Bigger Miss - Green over Mobley or Reed over Castle?

Castle for sure. Bigger gap, more impactful, worse draft philosophy in terms of the athleticism being overlooked.

When discussing retro active changes before 2023. You could’ve also ended up with Bilal Coulibaly or Anthony Black instead of #4 pick Amen Thompson and made things worse.

Early reputation on inefficient young guards sticks like crazy with internet basketball guys.

In the court of public opinion it’s better for the general public to have barely heard of a guard before they were 25 years old like Ayo Dunsunmu, Nickeil Alexander Walker, Jalen Brunson, or Austin Reaves than for them to have tried and failed at big responsibility in the NBA when they were college age like Jalen Green, Andrew Wiggins, RJ Barrett, Scoot Henderson, etc.

Castle and Jalen Green’s issues are inherently more fixable with age and experience compared to some of Reed Sheppard and Evan Mobley’s physical limitations.

 

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What are Evan Mobley’s physical limitations? Mobley needs to add some strength, but he has the frame to do it. He’s no Wemby, but he’s not far behind Chet. It’ll never happen, but I’d trade Sengun and reed for Mobley in a heartbeat. He has turned his motor way up in the playoffs.

 

I think it's Green instead of Scottie Barnes rather than Green instead of Mobley tbh, I think Mobley would be an even worse mistake because we'd have paid that dude a supermax whilst not having any other players or space for players to put around him. Reed also still has a chance to turn it around (which we REALLY better hope he does tbh.)

 

Green over Barnes.

I think Mobley was legitimately not an option cause his daddy wanted him nowhere near KPJ (if the rumor was true) which makes sense in hindsight. Besides, Mobley is much too soft for my liking.

 

Reed on the spurs would be scary, his biggest weakness right now is his defense and if he had Wemby behind him it wouldn’t seem like such a flaw. The amount of easy buckets he would also get Wemby with the spacing he creates would also be killer.

 

Reed over Castle for sure. Mobley is not a franchise player (in fact he is soft AF in lots of playoff games), Castle is.

On the other hand, Green is not a bust but someone fails to live up to fans expectation to be a franchise player, Reed is a total bust.

Reed can't defend, can't organize, can't dribble, only good at shooting, and he ends up 30% + 29% in the playoffs.

 

One of my personal pet peeves is I think people read too much into playoff results when talking about individual players. Meaning not even the player's production, just whether their team succeeded in a tough series or not and whether the player in question looked decent or crapped the bed in the process. Mobley in these playoffs is averaging 17 and 8 with 2 blocks on 55% / 36% shooting. That's fine for a #3 option, but aside from the 3P% ticking up to league average (on below-average shot volume) it's basically just what he was giving them in the regular season, stepped down a tad bit for the higher level of competition.

My hot take about Mobley is that Amen is already a better offensive player in every category except jump shooting, and Mobley is still a below-average jump shooter, a guy where you're very happy if a possession ends with him taking a semi-contested 3Per in the playoffs. I think the two of them are very close on defense, Mobley's rim protection might edge out Amen's on-ball defense for overall value. And the consensus around here lately has been that Amen is not even worthy of max money, let alone supermax money. (I know you do think he's worth the max so I'm not going at you specifically with that part.)

Mobley has one good, not even spectacular, just very good game 7 and suddenly he's worthy of being one of the highest-paid players in the NBA? I'm not seeing it.

That contract, for me, is toxic. I personally think Amen needs to get better (and I think will do that) to be worthy of max money. I'm certainly not paying supermax + positive trade assets for a guy who might already be a finished product and is right around Amen's level as an overall player.

 

I'm pretty sure Spurs won't draft him if Rockets draft Castle, they probabaly go with Clingan. But even if Reed is on Spurs, I don't see him having the ability to reach Julian Champagnie’s level, and Champagnie is 6′ 7″. He might ends up with another Bryn Forbes

 

Even at the time I wouldnt have drafted someone from Ignite. I am a big believer in fundamentals and experience in a system.

 

wasn't a power ranking, just a stream of consciousness while staying in order.

I cannot tell you what would happen if Maxey was a Rocket. I do believe he was gettable from everything I knew at the time. Morey was not given a shot to counter at the end of the line because the organization wanted to stick it to Daryl.

What I can tell you is I would take that door right now. I don't see a path to the Rockets winning a championship now. Maybe Maxey as a Rocket means Wemby isn't a Spur. Maybe Simmons works out and doesn't have his career torpedo (probably not)

 

The Spurs had interest in Reed Sheppard.

 

Morey did not include Maxey in his last offer to Houston, but he also expected the Rockets let him make one last offer..... instead of just taking the Nets offer. There were a couple reports right after the deal that the Sixers planned on increasing their offer.

 

You can say this for almost every player in the league - Reed, Sengun, basically anybody you can make a "he'd be much better with Wemby" case because he's that impactful

 

The Rockets could have gotten Maxey - the Rockets did not let the Sixers get a chance to trump the Nets last offer. The owner and GM did not want to send Harden to the Sixers because they were petty.

Maxey is a better player than any player the Rockets have drafted or traded for. That is because Maxey is very good and because the Rockets draft picks haven't been elite.

Currently there is no legitimate avenue for the Rockets to win a title. The Thunder and Spurs are light years ahead of the Rockets. The Mavs also are going to be improving quite a bit and likely will pass the Rockets. The Jazz are another team with a higher long term upside.

 

Definitely has franchise player hair. Although I can’t tell if it’s him or Vassell out there at times.

 

You must love "prize" rookie Ameiz Thompson from Overtime Elite.

 

No matter who u draft, if u don’t do a good job developing them, you’re gonna underachieve. Houston should take some notes from good organizations like SA, OKC and Boston on how to build a strong system of player development instead of leaving it up to Ime and his childhood Portland treehouse buddies.