Is the difference between us and Detroit really the #1 pick?

OK fair enough, I hope you have fun with the family. Genuinely, there's no hatred or anger at all from my side (notice, I'm never saying "you all don't know ball" just sharing actual statistics and shot charts that back my argument) I just think you're putting WAY too much stock into one of the most limited players to be tagged with "superstar potential" in league history. Like genuinely the only people with shooting profiles like Amen I can find are backup centers from the 90's. I wish it wasn't the case, but the dude SCREAMS "defensive specialist, not much on offense." I can't bank/bet on somebody improving more than 10% from almost every spot on the court to hit league average as being any kind of star anything at all.

 

We drafted a bunch of bricklayers

Combined with bad to mediocre coaching and no player development

good lord

 

They look totally different under a new coach and small tweaks. Hope this helps.

 

Next season is still hopeless.

The idiots Ime and Stone will make us like joke again.

See you guys in 2017-2018 season.

 

i think u have to try to mold Reed into a pg - ow he'll never be anything beyond a role player off the bench...
I dont think that u could endure his defensive shortcomings from a sg - u gotta bring more to the table than that if u are Reed... so he needs to develop those pg skills...
Let Amen be a sf - thats his ideal role... hopefully he develops a decent mid-range...

 

Yeah I think Amen needs to be pinned to the wing, he'll never be a good enough shooter to be a PG. Like you say though, for Reed it really is PG or bust, let's hope he figures out some tricks on the defensive end or he could be our worst draft bust tbh.

 

Biggest difference is they do not have Ime or Dickerson. Either one of them would poison the well for them and we had both.

 

Stone and the org taking Green and then Reed.....signing Ime to big bucks...not moving on from FVV, paying him again....giving up too much for KD.
SMH
Our situation is still salvageable, but....
And, I hate to say it....
Not with these yahoos at the helm.

 

I think you're being too kind, here's the actual track record:
Drafted Green #2, bust, could've had Scottie Barnes and got a much better player
Drafted Jabroni #3 "generational shooter" who struggled to shoot league average from 3 - the only skill he's good at
Drafted Amen #4 "generational athlete" who has almost zero fundamentals and is also a generationally bad shooter from everywhere on the court outside of 3ft under the basket.
Drafted Reed #3 "generational shooter" who isn't big enough, fast enough, athletic enough or strong enough to be playable most of the time (41 inch vert? LOL not in his wildest fantasies)
Put the rebuild focus solely behind the softest bigman with the worst Only Fans around, like a terrible shooting Eric Gordon whose only moves are twerking, twirling and then twirling his finger when he misses.
Signed FVV and kept paying him WAY over his league worth
Traded our main culture guy for locker-room cancer KD
Drafted the r****d who cheated on Nia Long with a skinny ass white chick
Loaded the roster with about 500 generic wing players with duplicate skill sets
Did nothing to improve the piss-poor situation this trade deadline even though it was clear to everyone and their nana how much he'd ****ed up so far.
At least Stone's got a hot wife I guess, until Ime prolly ****s her too, just because why the **** wouldn't he?

 

We got punk'd by the handicapped Lakers and they are getting swept by the Thunder this series.

We are so far behind the Thunder that most fans here have no clue. Our front office and Stone fans really think this team is just one FVV away from competing with OKC. If we're lucky enough, we'll meet them in the playoffs the next two years so that delusion can quickly end.

I'm not going to compare our team to the Eastern teams because they live in a completely different landscape with so many bad teams there, it's difficult to determine if the 60 wins Pistons are an actually real contender. All I know is our competition is in the West and we are nowhere close to the top teams here. Even if we somehow pulled off a Giannis trade in the off-season, I doubt we're deep enough to keep up with Spurs and Thunder in a playoff series.

