Taking advantage of a new owner who thinks they’re the smartest guy in the room is the best thing any team can do
That was after trading PG to the Clippers. He's been on a great stretch since then, though still with some misses or moves the jury is still out on (traded Quickley and Jaden McDaniels for Poku, trading Sengun, drafting Tre Mann right before Jalen Johnson, trading 3 picks for Dieng, drafting Topic). I was pointing out that if you look at his tenure from Oct 27, 2012 (the day he traded Harden) until July 9, 2019 (the day before he traded Paul George), it's mediocre or even kind of bad. I'd even say what Stone has done as GM has probably been better than Presti was over that ~7 year stretch. If PG doesn't defy expectations and resign in OKC my guess is he would've been fired within a couple of years. But that gamble worked out and he's had some good luck and made some great moves since then just like at the start of his tenure with Seattle/OKC.
Presti has a lot of misses, but also a lot of absolute hits Rockets barely have any hits, but have all the misses
Nah sorry, i think you're in the minority there, I think he genuinely is right at the top of the GM tier list tbh
Yep! My coach use to always say, MJ never has to ask for playingtime. Meaning, if you're good, it'll show!
No GM nails 100% of their moves or draft picks. The question shouldn't be why he traded so many picks for Dieng or drafted Topic, but how he had so many freaking picks to begin with. And Presti did not have complete control in the Harden situation. Any GM with flexibility would have at least let Harden play his fourth year into RFA rather than trade him for KMart and a pick, especially after making the finals, but ownership was extremely cheap at that point and drew a hard line in the sand. Presti's moves make sense in context. KD leaving in free agency put him in a tough position. He still had an MVP level star in his prime in Russ so rebuilding was almost out of the question, but he lacked the talent to compete. He tried retooling, which the fans appreciated, but didn't sacrifice the future for it. Even that risky PG trade you mentioned included no future picks despite PG being a 27 year old all-NBA player. Once their ceiling was apparent, he went into a full rebuild which has been a masterclass. Presti's built two contenders from scratch. At no point during his tenure has anyone ever said OKC has no future. His team is always in the position to compete or improve. Even smack dab in the middle of your timeline, 15-16, they were one win away from going to the Finals. If that's a mediocre or bad GM performance, I'll take it any day.
I think he's the best GM in the league. Also objectively looking at that 7 year stretch his moves were mediocre to bad on the whole. I'm more making the point that there's a lot of luck involved in this. If Portland goes with their gut and drafts Durant first and Presti grabs Oden second who knows what his tenure looks like. Like if you dropped Presti in as GM with the Kings and gave him complete autonomy, he's probably not winning a title in the next decade plus (if ever) without getting really lucky. He also almost certainly wouldn't have traded Hali for Sabonis or drafted Bagley over Luka if he'd been with them over the last decade.
You are correct about ownership. However I was meaning Sam Presti, who has been the GM since 2007. He was the one who got mocked for trading away Harden. And ownership groups have stuck it out with him.
Jalen Alpi Garuba Josh Amen Jabari Ty Ty Reed Adam Silver says f*ck you Houston. Go b*tch somewhere else with your rigging bullsh*t.
yeah we messed up big time, but still we dont have a franchise guy like Wemby, nobody on our team is good enough, u can accumulate enough good players but when playoff comes, u need an alpha, sadly we dont
We hit on Sengun, hit on Tari. Hit on Amen and Jabari. Reed would actually be a hit under a good dev coach. Hit on JD Davidson and Josh Okogie. We missed on Jalen, Tyty, Garuba and Josh Christopher. All those were in his first 2 years drafting in the rebuild. He was still learning.
Oh really? I'm not so sure. Everyone looks better & performs better when surrounded by greater players & supported by a great coach, of which we have none.
Houston has an incompetent coaching staff and development team. Reed might have been at another tier elsewhere as well.
People still don't get it. The secret sauce is that OKC has had 36, yes Thirty Six, rookies on it's roster since the Paul George trade. Yes, they have been good at drafting and developing but they also take way more chances on young players than really anyone else. So, they have ALOT of misses. But, also alot of hits. The rockets did play a bunch of rookies during those first few tanking years but they stopped once we hit the years we didn't own our 1st rd picks. The absolute biggest error of Stone and the Rockets org is that they never leveraged their cap space to trade for negative contracts during the tanking phase. Instead of getting win now guys like FVV/Brooks and signing end of the bench guys to big contracts as potential trade filler, we should have traded for guys like Horford when he was on his big deal or Jordan Poole to get 1st rd picks back in return.
I can add to this, where one picks in the lottery matters. 1- 3ish potential superstar, 4-6ish potential all-star, 7-14 real great players. It comes down to prospects versus players
I cannot help but wonder .. . . how much is on the players and how much is on the organization Our G-League teams seems to always be good but they come up and suck Rocket River
We didn't get lucky with the ping pong balls to get Cade or Wemby, but one of the things that frustrates me the most about our team is that they don't seem to do well with second round picks, undrafted players or on the margins with free agent signings. You look at a team like the Thunder and guys like Mitchell (2nd round pick, Dort (undrafted), Wiggins (2nd round pick), Joe (waiver wire) are a big part of their team. The Celtics made it to the 2nd seed this year with guys like Queta, Schierman, Pritchard, Hugo Gonzalez, Ron Harper Jr and Luka Garza as big contributors. In San Antonio, you have Julian Champagnie, an undrafted guy they picked up off of waiver wires when Philadelphia waived him. The Pistons are playing Dannis Jenkins big minutes, a guy who started on a 2-way deal with them. The closest we can come to these kinds of additions is Jae'Sean Tate. And all of this is before we get to teams that grand slammed with free agent signings or trades like the Hawks picking up NAW for what we paid Dorian Finna-Miss. Or the Blazers stealing Deni Avidja from the Wizards.
