Only thing the owner is focusing on is stacking his pockets...Fertitta still in the hole after purchasing the Rockets in 2017
they traded for KD too soon. Cedric Coward / Dillon Brooks/ Jalen Green last year would have had a similar result (first round exit or play - in) but a lot better feeling for the future i think. Hopefully they can get 50 cents back on the dollar for their trade. Get me a pick in the 10-14 range and/or a younger player who has struggled to meet expectations in return. Scoot Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe, Jaime Jaquez Jr, Tyler Herro or Brandon Podziemski are realistic targets. Get KD to ask out and get a list of teams he'd like to join.
OKC moves on from mistakes as previously mentioned. They had a treasure trove of assets and not enough roster spots. Presti has had a lot more cracks at it.
I used to legit be one of the "nah, they'd never do that" kind of guys until Wemby and Flagg. Now I just look back at so many drafts like they're sus. Way too many players seem to go either where they grew up, exactly where they want to go, or exactly where the league seems to want them.
I'm honestly annoyed that Stone is still the GM. Stone is a terrible and uncreative GM. All he knows how to do is either tank and sell hope, or go 'star-hunting.' It's like he does his scouting and plans his moves by reading Bleacher Report, SB Nation, FanSided, etc. and then goes from there. He doesn't know how to make moves at the margins, or make underrated moves that pay off later. We have an enormous of amount of evidence by now to prove that Stone is bad at his job. It's not hard to improve a bad 22 win team. All he had to do was add competent veterans to the roster and select high draft picks as a result of being bad. However, it's extremely difficult to improve a 52 win team into a championship team. This is the hardest part of the rebuild and I don't think Stone is talented enough to do it.
I like Ajay Mitchell's game a lot, and if Reed was with OKC he would look a lot better too. Presti knows how to find talent, and he rarely puts them in a position to fail. If Ajay was with the Rockets, we would all be complaining about him too, because I doubt Ime knows how to use him right. OKC and San Antonio develops young players at lightning speed. Rest of the NBA is barely catching up.
Presti is really good but also went on a pretty bad or questionable stretch basically starting with the Harden trade until fleecing the Clippers. His only stand out moves in that stretch were drafting Adams, maybe trading for Jerami Grant (though the traded pick ended up being Maxey), and trading Ibaka for Oladipo and a pick he used on Sabonis. And even then he sold low on Oladipo and Sabonis for what looked likely to be a one-year rental of Paul George. If George doesn't somewhat unexpectedly re-sign I'm not sure Presti still has a job. Main thing Stone has done outside of a great trade/pick to get Sengun and maybe signing Brooks to a deal everyone said was terrible and ended up being great is avoiding catastrophic mistakes. Green over Mobley or Barnes and maybe Sheppard over Castle (though I don't think Castle would be looked at the same if he was playing here) are the only huge misses you could really second guess. He's mainly just avoided the crippling trade (i.e. picking the Nets package over Ben Simmons for Harden) or terrible extension/signing that takes a lot to undo.
OKC never wavered from the James Harden debacle. Even as OKC traded an NBA MVP and all time great in Harden and netted a Steven Adams, which was an extremely lopsided trade in retrospect. Steven Adam is amazing, but he’s still just a role player. They never flinched from getting a goose egg in pursuit of a championship with Kevin Durant, Westbrook, and Harden. Credit OKC ownership for sticking with their GM, and now they are the undisputed best team in Basketball with no conceivable end in sight. That team is so stacked with droves of assets in its rear pocket. Change for the sake of change is illogical. Nevertheless if there is quantifiable data, you follow the data.
It’s fun watching him hoop freely. He knows that if he throws up trash like an up and under off the glass that someone is gonna be there to clean it up. Our guys are scared sh*tless to be creative and find their games.
You know its not the same owner right? Okc is successful now because they went from a penny pinching tilman owner to a group that is willing to spend on the team
I did not know that I did not keep up with their ownership I would guess the Harden trade would not have happened under the current regime Rocket River
The same ownership group has owned the team since purchasing the Sonics. Clay Bennett has been the chairman of the group the entire time. What changed?
We didn’t miss. Our PD sucks. Mitchell: 38th pick Wiggins: 55th pick Dort: undrafted Joe: waiver wire Heat really crank out these players (but also part of why they’re stuck in the middle (no tanking)) Jaime Jaquez Jr.: 18th pick Nikola Jovic: 27th pick Josh Richardson: 40th pick Pelle Larsson: 44th pick Tyler Johnson: undrafted Duncan Robinson: undrafted Kendrick Nunn: undrafted Gabe Vincent: undrafted Max Strus: undrafted (waived by Bulls) Caleb Martin: undrafted (waived by Hornets) Haywood Highsmith: undrafted (waived by Philly) Hassan Whiteside: turned into productive player “None of those guys are stars.” … Never said they were. Find productive guys on the margins.