 

Being envious of Detroit that got a #1 should not even be something people concern themselves with, look at how good the Thunder are. They have a legitimate chance of winning 4 out of the next 5 years, they are essentially what the Warriors were a decade ago, and the Spurs before that. The Rockets are not going to sneak in and win one against them, they need to figure out how to build a team like the Warriors and Thunder have done.

If it takes resetting a few years, then so be it. The Warriors and Thunder did not have several top picks to build their team either, in fact the Thunder had a team like this w KD, Russ, Harden, Jeff Green, and they won nothing. Not saying you cant win one with a top player / draft pick, but we are facing dynasties built by people a lot smarter than anyone we have in Houston. Maybe OKC falls off one year, and the Spurs get their ring, but they have zero chance even if we added Giannis for free to beat them. The whole org needs to be reset. This Detroit team will lose in 4 or 5 at best against the Thunder if they even make the finals. .

 

Cunningham is no doubt their main engine and we don’t have that kind of scorer and playmaker on the Rockets. Detroit also doesn’t play through their big man and I think this is the major difference. And Ausar isn’t Amen. Not as good a scorer or playmaker and not a within the top 3 scorers or go to guys on that team.

Pistons play completely different than the Rockets due to personnel. Imagine Detroit’s big 3 was Cunningham, Sengun, Amen. How far do you think Detroit would go? Or would they have the same exact spacing issues.

 

They were definitely stacked, but I’m addressing the idea that if you don’t have a generational franchise player - like a Wemby - you can’t win a title.

IMO neither Tatum or Brown were top 5 players. Maybe at their absolute highest peak they’re top 3 for a season here or there. They’re not perennial mvp favorites or anything.

They just built a very talented, deep roster that clicks together tactically and mentally. I know you might argue we don’t have even a Tatum or Brown, but that’s still the model most suited to us unless/until we find an MVP level player.

 

West vs East dynamics as well.

 

Every championship team has a little luck. Udoka’s Finals run included a bunch of injury ravaged opponents and he still couldn’t get it done, IIRC he needed 7 games in 2 rounds before getting to the finals. He played drop coverage on Steph Curry for long stretches despite having mobile bigs on the roster. His team was torching the warriors from 3 and he kept forcing them to battle in the paint. Jimmy Butler missed games last playoffs. Lakers without Doncic and mostly without Reaves healthy. How much luck does a person need? He screws himself. No one’s fault.

Mazzulla is brilliant. Winning 56 games this season was more impressive than even winning the title. Without Tatum, he bad a better record against the West than we did. Better record overall. Starting guys like Pritchard, Hauser, Queta. Super impressive. He is tough as f*ck on his players and they play great defense so there’s not much Udoka can do that he can’t.

Just not comparable. Udoka has done everything he can for us. We need our Mazzulla now to carry over the defense and improve the offense.

 

i’m so confused. If he underachieved 3 of 4 years how is that not a measure of his ability? If he lost to another lower seeded team this year, how is that not a failure? Coaches and teams aren’t judged solely on regular season wins. The fact he couldn’t and didn’t take this team further this year against a lower seeded sixer team who has been up and down this year shows us his ability as a coach. And Embiid didn’t play game 2.

Mazzula still has yet to be able to win a championship without that great 23-24 roster, which supports my argument that players shape a team’s style of play and the sets they run. And their abilities and chemistry determine how well they perform. Mazzula wouldn’t be able to make a Sengun centric offense with a non shooting Amen work either. The problem is personnel.

 

Replace any of our lottery picks with Cade and we're in the 2nd round... so yeh.

 

The difference between the 2 teams is as simple as Cade vs Jalen.

 

Nah, you also need to do:
Duren vs Sengun
Harris vs Jabroni
Ausar played in his proper position/role - Amen shoehorned into a position he has no skill for
Any coach vs Ime

 

not if we still have Sengun and Amen together. It’s about fit and synergy. If we had Cade we may probably would make it work with Amen and Durant but not both Sengun and Amen and maybe not with Sengun, Cade, D unless Sengun isn’t a hub they run their offense through and a tertiary option