If you think our roster without Kevin Durant is a favorite to win anything regardless of coaching, you're slow
"His attention to detail [is great]. He studies the game, watches the game, understands it on a different level," Durant said of Udoka on Wednesday. "He knows how to speak to the team, the right X's and O's, out-of-timeout plays, draw up a good system. ... He's done all of those things." - katie
Yeah a game like last nights is one that usually leads to smart professional sports teams firing their coach that offseason. Thats just kind of a fact of reality that probably won’t happen in this case because it seems as though Ferntits is too focused on whatever he’s doing with the Orange Messiah over in Italy. Stone and Ime ain’t firing themselves.
He somehow lost interest, you see him igniting his interest in other endeavors, buying WNBA and NHL teams, his heart is just not with the Rockets past Phase 2.
Nothing but negativity when we get to this point of the year with Houston sports teams. Texans play Patriots and we lose Nico Collins and Dalton Shultz. It's always something.
I don't blame Stone that much for the DFS blunder. In hindsight, NAW was the right choice, although it was obvious even then, as he filled a backcourt need and is much younger. But it was essentially a 50/50 choice. What I do blame him for is the unwillingness (fear) to make a single move during the season that could bolster the backcourt and/or bench. A serious team cannot start Okogie in the playoffs and have Holiday and Tate play significant minutes off the bench, they are not that calibre. There were a bunch of solid players available for a cheap price around the trade deadline, and he didn't even attempt to make a serious bid for any of them. Keon Ellis, Coby White, Luke Kennard, Anfernee Simons, Ayo Dosunmu, Jose Alvarado, Jevon Carter, Pat Connaughton, Mike Conley, Cam Payne. That is 10 players that at most coveted a few second-round picks. Half of them would start last night for the Rockets and another half would definitely come off the bench. That is not a 50/50 choice, that is shooting 0 out of 10 on layups. But none of that matters much when the coach is clueless in the way that Ime is. I was cautiously optimistic (even with his character questions) when the Rockets got him, when the team improved year upon year, but it is now painfully clear he is extremely average and limited as a head coach. It seems that he has such tunnel vision as to what basketball is and is so easily exploited by opposing teams. There is no semblance of team basketball, either on offense or defense. Offense is a 1-on-1, iso-ball circlejerk. He previously relied on the team's athleticism and youth to get buckets, now he relies on KD's brilliance as a scorer to just shoot over everyone. Defense is also a ridiculous 1-on-1 scheme, just relying on athletic forwards that can fight over screens and keep their man in front of them. If you get beat on a screen, you are fked. Drop coverage on p&r's means Sengun or Capela are always in no man's land, no switches mean Sheppard is constantly hunted, no rotations or help means that once a backscreen is set the team is scrambling until the end of the shot clock. I am appalled at this coaching. His only adjustments are to either move to a zone where each player is just responsible for their part of the floor, or to stack the lineup with defense-first players which then tank the offensive output. And if you lose a 1-on-1 matchup over the course of a 24 second shot clock and get scored on (which can happen to everyone, even the best defenders!), you can be sure he'll cuss you out and blame you for screwing up. But where is the help, where are the rotations, why are objectively inferior defensive players like Reed and Alperen so much more glaringly bad in Ime's defensive scheme, rather than better/hidden? A good coach should know how to utilize them, rather than leave them on thin ice. Shocking, shocking result last night, I am completely done with him.
Ime is fcking clueless. Hope he and that gm get fired for this atrocious roster and team structure. This team is full of ****ing idiots from top to bottom. I will never get over all the stupid decisions they’ve made over the past couple of years. They blatantly didn’t address the skills positions in an effort to empower Fred and Ime’s scheme. We had a lot of players available for us these past few years that would’ve made us a contender while keeping our future assets. Don’t get me started on that nets pick they inexplicably traded back for no reason whatsoever. These idiots got pumpfaked by the ****ing Nets threatening to contend with Mikal ****ing Bridges. I need to know who signed off on that because WTF! This organization is ran like an AAU team. Im still wondering if all of this self sabotage. Because ain’t nobody this dumb! lol
They were hard capped so they couldn't make big trade but they could've signed Chis Paul, traded for Jared McCain, or added a veteran like Serge Ibaka when Adams went down. But Stone closed up shop, said its not their year, signed J.D ****ing Davidson, he's going to wait for Fred and Adams to get back and then he'll realize the roster needs better depth. Stone is a bad gm
I keep thinking this too since the Golden State series. And it seems the closer you get to the Rockets, whether it's Dave and Ben, or several steps closer in Vanessa, the Ime and Stone apologies intensify. Vanessa was really buttering up the coaching staff on that pre-series pod they did together. All year theyve been surprised by the fan negativity about him. He is a classic floor raiser culture setter take-T's-for-the-team archetype. Cerebral, developmental, he is not. When playoff coaches are out there drawing complex art pieces he is chewing on the crayons. Dont get me started on Stone. We saw this game about 15 times this season even before last night.
