This is why Stone should be fired, negligence. Anyone of those guys could stabilize our half court fiasco
If we're blowing it up, why bother keeping Amen? Is it because "he has the best chance to become a star"? I pretty much agree that is a factual statement but mainly because the other options are at or below 1% while Amen might be at 3%. Yep, that's three times better odds .... but the odds still suck ass. I'd take the 97% side of that and blow it all up - Amen, Sengun both. Amen may bring a better return too ... Get rid of Ime and lets go back to taking shots in the draft .... Trade them all.
I think any sort of reset needs to come with Ime and Stone gone first. You can’t have them run another tank (doubt Ime wants to anyway) and expect different results. I think a reset is very unlikely.
There are four ways to get a top 5 player to build a championship team. 1. Tank and be lucky at the lottery and the draft. 2. Trade your farm (or sign in FA?) for a disgruntled superstar IN HIS PRIME. 3. Find and trade for an undervalued young player who will turn into a superstar (Harden, SGA, Haliburton... ). 4. Find an underrated player in lower draft positions who will turn into a superstar (Jokic). None of these ways will readily come by. 1, 3, and 4, needs great talent evaluation. 2 needs to be an attractive destination for star players. All of them need a lot of luck. Even if you get one of these players, you still need a very good management to build the team around the franchise guy or he will want to bolt after his second contract.
Don't we all wish we could have a secret camera installed for the postseason meeting between Tilman and Stonedoka? Would it give us any satisfaction to see Tilman read them the riot act, Stone's bald pate glistening with flop-sweat, Ime settling into a sullen glower.....or would we stroke out in anger watching Tilman believe Stone when he says, "But now we can go get Giannis" (and not ask, "But is that a done deal or are we jerking off? Won't Giannis prefer to stay in the Eastern Conference? Why would acquiring him help us, beyond selling tickets?"
I generally agree with your approach here, but what would the argument be for trading Amen (or even Jabari for that matter) this offseason? Unless you think Amen will get a max contract and not be worth it I guess which, fair. For me, I think Amen and Jabari in particular have probably not peaked as players and will likely have more trade value after at least one more season. Sengun is more likely to have peaked already (although it's not guaranteed by any means) so I can more see the argument for going ahead and trading him now, although perhaps the next trade deadline could be a better time if you feel like it's still selling low, depending on how he plays the rest of these playoffs. Keep in mind that we have Brooklyn's swap rights next season so there's already a good chance we're getting a lottery pick, there's not really a strong incentive to tank. By the time we just have our own pick with no swap rights the lotto odds may be different and much flatter. Maybe it's worth trying to be in the lottery in 2028 depending on what things are looking like, but probably not an incentive to completely explode the team and be godawful with the way things are trending.
Yup. Here's what's funny. If you did the following: 1) Trade Sengun + FVV + Durant + Adams for assets/picks you could then 2) Package those picks to move into the Top 7 of this draft. Find the team in the 4-7 range with an established PG and trade for that pick. You move Reed into the starter slot and you put (Flemings/Brown/Acuff) in the Reed role. 3) Obviously fire Ime and hire a competent offensive minded coach that will coach up Reed, Amen and Jabari and new guy. 4) Keep DFS and get rid of everyone else. His contract is an albatross and he still serves a purpose. 5) Get a younger Adams type to grow with this core. 6) Give Tari a 1+1 contract with a clearly established role (be a pest on defense, shoot it on 3s only). If he wants more than that he can go to another team. Look at what Dylan Harper is doing in SAS. Coming off the bench and providing instant impact. We could have that next year, have a functioning offense that actually maximizes the talent we have and we wont have any of the current dregs holding the team back (Ime, Fred, Dickerson). Also will have an insurance policy *if* Reed or Amen don't pan out as the starting PG. We probably would win more games next year than this year as well and actually look forward to watching this team again.
This seems like a very reasonable plan, if it can be pulled off. Obviously you need two to tango for all of the trades involved here and that can get very challenging in the draft especially. The only thing I'd really change is rather than getting a young Steven Adams type, I would try to get a stretch 5. I don't even care if they're bad defensively right now. That would cost us some wins, of course, but I don't see us as contending for a couple more seasons anyway. I just want to see what this team looks like with real space and shooting around Amen. I'm more concerned with whether it opens things up enough that he can be a #1 or at least a good #2 on offense. We can try to upgrade with that rare "starting caliber stretch 5 who can play defense" later if that turns out to be the case and one can't be had right now.
I 100% agree with this being the right approach. But, after your #1 step the GM is getting fired on the spot or having the trade vetoed by ownership. Most owners like Fertitta just don't accept that kind of long game. They will say you just need to figure out how to make it work with my 2 all-stars or trade for an even better star.
I really think people need to realize that Stone/the FO and Patrick Fertitta are, for many intents and purposes, the same entity. The paradigm of "GM makes a decision, the owner gets mad, GM fires him" does not apply. A Fertitta is basically making the decisions already, hand in hand with the FO as their advisor and executor. The big decisions are definitely made by a Fertitta already (coach extension, the KD trade etc.). And the owner isn't getting fired. Saying "the Rockets should do a soft reset", is not saying that Stone should decide to do a soft reset. That's above Stone's pay grade. It's saying that Patrick Fertitta should decide we need to do a soft reset.
Maybe there's a gray area there Regardless, my main point is that it's not necessarily lost on the front office that resetting/tanking is the best course of action. But, they will still likely not do it because owners just don't like doing it when they currently have a winning team. It's usually only accepted as a last resort when they've depleted all other avenues to get better.
Well tanking won’t exist anymore, as of the vote in May. So that’s not a part of any discussion. I would 100% agree with you about ownership - if this were just Tilman at the wheel, or we were in the East, or the Fertitta’s ownership origin story wasn’t the nightmare Westbrook trade, or the lottery system wasn’t changing. But Patrick Fertitta sounds pretty longtermist and patient from everything I’ve read, we’re in the West, play-in teams are going to be getting lottery balls, and I see very little chance the Fertittas re-do a Westbrook style desperation trade for a veteran star. They’re still paying for that this year. They haven’t traded away a real future FRP, or signed anyone to a long term max contract in since, IIRC - I think they learned a lesson. But maybe that’s hopium.
Your stretch 5 can probably be had in the early part of round 2. Henri Veesaar 2026 Draft Profile | Tankathon
I've made that exact statement on multiple occasions. When Tilman took over he came in and thought he knew better how to run the ship, cutting at the margins .... then forcing big trades .... all of it failed and destroyed the only team in the league to give GSW a run for it's money. I think that series of events taught Tilman several valuable lessons - starting with you can't cut corners and win in the NBA. Those mid tier guys like Ariza can't be replaced by minimum dudes ... and even really good teams need draft assets, sometimes just to keep pace. Look at this year, this is the first time since 2015/16 that the Rockets have paid the luxury tax (The only time Les paid the tax). And even with all the struggles the team had (FVV, Adams, DFS injury issues - lack of development from Amen, Sengun and Reed) He didn't make Stone duck the tax ... in a "Not Our Year" He's also let his basketball people do their jobs and stayed out of the way for the most part. He's a better owner now than when he bought the team .... there's some maturity there. (I can't believe I'm saying anything nice about Tilman & co.)
