Stone is pretty evasive and spins things but this is pretty defensible. DFS is still under contract, including next year. It doesn't do any good to trash him and talk about being remorseful you signed him rather than portraying a positive spin hoping he improves. Even once he's gone there's no real upside to bashing him, but especially while he's still here.
The Rockets traded away the 2nd (or at worst 3rd) best player in franchise history for a boatload of picks. Then they purposely tanked to achieve 3 of the 5 worst seasons in franchise history. They accumulated 11 1st round draft picks, of which 4 of them were top-4 premium picks. And even after all that, an often injured, 31yr old backup center is considered one of your 5 best players on the roster? Yes that is an atrocious of a rebuild if that's the case.
Stone: I regret that it was taken out of context. To those who think I was trying to shame them, I find it puzzling how someone can read the word "shame" in that sense.
I don't know what's the context he thinks fans should be looking at. He clearly built this roster to be win-now. So when things don't work as planned, his first thought isn't "ok let me try to fix this" or "oh I should've structured our contracts in ways to allow us to plan B if needed," but rather "oh maybe this is not our year." That speaks to someone lacking foresight and future planning, terrible trait in a GM of a NBA team.
I understand why he did that. I didn't think he said anything earthshattering, but a lot of that interview did not seem like GM speak. That part just seemed like GM speak.
For what it’s worth. I don’t view Adams as one of our top five players. I would say when healthy he’s one of our top 7 or 8 players. I think he is an important piece to what the Rockets are trying to do. He does some things better than Sengun or Capela. So, it does hurt not having him in the lineup.
Not even that, IMHO, he is 9th or 10th and dropping. We need to stop leaning into 1 dimensional players. DD
We could definitely use a young rim protector. Not necessarily a replacement for Sengun, but someone that can step in when needed.
I think there's a difference between best and most important. Adams is important for the type of style we play, he's not going to get the same trade value as many of the others. FVV and Adams know how to go out there and execute the plan/playstyle of maximizing possessions (rebounds, turnovers, etc) and defense. Also they provide the very underrated role of telling guys where they need to be on offense and defense which has been missing this year.
I don't either. I just don't buy the "well the Rockets lost 2 of their top 5 players they already did quite well despite the injuries" attitude. Either Adams is not that important and the Rockets are just underperforming what their rebuild should be, or he is that important in which case Stone drafted a lot of crappy players. Either way he has failed at his job.
Stone is such a douche. He’s got an ego the size of his bulbous head. Next he’ll be defending why we are sitting out a generational draft that we had a top pick in.
The “weirdness” is because Stone drafted players without a central organizational philosophy on team building. He just drafted what he thought was the best available player… which is why there are so many qualifiers on a lot of Rockets and line ups. This could have been avoided with a better core vision. Stone tries to not say a lot and will often just lie. I’m not going to pile on him for that because a lot of GM’s do that. Still I don’t believe what he says.
