg with a bunch of tiny spoons that have to work together to accomplish some goal with dynamic obstacles put in place by the other team....so maybe they don't have to like each other but YES, they do have to be on the same page otherwise someone goes left, another thinks they are going right and the pass goes to the wrong spot.

It's not "vibes" - its coordination and alignment on how to play the Rockets brand of basketball....and it's Egos frankly. KD clearly thinks its his ball when the game is tight and it doesnt matter how many times we have practiced a set - KD won't pass it to any of you fools with the ball late down by 3...so our more emotional guys(like Sengun) check out and when KD predictably gets doubled guess who is on the other side of the court from him? The team who he told to clear our moments earlier....and it's not just a KD problem - Sengun does it too when he feels like he needs to take a shot/establish a rhythm - then he opts to shoot bad shots when he should have passed because he isn't being worked into the offense enough to keep a rhythm.

To me this is the strongest reason why Ime needs to be held accountable as coach - he has a team fighting each other and I think Ime probably leans into it a bit thinking pressure creates diamonds but if it destroys the team fabric in the process - then you do A LOT more harm than good. Someone has to be a leader on that team and being a leader is about leaving space for everyone to find a place to contribute in their own unique ways. It's not about "everyone does it my way" or "the fiery fighting style is the only way" - leadership is about creating a balance to make the whole better than the parts. You can certainly craft a team to a style if you want a team of tough fighters - but that's not the roster we have here and it's clear to me Sengun is emotional enough that this approach makes him a worse player and any time you making one your best players a worser version of themselves and the team doesn't get better as a result - you did it wrong, Ime/KD.

 

They both are to be honest - I expect a "team" from Ime and that's not what we have today. I can even live with the tactical mistakes from Ime but if our team clearly isn't on the same page and can hardly stand each other enough to even play with each other - then you gotta step out of "coaching" and be the leader the team needs...and like I said many times before - that may mean you have to have some very tough love with both KD and Sengun. With all the games we have lost late lately I dont think it's out of the realm of possibility to sit both players in tight games because how they are playing is NOT getting it done regardless of their immense individual talents.

Stone has done a really poor job bringing in value to this team - hold him accountable to it. He drafted okay(didnt get access to real franchise players though) but the fact we have $55mil sitting on the bench doing nothing for us right now ALL from players who have significant injury histories is proof of Stone's blunders. People expected Fred, Stevo, and DFS(still awful in his recovery) to be injury risks. People expect KD to be a bit of a sour grape. You can't say "I didn't know this was going to happen" when those are all very well known things about ALL of those players. At some point you are being negligent as a GM if any of this surprises you. Stone's problem is he didn't mitigate all the risk - he just continued to take more on in hopes to make us better sooner and it's backfiring pretty spectacularly right now because DFS is bad, Fred and Stevo got hurt per usual, KD actually didnt get hurt per usual but he DID come her and destroy yet another team's chemistry. Stone took the risk - now he has to fall on that sword.

 

I think we can get Giannis and keep our young core intact. I think those Suns picks aren't going to be valuable these next couple of seasons.
However, you're right we could go with a more patient approach. Actually, we'll have KD on the books for 1 more season (2027-28 is a player option) so he could be a valuable trade piece if this team isn't performing well next season.