Summer Thread 2026: What young player have the Rockets "DEVELOPED"?

Not sure if you understand players change and circumstances develop over time. Taking posts made years ago and bringing them back as if it applies today is dumb AF. For example when I made that Cade and Jalen post Cade hasn't made the leap yet and just missed an entire season due to a leg injury, obviously he wasnt the All NBA and All Star Cade yet. Chet dominated Wemby in their U19 matchup, is that the same situation now? Obv Chet back then was different to Chet now, only a nimrod would expect the same analysis to be unchanged and still hold true after years.

I'm sure if I looked up all your posts I would also be able to get your own hot takes over the years so gimme a break dude.

 

Castle would be Tate if he was on the Rockets ladies and gentlemen…brought to you by the dude who would take Amen over Wemby as stated multiple times, wouldn’t trade Sengun for Wemby, and loudly proclaimed Cade and Jalen were in the same tier

 

Isiah Hartenstein

 

And this is brought to you by the guy who still thinks Harden is the Rocket's answer....

 

RGV Hassan Whiteside, Kyle Lowry, Goran Dragic, Rockets Training Camp Jeremy Lin to the Knicks

 

The REAL problems with the Rockets aren't the players. It is the ones who chose them and can't seem to develop them.

 

The difference is clear to me when watching these organizations. We watched Castle just have 32 TOs, 28 fouls in the Thunder series and shot 23% from deep and 46% from two...but what is the conversations around the association and around even this board? That we "missed" on Castle with Reed...that Castle is a significantly better shooter than Amen, etc. People notice what these players can do, rather than what they can't.

The difference between the Rockets and the Thunder or Spurs is they play to win and we play to not lose. That's why management is saying "maybe it's not our year" just because Fred and Steve are out - both were a walking risk mitigation token and this team is really eager to mitigate risk. Stevo was insurance for bad shooting, Fred for TOs. The problem with this team is we are sacrificing our young guys development or better team play to not turn the ball over or to get more offensive rebounds. Those guys need to be specialists on this team you bring in when needed - NOT the guys gobbling up minutes. If Stone or Udoka had those guys as significant part of our team makeup this year - then it shows where their head is at.

....plus you ask ANY ex-Spur since the Pops era and the statement is always the same - this team focuses on what players can do, not what they CAN'T do. Houston focuses on what our young guys can't do - "Reed can't possibly guard X", so we need to sub Okogie in, we need to bring in Tate, etc. Tate and Okogie are fine role players but neither player should be getting big minutes - but low and behold Okogie was getting starter minutes for large parts of the season when he wouldn't be a starter for any other team in the league. Think about that.

....and not to undersell the one biggest point - guys like Wemby and SGA create a FAR larger margin of error for your team so if Castle had just finished the series playing for Houston instead, we probably still would have lost but because Wemby is sooo good, they were able to overcome it so there is a luxury there when you have guys like Wemby, SGA, or even Tim Duncan. THAT is the advantage of having a true superstar....and we do not have that player and while Amen or Alpi may improve significantly, players of that caliber are rarely grown, they either are or they aren't.

 

He wasn't traded. He was waived. We got nothing in return.

 

He wasn't traded, he was flat out CUT !

Sort of like Cam - or close to it.

DD

 

What young player have the Rockets "DEVELOPED"?

What was the Rockets record before Ime took over?
What was the Rockets record after Ime took over?

Explain the big swing in wins while maintaining that somehow the players were not getting better.

Case in point, JG4 became a better defensive player due to Ime.