Interesting article that articulates what I've been feeling about Stone and Udoka and who deserves the most blame for the state of the Rockets. It's my belief that we have a 3rd rate GM that should probably be fired this offseason and that firing Udoka while keeping Stone will do nothing to improve the franchise.
I'm not a fan of Stone... but at least he doesnt hand out a bunch of stupid bloated contracts... DFS is probably his worst signing - and it was only 2 years guaranteed... it aint like he gave PG a fully guaranteed 4 year max deal... lol CD used to hand out some bad contracts too...
Bc he was a contract lawyer before that, .... You very likely would never see a bad contract with him......but that is about everything he can do. Meaning like great risks or anything really surprising in the positive sense.
Yeah, that's the one thing Stone has done very well is manage the cap and contracts .... Well above average in that aspect. Where he's been a bit subpar is in talent acquisition outside of the draft and hasn't been able to parlay young players into other assets before the clock runs out, it's like he gets attached to them and wants to horde them all .... and hope one of them finally becomes a star.
I've been a lifelong Rockets fan. My family has had season tickets since I was a kid and started back in the championship days. But I'm done supporting the Rockets until I see they're serious about winning. It's time to wake up and realize that the Rockets have an owner who only cares about profit/loss margins. Ticket prices went up with KD in town and they had zero intentions of competing for a championship by not finding a replacement for FVV. You don't love the Rockets as much as you let on if you put your young, inexperienced son in charge of the whole organization. You don't care about the Rockets if you hire an inexperienced attorney to be the GM. You don't care about winning if you keep Stone. The players who accepted discounts were drafted by the Rockets. He took advantage of their emotional attachment to Houston. FVV is overpaid. DFS is overpaid. His best signing was Dillon Brooks and he traded him. He traded for KD and didn't make any moves for a guard, knowing they were headed to the playoffs. Maybe he didn't trade for one because he was trying to force Udoka to play Reed. Who knows... He had lunch openly with Banchero before that draft... He takes no accountability for his actions. The only logical explanation I can think of for Fertitta to keep him on as GM is that he was told it was ok not to go after a guard. The organization gave up before the season started. Especially Mr. "Maybe it's not our year" Stone. The Rockets are just another toy for the Fertitta's. Something else they can say that they own and brag to their millionaire/billionaire friends about.. That's it. They aren't as passionate about the Rockets as the fans are, and it shows.
If you believe in the cult of the coach sure, I guess, but it's always been the players. GM is just a marginal contributing factor for the most part.
fwiw... i think Tilly thought he was going to run the team, like Cuban... and just needed a GM to do as he said and keep the contracts and books in order... in which case, Stone would fit the bill... then idk... He realized he was out of his depth with blunders like WB...? or his political aspirations were more compelling? Or maybe he put Patrick in place just as his proxy and is still trying to run things with limited involvement - "just get with me on the big decisions..." Theoretically, Stone could be doing everything under Tilly's direction, which would make firing him rather awkward... lol If this is a side hustle for Tilly, he may easily decide "it's not our year and we'll just kick the can to next year when we are healthy..." So idk if this is all that Tilly has checked out or if its his megalomania thinking that he's simply playing the long game and has to be patient....?
just funny how much a year changes people’s mind. One year ago when the trade for Durant was made many if not most of you all cheered and lauded him for making us true contenders and ending the JG experiment. Now most of you have turned on him. I would wait until this summer to see what he does with Sengun or even Amen. To me you can’t win with those 2 together. And if he doesn’t make a move it would be telling of his and the management/scouting team’s acumen or decision making as a GM.
I think Doc Rivers is the personification of this. In Boston, with his ‘Big3’, he had a great synergy and run. Nowhere else has he had either. Stone? Young Fertita? Who RUNS the organization? What QUALITY EXPERIENCED GM accepts the position with young Patty hovering, kibitzing etc?
look at Balmer. He shows up to the freaking nba combine. This guy is all in on his team; truly passionate. He could be doing a million other things, but he’s at the nba combine slapping skin with prospects. Enthusiastically cheering from the sidelines most games. Tilman is eating spaghetti in Milan. It’s clear the rockets are not as important to Tilman as the Clips are to Balmer. Balmer could buy and sell Tillman a thousand times over, but Tilman would rather make a vanity play in the trump administration?
He had a lot of cap space to play with and didn’t get a lot with it. The DFS signing was dumb, as was the Capela signing. Honestly even Adams and FVV are arguably dumb because of health issues… all are under water if they tried to move them. He had buyers remorse over Jalen Green. He is in a situation with Eason, they tried to over pay him and same with Oladipo. Jabari and Sengun are solid deals he deserves credit for. Overall the contracts have been mediocre - not good but not bad.
For most teams yes - but there have been some GM’s that have played a huge part. Jerry West, Red Auerbach are the big two that come to mind. While they don’t play the game they draft and pick the players that do. Above all the players deserve the most credit and it’s why they make far more money - but landing someone like West or Presti can set a franchise on the right track. As for coaches, there are a handful of good ones and 2-3 greats but history shows you can win with someone like Philip Jackson and don’t need a Larry Brown or all time great.
The coaching is good enough. It's honestly the least of the problems. The bigger problems that need to be resolved before coaching are the GM and the roster. Stone keeps hyping up the young core as future all time greats but it's obvious these guys are just role players at best. Go look at that Athletic tier list and you'll see that none of the young core are considered in tier 1 or 2 which is not surprising. The best among the young core is Sengun and he got exposed by Ayton in the playoffs. Reed Sheppard didn't even get ranked. You can't call Udoka a terrible coach when he managed to eke out 52 wins two straight seasons with a mediocre 'young core.'
No, it's not. Ime is one of the worst coaches in the entire league, there's literally nothing he does well as a head coach besides throwing his players under the bus and clapping and telling them to play harder. The team has absolutely no coherent offensive system, they take days or weeks to adjust to anything....and that is on both sides of the ball. When you have such a dogshit coach, it drags down the players. If the Rockets fired Ime right now, he'd never have a head coaching job in the NBA ever again. Give the Rockets even a halfway competent coach....not even a good coach, just a top 20 coach in the league and the perception of the talent is immediately different.
I think that’s fair, but you’ve been watching the same offensive ineptitude that I have the last two seasons. Ime has some very big blind-spots and he often gets outmatched on in-game adjustments. I think the roster construction is definitely the biggest culprit for our struggles, but another coach would have found a way not to make our offense the most awful thing I’ve seen in my lifetime.
bobby the dummy knows everything and uses the word “terrible” often to hide his lack of knowledge. SAS
I can't take you seriously when you say Udoka is one of the worst NBA coaches. That is objectively not true. He would have no problem getting hired by another NBA team if he got fired from the Rockets. If you change the coach you'll have the same issues. Things may possibly get even worse. The Ime hate is annoying because it clouds the discussion and takes focus off the GM which is the root of the problem. Silas was trashed and many said the same thing, "if only we had a different coach." Now after one disappointing season many are going back to that same excuse, "if only we had a different coach." How many different coaches do players like Sengun and Jabari need for them to emerge as stars?
