The NBA is seriously going to change things up to end tanking as we know it. It is in the benefit for the health of the game. As a result there is no need to fully "blow it up". At the end of the day, the point of sports is to be enjoying, somewhat inspirational, and at moments awe inspiring for their fans. Yes we all want the Rockets to win a title, but if they bring in a better scheme/coaching staff to get a team that does that I would still be happy to watch this team. I did love the Rudy era because Hakeem is favorite Rocket of all time, but the Adelman era gave me as many if not more great memories. Even if frustrating to watch at times, the JVG, McHale, and D'Antoni eras all had great moments that live on. Even the JVG era seems bad to some in retrospect, but it made sense to run offense that way in that era of basketball. The Silas era stunk. Yes it made sense to play the rigged draft game that way, but it one of the worst era's to experience. Udoka's has been nearly as bad, because there has never appeared to be a plan/scheme compared to the rest of the basketball world. Long story short. If the Rocket stink so much that they get a high pick, so be it. But I don't want to experience another forced period of futility.
Not really. It just means you need to get the right basketball minds advising and speaking into the owner's ear.
I wonder if it would make much difference if the main players are traded if Ime remains as the head coach. The offense will just be the same, give the ball to FVV or KD, and take it from there. Even great shooters need to find rhythm during the game, but with the way Ime coaches with his rotations and lack of a system, even good shooters will not provide much difference. The team needs one or two more shooters, but they have to play in a system where they can make full use of their skills. The iso offense of Ime is not a system but more of a default for a coach who does not have the mental acumen to create a system to make use of his players' varied skills, and the competence to make adjustements in game. Giannis is not the answer at all since he has not done anything to lead the Bucks to anything for a number of years now. He is a one-dimensional player who depends on athleticism, while his body has not been cooperating. It is foolish to trade for him at this stage.
I think this coaching staff and front office have taken this team as far as they can go. They need a new group to take them to the next level. Will that happen? Not a chance because the current staff has a built-in excuse of losing two important pieces to injury.
The same handwriting is there. I agree, it is no use to blow up the roster times and times again without first blowing up coaching staff and blowing up management.
Basically you are dealing with an Autocratic Regime that is also incompetent, orange skinned and obstinate. No interest in free flowing Offense and Creativity.
You are not competing with OKC or SAS with that, you likely don't even get past a Lakers team w Luka and AR. You are proposing a light retool, if that is all this team needed, they would have been able to beat bad teams like the Bulls, Kings, Jazz, and several other tanking teams this season. If all they needed were a couple of role players, they would be able to easily handle a Lakers team with 41 year old Lebron as their only notable player. OKC and SAS both are young with assets, they will get better, you are not going to compete by taking a small step when they are already so far ahead and going to be moving even further ahead. The Rockets record actually made them look better than they actually are, so many teams were intentionally losing this year. This entire team and system is broken, you need a new GM that knows how to correctly build through the draft.
This is ridiculous, great defensive role players are not a dime in a dozen. OKC would have a hard time finding another Dort, Cason again, even Presti, maybe it takes him 2 years instead of 5......
Yeah. The 08-09 team was my favorite. We took the mighty Lakers to 7 games without McGrady and Mutombo and Yao was down halfway through the series. The previous year was also fun with the 22-game winning streak. The Yao and TMac injuries were painful. But those guys fought hard and gave more than they had.
and TMac said in an interview while the series was happening that the Lakers would win. I never forgave him for that. That’s why TMac will never be a real rocket.
No reason at all to trade Jabari - he fits on literally any team in the league and the contract is "fair." On trading Amen - part of the value is that he's got one more year on the rookie deal (Cheap), you don't need a lot of returning salary to get a deal done and can demand more draft assets instead of a hodgepodge of players and matching salary it takes to match a larger deal. I don't see him getting a max deal, just not with the shooting issues, which I don't really believe will change much. Not to the degree it's going to take for teams to defend him differently - even at ~33% teams are going to play well off of him and invite him to take those shots. Spacing is just too important .... IF I had my franchise guy and that was a perimeter oriented player along with that mythical Stretch 5 we've been asking for, for over a decade and still don't have - because you could let Amen roam inside and hide the shooting issues. But we have no franchise guy or stretch 5. No sense in keeping Amen in that case, just turn him into chances to acquire that guy. I'm really wondering what this new lottery is going to look like. I'm almost afraid it allows the league to manipulate the system even more than before. (Looking at you Dallas trade Luka to LA and get the #1 on the slimmest of odds). I hate the idea of not being able to pick in the top 4 in back to back years - especially if it's a pick acquired from another team. I'd be Ok with a team not being able to pick in the top 4 with it's own pick in back to back years .... just have to treat acquired picks differently. That's a GM doing a great job, not a tank issue. I don't want to see teams penalized for doing good work.
Come to think of it, the mighty Lakers were not that mighty, if someone had like the Pistons 2004 Approach with two scorers...... It was all about Teambuilding, I am sure a pairing of Kobe and Pau was beatable if Presti was active back then.
Exactly let new management figure out what to do with the team. Don’t let stone and Ime make anymore transactions
17-18 team was historically good there was never a regular season game we played where we couldn’t win if we didn’t want to iirc we rested the last 10 or so games of the season
I don’t get how we can blow it up and get back basically guaranteed lottery picks. I don’t know which teams want to throw away their future lottery picks for our star players, but they would have to be absolutely desperate.
There is no need to blow it up next season because the contracts of Adams, FVV and DFS will expire at the end of next season. At the very least Stone ensured we didnt commit long money to any old dude so we will have capspace in 2027, along with those Suns and Nets assets. We should give the team one last try since they were designed to do so. If they still suck at 2026 I am ok with retanking and starting everything from scratch.
I'm telling you guys out of pure desperation we're getting Freak. If Mikal Bridges got 5 firsts we're losing Sheppard, Sengun, salary to match, and at least 3 firsts.
12 assists 11 turnovers through 3 quarters. That's...astounding. No ball movement, it's all hero ball.
