I'm amazed this team has as good of a record as they did a year ago. It doesn't feel like they are nearly as good, and I have much less confidence in them as a team. I don't know how they did it to be honest. Durant staying healthy is the primary reason I think, but now that he is hurt (at the WORST possible time) we'll see how they hold up. Probably not very well, but I don't think the organization will make many changes due to the regular season win loss record and all of the injuries. I want Stone gone, but I'm undecided on Udoka. I'm pretty sure they're both going to be around next season though...
Regular season doesn't matter when hald the good teams demand the game threshold to be lowered, 2/3 of the teams make at least the play in, and home court is meaningless.
It’s kind of like running KD to the ground for meaningless minutes and then not delivering in the most important games One thing I’ve learned during the Udoka years is some rockets fans have obscenely low standards. Taking a fluke 2nd seed with 1st round exist as a victory..lmao
This is forgetting a lot of key info about the period that Udoka was hired. Mainly: - Rockets themselves were not a good destination then. They had "bad culture" (Ask John Wall). Rocket had to throw money at the problem. They notoriously had to overpay VanVleet and Dillon Brooks just to even join the team. - Basically, the Rockets were credited for exploiting the Udoka scandal to their advantage. It wasnt being sensitive to Udoka. Rockets were seen as punching above their own weight to even get a problematic Udoka. (Like if Chet Holgrem fell to pick 10 because of off-court issues, the reward would still be worth the risk for the #10 team) - Udoka, Dillon Brooks, Porter Jr at the time, even Rockets themselves, were all in similar'ish status of being "problems & castoffs". Dillon Brooks was despised by everyone. He was not seen a "misunderstood minority". He was a punk goon all around that nobody warned. Was Dillon Brooks getting respect later part of a "progressive agenda"? Or that team success creates better opinions? - Udoka is part of the NBA fraternity, as an actual former player with championship pedigree under Greg Popovich. That does matter being a "connected member", instead of working from the outside to get in. Meaning, a white coach, or any coach, who is new to the NBA, won't get as much leeway. So total tenure factors in. (Example: New Mark Daigneault, no leeway. New Tiago Splitter, NBA frat member from the Popovich chapter, it depends)
…..and I was right about Silas being an awful coach. Trust me as well with Stone. Hate me or like me, I am always first on this site to call out those who are bad hires and need to go. Willing to give Udoka another year since Stone gave him a guaranteed 5 year deal, but Stone must go ASAP as he has damaged our team beyond near term repair. Forget the Silas hire, a bunch of wasted firsts, the Allen trade, the Oladipo disaster, Green over Mobley, no deadline moves, giving too much for a three year player, signing FVV over Harden, and last but not least giving away the unprotected Nets pick which may very well be the 1st pick in this year’s loaded (and I mean loaded) draft! Stone must go.
Fyi… you can now read my posts on Dream Shake which allows occasional dissenting views when warrented (i.e, Silas, Stone, etc.). Love both sites, but DS allows dissenting views when warranted which is nice to see.
**** that, TDS has the most dogshit moderation ever since SBN took over from the former TDS mods and the Masthead. It would take a change in ownership for me to even consider going back there.
completely agree, the saddest part of this week is seeing so many serial losers going to bat for sustained mediocrity. Success is hard, but if you are not even trying..smh
If y'all think things can't get worse, just remember: Dallas has Cooper Flagg and a top 10 lotto pick in this stacked draft class. Utah has Keyonte George, a collection of other good prospects, and a top 8 lotto pick. (They're also set up to be much more competitive next season with JJJ and a returning Kessler.) We could soon be facing a situation where we've been lapped by San Antonio, Dallas, and Utah in our rebuild.
It is like this...... Imagine I told you that you would get the following draft picks over 4 seasons......#2, #3, #4, #3, #10, #16, #17, #22 and #23 On top of that, imagine if I told you that you would have nearly $60,000,000 to spend on free agents. What would you expect to get out of that? Would you expect your best player BY FAR to be 37 years old, be 3rd in the league in minutes.... and that you are a lottery team without him? Would you expect to be up against the second apron? Would you expect to invest greatly on players that are old and either have injury issues or have high milage? Would you basically just hire a head coach and conclude that the player development portion of building the club is "good". That isn't to say everything has been handled poorly by Stone and the Rockets -- it hasn't. Stone has been cautious and for the most part avoided bad contracts. Stone has drafted mostly safe players, and outside of Green - all of his high lottery picks are playing. Stone hired a coach coming off an NBA Finals appearance and the culture changed. Still --- it feels like the lack of real vision and short cuts have caused some issues we are dealing with.
Amen to this. I used to wonder why Ime played FVV so many minutes then, and KD now, despite his age. It seems like Ime's offense relied on FVV to run the offense as FVV saw fit, and let the offense flow through his own decision-making. It is very similar to the way the offense is now, where the offense is to give the ball to KD and/or Alpie and let them run the offense themselves. The offense was so incredibly disorganized during game one that the absence of KD showed Ime's reliance on him to run the offense due to the lack of any offensive schemes drawn up by Ime and his coaching staff. This reliance by Ime on players to make up his offensive sets in-game is the height of ineptitude. The obvious lack of any major improvements from any of the main players is also a manifestation of Ime's incompetence to devise a program to put these players in the best possible environment to develop their skills, strengths, and address their weaknesses. It's really time for a change.
