What I would LIKE to see happen and what WILL happen

What I would like to see is we trade Sengun for Giannis and replace our bench with the best available 3pt shooters at each position (keep Reed)...literally start who had the best 3pt % and try signing/trading for him and then work down the list.
What will happen is we run it back with FVV and Adams back being healthy...Tari will be resigned at team friendly deal and Reed/DFS will be traded for best available true point guard.
Hot Take: would you trade Jabari/DFS/Suns FRP for Jalen Green?
You'll get out the DFS contract, you'll be able to move Amen back to the wing where he's best at, and bringing Jalen Green back helps with punishing teams trapping KD because Jalen Green is actually a decent finisher around the rim

 

Of course it looked broken! We were missing two starters for basically the entire season. Adams for half but if you add DFS, we had 3 expected rotation players out for significant time and we lacked a player capable of GETTING the ball to our scorers. A healthy FVV totally changes this team. We just need a point guard and maybe one other perimeter creator or shooter.
Also…I blame KD. I don’t think Kd, as good as he is, makes his teammates better. Not like a guy like Tmac did. KD will get all the recognition as the better player, but I think anyone who has watched decades of basketball knows he doesn’t make everyone around him better.

 

One series after a season plagued with injuries and chemistry issues following a GREAT season with GREAT chemistry.

One season. Boom. Blow it up. You’d rather wait 6 more years to maybe get enough talent to contend than see if this year really was just a fluke?

sorry but that seems short sighted and dumb. If trades become available to get us top tier talent then sure “blow it up.” But don’t throw it all way for picks that you won’t actually know where they’ll land for years on players you won’t know if they’ll develop for several additional years.

 

Yah I hate this about professional sports fans.
Giving up because you don’t think you’re good enough is loser mentality. Play the games. Develop. OKC can’t keep everyone together forever. Wemby won’t be healthy every year. **** happens. I really can’t believe people are looking at the spurs and okc and saying “why bother trying?” Gross

 

I mean, I do agree about KD not making teammates better, and I also agree that the loss of FVV made a big difference... but I still don't see more than a fringe contender at best even if he'd been healthy. I remember the rumblings were already starting last season about stagnant and slow the offense could get, which is also what the scouting report was on Ime Udoka going back to his Boston days.

We just need better coaching and better roster construction. If we run it back and manage to get through next season with everyone healthy (which is a very big if given KD will be 38 and given FVV's and Adams' recent injury histories) then sure, I expect things to look somewhat better, but I still don't think we'll win a championship.

 

Building a team that's beyond a fringe contender without a superstar is basically an impossibility, so that was never on the table with this group anyway.

 

Give up quickly? My god Stone has had SIX YEARS to rebuild this team, and he started the process by trading away the 2nd best player in Rockets history for one of the biggest returns in NBA at the time. Six years. By the 6th year of the Rocket last rebuild they were in the WCFs. And Morey didn't even have to tank 3 years to do it either.

 

The lack of top-end talent is why we, in hindsight, we shouldn't have traded for KD or signed DFS / Clint at a bare minimum, and perhaps shouldn't have brought back FVV and Adams either (more arguable since we had their bird rights and were over the cap). We loaded up on veterans when we should have still been taking upside swings and collecting draft picks.

 

And he got us Amen, Sengun, Jabari, Tari, and Reed. Amen and Sengun are clear all stars. Even if you don’t think Sengun can be a #1a, he is a two time all star already.

y’all just have incredibly short memories. He’s playing in his second playoff series. He played well last season. He’s played awful this season. But we should just throw in the towel? And wait another 6 years to tank, get the picks, and hope we find the right player?

how many teams each year are legitimate top tier contenders? Why have 30 teams and 20 in the playoffs if it’s futile endeavor? Why compete? I don’t like this mentality of “fans” who only seem to enjoy the teams that are stacked.

stone turned a bottom feeding team into a young top core in 4 seasons. He and Ime are not the best. They’re also not the worst. Making changes for the sake of it isn’t an inherently smart decision. Stone not getting a PG at the deadline seems like a glaring mistake but what were we offered? Would it have been a multi year contract for a sub optimal PG? Why hamstring your future when you’re already missing two starters?


Clutchfans has lost all ability to rationally consider the entire situation before totally ******** on their supposedly favorite team.

 

20 20 hindsight. I don’t recall anyone in media last year questioning the rockets core or future. Even with Jalen laying an egg in the playoffs sports analysts and non Houston fans were crazy about our future and talent.

One bad season. ONE. And yall are done.

