We have half the pieces from two different contending teams, but those pieces don't fit together well enough to make up for rarely having the best player in a playoff series (and the guy who's supposed to do that for us is also about to turn 38 years old and is currently hurt).
One thing that almost no one takes into account is that all our core are 24 or under. So many on this site think our young guys are all they will ever be. The trade for Durant really gave the fans a sense that we were ready to compete. It’s hindsight, but the trade hurt us on so many fronts. Ime extension was even more damaging. If they panic and trade Sengun or Amen for a vet like Giannis or other 30 something player, we are screwed for a decade. Any trade of Sengun needs to be for promising youth and/or draft picks.
Trading for Giannis specifically would likely be a disastrous deal IMO. And I doubt there will be another top 10 player available who is younger and fits better (although if there is I might consider it). I agree that young players / picks are likely the best option if we feel forced to trade Sengun.
I mean that is possible but I view it a bit differently. If the Rockets had never lucked into the #2 seed in the '25 playoffs, they never would have had unreasonable expectations to win in Round 1. That all happened because key teams had major injuries/trades (Dallas trading Luka. Warriors mismanaging their young players and needed Jimmy. Lakers, Nuggets, Wolves having injuries or middling regular seasons) They wouldn't have looked like they were "close" in 7 game series versus the Warriors. The seeding and the showing against a "prior champion" even if a flawed team caused them to "jump a few step" that needed to do. As a result even if they trade for Durant, they are not looking at being "contenders". They viewed as trying to break through to the top half of the WC.
Okongwu or Ware and picks is the best I can think of, but getting Atlanta or Miami to play ball will be difficult.
at some point we’ve gotta stop lying to ourselves no, we do not have the pieces we have no PG…our #1 option is an ancient KD, and we have no one on our roster to take the reigns once he breaks down/declines/retires…our young core is full of players with fatal flaws we tanked for years and ended up with a bunch of mid
See this is what I mean, we DO have the pieces, but they are being USED WRONGLY - a good coach would get more out of this team, we have system players who are trying to win as ISO players. People have a hard time thinking about when GS first got Kerr, that is what I am referencing they were sure they didn't have the right pieces then too...... DD
if 2 of your main pieces are guys who are total non-factors outside of the paint, you are cooked in 2026 among this young core, none of them are adequate PG’s, none of them is a #1 option, and most of them are mediocre-non shooters teams don’t worry about on the perimeter this isn’t a Steph-Klay-Draymond situation…all the skills needed for greatness were always there, and Kerr took them to the next level everybody here would take 12-13 or 13-14 Steph Curry playing under Mark Jackson over anybody on this roster in a heartbeat without question GS had the pieces…Kerr put it together we have a bunch of mismatched spare parts with dents and scratches on them
I think you are being a bit too hard on the young dudes but I generally agree that the pieces don't fit and that we don't have an obvious "best player on a championship team" as things stand. We do have good young players that a lot of other teams would want though. Need to balance the roster better and keep taking upside swings. And get rid of Udoka at some point
I actually agree with what you wrote and that fully aligns with my 2nd point of our roster problems. We don't have a true superstar. I think you're arguing against something you may have thought I was implying but didn't write. My point on fit with Sengun is just that he will be his most successful with a bunch 3andD dogs around him. I wasn't saying that he's good enough to justify us going that route. He would be at his best without Amen/Reed and they would be their best without him. But, pending some insane jump, no one on this roster warrants building around.
specifically what is tactically wrong with the sets we run? What specifically do you think would work? What specifically could a new coach do to win? Answers such as Udoka has no plan, the team doesn’t run plays or sets, Udoka is a terrible coach or “we have the pieces” is simply conjecture, generalizations, and misinformation. Need you to speak specifically to what’s wrong and what you think this organization should do to fix it
I agree, we have a bunch of tradable assets. I just waiting for the tank to begin again. Any gm/coach that chooses fking fvv over harden r ones that bound to fail. For a young team, a pg is desperately needed. The fact that since harden left and we still havent bothered to developed/find a young pg to run our offense is crazy. I cannot stand watching fvv play pg
FVV doesn’t play pg for this team though and he didn’t last year either. The PG for this team the past two years has become Sengun. Last year at least he’d run the offense from the high or low post instead of at half court like this year. Last season FVV played the same role Jason Kidd played later in his career where he was more of a spacer and vocal floor general and would at times create in isolation. But Sengun was still the main offensive hub. That’s the primary reason why the offense sucks. Not that Sengun sucks but because Ime has allowed Sengun to continue to drift further and further back in the half court sets to where he’s playing as if he’s peak James Harden when in reality he’s Scola without a jump shot.
Buddy you always have some spin that is the same variation of this. CD built it, JVG ignored it The Rockets need to STAND PAT You were wrong to think the Rockets had championship level pieces with JVG or Rick Adelman - and subsequent events proved this - If anything the trajectory made the coaches look *even better* in hindsight because all of the guys you had pegged as stars - Spanoulis, Nachbar, Von Wafer - ended up washing out of the league (and some of the guys you hated like Arrest went on to win titles) If your assessment is "we have the pieces" after this season/week - you just aren't paying enough attention to the level the rest of the league is at man
People keep saying this and yet Sengun is still 1) consistently able to get paint touches and 2) absolutely dreadful at converting them Retconning him as a post up guy when the whole SenHub deal requires a face up game is nonsense
Maybe it's just nostalgia, but from what I can recall in his first two years in the league Sengun was a low post scorer and passer. I remember being enticed by the idea of running an Adelman high post type of offense with Sengun being the Brad Miller type of focal point, but I NEVER would have thought it would be a good idea to do what he's doing now in bringing the ball up, and literally running the offense in a pick and roll scenario with a turnover prone iso scorer from damn near half court. Yes, Sengun does get post touches, but when the offense goes off the rails it's when defenses blitz KD and Ime & Sengun try this nonsense where Sengun is playing point guard near half court thinking that KD getting blitzed gets Sengun an open drive to the basket to lead to open dunks from Amen, or that Sengun getting doubled gets KD an open jump shot. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results right?? I think we can all agree to that. This Sengun/KD point guard play off the double/blitz near the 3 point line just DOES NOT WORK. That's my only real point here. And yes, if you just put Sengun in the post instead it changes nothing because then Amen, Tari, Reed, etc. are then coming up to help KD when KD gets doubled which is damn near every possession. I get why given the options Ime allows Sengun to be that guy, but holy Fck.... we've seen this all season long and all season long the Rockets fall apart doing the Sengun point guard thing. You've got 18 basketball players on your roster. Let's do something.... anything else... or Stone should have made some sort of trade at the deadline... or they should have tanked... which most GM's would have done if they had their draft pick which is probably why Stone and Ime tried to make lemonade out of horse piss.
JVG actually proved my point that SHOOTING mattered above all else, once we got Jon Barry that team opened up - it made me realize that Shooting is more important than anything else, and by a long long way. When other teams can shoot and you can't you are screwed, now I don't know if we can shoot, because all we do is ISO, we don't run guys around screens, we don't run pindowns we don't do any off ball movement to get guys open. This is 100% Ime, I would kill to have JVG coaching this team. DD
Sengun has been a top 5 center in scoring unassisted points up there with Jokic, Wemby, and Embiid. It’s not even about building an offense around Sengun but making it easier.
