I admit Castle is better than I thought. His shooting is looking better than just a few months ago. So the question still is there: Is the Rockets problem talent evaluation or player development? Likely both. While young guys picked by other teams are thriving, the ones we picked are stuck in the mud. It's not just that we are unlucky. Sure it's nobody's fault in missing Cade and Wemby. But even the lesser prospects are inferior to the other teams' role player prospects.
Reed needs to become a Stockton or CP3 level a**hole if he has any chance of making it at his size. He’s just a bit too timid. I’m not sure he has it in him. his reaction to LeBron’s shove was promising, but we need him to be like that all the time.
I think it's much more of a talent evaluation issue. The sample size is very small, but we can possibly judge talent evaluation based on our draft selections that were intended for us but never put on a Rockets uniform like Jeremy Lamb, De'Anthony Melton, and Donte Greene. Those selections were so long ago and were under a different front office and owner though. The Spurs drafted Dragic and Scola and they turned out quite good despite never being in San Antonio's developmental system, so it appears their scouting department is much more dialed in. In fact, those two guys played for us early in their careers. And San Antonio drafted Kawhi one spot after we drafted Marcus Morris. It's hard to believe the gap in talent between those two is solely because they have better player development and Morris hardly played here anyway. We've only drafted two all-stars in the past 30 years: Yao and Sengun. OKC drafted three MVPs in consecutive years. It's not surprising that they and San Antonio tend to find gems later in the draft.
The Rockets have 5 of the top 60 or so young players. The average team has 2. The Rockets problem is that their best young guys both had subpar years this year. Sengun and Amen both had developed a toon before this season. I'd say Amen developed a lot this year as well, but was over-taxed on the offensive side of the ball this year.
Number of good young players is directly related to how many first round picks they've had in the past 5 years. It doesn't really tell how well they draft or develop who they draft. Amen's third season was disappointing. The curve flattened quite a bit. His scoring is up, but his efficiency is down. His rebounding is down. His defense is arguably down. We might say that it's because he's given a new role. But isn't playing a guy out of position a kind of development problem? Sengun has pretty much flatlined since his second season. Jabari has steadily improved but the improvement is marginal since his second season. Tari is as inconsistent as ever. He has not grown any smarter on decision making either. Reed has improved a lot. But compared to his own draft class, guys who were picked after him like Castle, Mitchell, McCain, all look more impressive. You can even say that Buzelis, Ware, and Clingon are at least as good as him.
All fair. this is probably a little bit of a hopium and copium combo but Shepherd has a couple unique abilities. and there is definitely a historical president for smaller physically under developed prospects like that blossoming a bit later. I do think there is more runway for him to develop than a lot of people that we would rate ahead of him right now. But we will have to see you and I understand where everybody is coming from
Let's be clear - ANYONE will look better next to a generational talent. Is OKC just THAT good at drafting and happened to score All Star level players with both Jaylen Williams with the 12th pick a few years ago and Ajay Mitchel with the 38th pick last year.....or do truly great players like Shai or Wemby make it easier for everyone around them? FWIW, I wanted Houston to draft Castle - thought he had higher upside than Reed but contextually I understand why drafting a potential generational shooter made more sense at the time for a team lacking shooting who need players to stretch defenses to make Alpi more playable. I don't think it was a huge miss or poor talent evaluation - the real problem there was we drafted to fit a team need of what made the most sense to pair with Sengun because we were convinced Alpi was going to continue to get better...and he hasn't necessarily. I believe if we had been solely focused on highest ceiling without trying to fit roster need, we would have taken Castle. ...and by the way - Castle is still a pretty bad shooter. He is shooting 33% but he often is taking those wide open. The average NBA players makes shots at a 11-13% higher clip when unguarded - and Castle has a LOT of those opportunities because it's better than giving Wemby space or letting Champagnie, Johnson, Vassell, or Barnes shoot. He drops down to the mid 20% range when a defender is anywhere remotely around him(within 6ft). Its funny how the pressure to hit open shots as a guard changes immensely when you have a big who is a 3 level scorer rather than a 1 or 2 level scorer. San Antonio has 3 guards who aren't great shooters(Fox, Castle, and Harper) and it doesn't seem to matter because they have enough of a rotation of 3 level scorers that they can exploit gaps.
OKC has a ton of picks. People remember the ones that land. I think there is some of SGA making the OKC players look better, but they are very good too. I think Wemby does a better job of making these easier for his teammates than SGA.
EPM isn't perfect, but I think this is a pretty good view of how I see the Rockets development. I think the Rockets having so many good young players is partly Stone being a master at creating a ton of picks, the picks being averagish for their spots, and huge 1st to 2nd year improvements. Amen has had a huge leap from how he was before the allstar break his rookie year. Sengun has improved a lot. Monster leap from 1st to 2nd year. His offense stagnated after his 3rd year, but he improved a lot defenseively his 4th year. The wheels fell off this year. Reed...similar to Amen in 1st to 2nd year leap. Tari....injury has kept his EPM down. He's had some impressive runs including a pretty good playoffs. JSJ...slow start, but decent jump 1st to 2nd year. Slow improvement until this season. This season's EPM is hurt a bit by the playoffs. Most players do not have as big of leaps 1st to 2nd years as Amen, Reed, and Sengun. JSJ's looks above average as well. This season, despite all the hoopla about FVV holding back development, was a horrible year for the young guys as a group. I'm expecting a huge rebound year for Sengun next season.
SGA makes his teammates better, but they are capable of standing on their own. OKC still has a positive point differential when he sits which is impressive considering how big of a role he plays. In comparison, Denver's rating absolutely tanks when Jokic sits. They are 100% reliant on the Joker. When SGA missed time a few years ago Jalen Williams' averages went up without a decrease in efficiency, suggesting he doesn't need SGA's gravity to perform.
no he won’t. Stop saying dumb shi+. Just pairing Sheppard with a dominant player doesn’t magically give him new skills. Castle played in game 4 without Victor and still dropped 20. Avg 18 pts 7 reb and 6 ast without VW in regular season. Sheppard still shot lousy this playoffs and lost the ball in game 3 in the last seconds.
actually you can if his jumper keeps trending up. one can also easily assert that him and harper’s ceiling is much higher than anyone in rockets.
actually, in this playoff series, the team has a better positive point differential when he sits, lol. and ofc, therefore it is apparent that metric alone can never say much. but they literally have sga 2.0 in the bench: aj mitchell who was picked late in the first round, who would be a superstar in this houston team (in the post kd era)
Shepherd needs a lot of work.......on another team. The right setting will enhance his game. He doesn't fit with this coach or this team.
Probably mostly true, just like any player, they'd do much better as part of a serious franchises with a real coach.