I don’t like calling out people for being fake fans. But some of yall are absolutely fake fans. You want Ws but you don’t want to enjoy the ride. You’re chasing banners. I’m chasing memories. I’ve said it before, my all time favorite teams were the ones we had injuries and had to fight for even compete. That 2009 Lakers series. Those Tmac/Yao teams with no role players. I don’t remember as many people wanting to blow it up back then. Because we were true fans of the Houston Rockets team.

 

Other teams can watch Sengun play too (fyi).

 

I never said blow up the roster, but I would argue Sengun is showing he's not the player we should build around...there are some limitations to Sengun's game that he can't just take over a game.
Solution: trade Sengun/Jabari/DFS for Giannis/Bobby Portis
Let's see if teams will try to trap KD with Giannis in the game...also, Giannis finishes much better in the paint than Sengun and is a better defender

 

I don’t know how adding another non shooter helps our spacing issues. And I guess we will just ignore Giannis’ age and injury history. Roll the dice like we did with Kd.

 

First, Steven Adams is not a starter.
Secondly, we don't know which version of FVV we'll get back after his ACL tear. Prior to his injury, he was on a decline from an athletic ability standpoint.
Thirdly, Giannis is a generational talent...if you have the opportunity to acquire an unique player like that you make the move!
Sengun is a good player, but not generational.
Jabari is a good role player, but he's not even top 20 in 3pt%...why are you overvaluing these so called "core players"? I value our current young core enough to flip them for a game-changing type of player like KD or Giannis.
I wouldn't trade Sengun or Jabari for just anyone because they're stinking it up in the playoffs, but if you can flip them 2 for Giannis especially "if" we lose to the Lakers without Luka and AR-15 then YOU MUST MAKE THAT TRADE

 

KD is not the problem. If Sengun would dominate his matchup against Ayton or Jaxon Hayes then we would move KD to weak side wing and let Sengun cook.
Due to Sengun sucking balls, we're relying on KD to go get buckets even if they're trapping him.
I know if we had Giannis ain't no way Ayton winning that matchup...don't you remember that Finals run with Giannis vs Ayton???

 

You forgot about Dillon and a lottery pick.

 

Actually, I pushed back a lot on the idea of us trading for KD in the run-up to us trading for him, and I know at least a few other posters here did too. I got onboard with it when it actually happened partly because the price was lower and more reasonable than I'd thought it would be and partly because I got swept up in the hype and wanted to believe it would work, but I said many times here leading up us acquiring him that I didn't think we should be trading for any age 30+ stars, let alone one in his late 30s, and that I did not believe acquiring KD would push us into contender status, so it was a pointless and potentially destructive move.

I don't see the point in calling people fake fans... most of the same people who are upset with our performance this season are people who also watched through some or all of the Silas era. It's not so much being a fair weather fan as wanting your team to be on a trajectory toward winning a championship, I think, and this season feels like a step backward in that regard, not forward.

 

Adams: He was at times last season and to start this season, but still, a significant rotation player AND a full fledged starter in FVV, who happened to be our only real point guard.

FVV: I don't disagree, we don't know which FVV we will get back. But we know what he would have likely provided this season had he not been hurt, which is my point -- we are a decent point guard away from being back to contention.

I don't disagree Sengun likely isn't generational. He's still a very good player who has shown improvement every season as an overall player and dominated in international competition including meaningful games against some of the NBA's best.

Do you consider Jokic generational? I definitely didn't when he entered the league. I do now. Can Sengun get there? I wouldn't say it's impossible. Did

Giannis: A generational talent who relies entirely on athleticism, can't shoot, and regularly misses 10-20 games a season. I'm not trying to slander him. Just concerned he doesn't actually solve our problems and we lose depth and future flexibility and competitive years trying to force the action right now. We did it once with KD and it didn't pay off.

Run it back or trade KD. Don't gut your future for a desperate attempt to win with an imbalanced, top heavy roster. Tmac/Yao 2.0.

 

Which is why it's wild. You put up with THAT for multiple years, but after two consecutive seasons with SIGNIFICANT improvement from basically everyone on the team followed by ONE "bad" season (that still resulted in 50+ wins) and you want to pull the plug and declare everyone from the coach to the owner as incompetent and destroyers of our beloved franchise....that's ridiculous. Those people are irrational. The ones who basically say if you can't beat whatever dynasty is currently reigning then just tank until you can. Those are fake fans. Those are people who just want the highs. They don't want to see the journey. They don't want to see redemption stories.

 

I'm not at all denying Sengun has been ass this series. He wasn't all season and these problems aren't new to the post season. Even when Sengun was cooking, we still had problems because we didn't have reliable shooters on the outside and KD still was loose with his handle in space. This swarm KD defense has been happening basically since the 2nd month of the season.