Dump Sengun for picks and keep trying to find the franchise guy. If Reed doesn't show any signs of defense next year he should be regulated to the bench. Sacrifice some Houston first borns in order to get Amen any resemblance of a shot. Get rid of Ime.
The best blueprint is still a mix of Wolves, Thunder, Spurs and a portion of that Old Warriors team. Get a rim protector, Sengün can be that offensive hub like Boris Diaw, swarming guards like OKC, a couple forwards Kyle Anderson, McDaniels, Keldon Johnson........if u find a Draymond, that is good. 2-3 Sharpshooters......ball handlers to counter blitzes, traps..... FVV and DB are not bad but if they were real stars, the Rockets would have never traded Brooks.....
Trade everyone and start tanking. But make sure to fire Stone before all this because dude is bad at drafting a good player and the rockets are even worse at developing the talents. What do you think will happen if Rockets draft Wemby? Will he be allowed to shoot 10 3s per game like he did in Spurs? Will he be foreced to play 35-40 minutes each game?
That is rough even under these circumstances.....lol Royal Ivey/'You know what I am sayin' was about to hit back.
Ime took us from 20 wins to 41 to 52. In comes Dickerson and now Ime can't coach, Sengun can't shoot, Amen takes up space, Reed is white Jalen, Tari lost his brain. Every single current major member of the Rockets has positively impacted the organization. Except for one.
Not sure how you get people are blaming FVV and Adams. Well, maybe FVV because there are a lot of suggestions that include getting rid of FVV. I don't see much hating on Adams. I think most people, including myself, do not believe that we lost this season because we lost those two guys. It's not just the W-L results but the way this is going. Expecting that things would be drastically different with them healthy is turning a blind eye to some obvious issues that can't be fixed by those two guys.
I would choose the "other" option which is.... .... explore ALL options, and let the moves you want to make that work out dictate the other. First priority for me though is getting into this year's draft, AND exploring what the market is for Sengun and KD. Keep in mind that I would be a GM that feels good about running it back next year with a full roster, improvement, and a few roster additions. However as a GM you MUST due your due diligence with those two just to see what the market is for those two huge marquee players, and most importantly, all else fails and you really need to have more talent depth going into the season because we are a very shallow team in terms of future talent. If for some reason there is a team out there like Miami that wants KD, and is willing to part with assets, you make that move, and evaluate your next steps after that. As a GM I'd love to have KD back next season, but I'm realistic that this team even if healthy next year, is unlikely to put him in a position to win a title. This team could be doing a soft re-boot sooner than later, and having more prospects than we have now would put us in a much better spot to hit the ground running on a re-tool if that's needed next season.
I think it helps to remember how we got here: The initial tank failed because we didn't come away with Cade or Wemby. Further tanking was ruled out because ownership set a timeline for winning. In accordance with ownership's timeline, we hired a Thibodeau-type coach who raises your floor but not your ceiling. The KD trade further accelerated the timeline. So what now? You're now too good to tank and ownership doesn't want to anyway. There is no going back. So if you can't go back and you don't like where you are, the only solution is to accelerate even more with a Giannis-type or Kawhi-like move. With a little bit of luck and bringing in an experienced OC for Ime, you can spend the next few years slugging it out with OKC and San Antonio, and maybe even win a championship if things break right. After that you can clear your cap and reset. Disagree? That's cool. But the one thing you cannot do is sell off your vets for pennies on the dime and wait for Sengun to become the next Joker, Amen to become the next LeBron, Tari to become the next Kawhi, and Reed to become the next Nash. Those guys will get better, and Reed in particular has a lot of runway left, but you're mostly looking at incremental improvement from here on out. The tank is past - we took our swings and ended up with doubles but no home runs. Our young guys will not catch up to OKC and San Antonio's young guys.
I really don't want to get injury prone old stars that don't look like good fit to try to "accelerate" the timeline. It will likely decelerate instead. It might end up like the Barkley-Pippen situation all over again.
Our young guys will not catch up to OKC and San Antonio's young guys, so your solution is... push the chips in for old guys who will not catch up to OKC and San Antonio's young guys? Here is the sad news: Giannis and Kawhi are both older, currently worse at basketball, more broken down and less reliable than Wemby and Shai. The gap will be wider next season and every season after. Our supporting cast is less talented and fits worse than OKC's and SAS's. Our coach is probably worse. We don't have more future assets than them. There is no angle in which they are not above us. We have no deterministic or short term path to getting to a similar level as them. And it's not like we're in a bad position. OKC and SAS are just two teams that are in by far the best position of any team since the Steph/KD Warriors. Maybe even better, given age and contracts. That's the circumstance we find ourselves in. There's only one path if we are trying to win a future championship in this circumstance: increase the talent variance and play the long game. Get more and more tickets to the talent lottery. Keep swinging. Luckily, that doesn't mean tanking anymore, because Adam Silver is killing that. But it will mean prioritizing picks and prospects while maintaining competitiveness and building a play style that can be a platform for development. A continuous cycle of young talent acquisition/development/evaluation/recycling until we get lucky enough to have the right young horses. What you suggest - sending away most of our assets for old guys who are locked into being worse than OKC/SAS's guys, and then giving them their last supermax - is the exact opposite of the correct path. Of course, if the goal isn't win a championship... sure, trade for old guys win some games and win a playoff series or two with mercenaries, whatever.
Adding Giannis increases the talent variance without playing the long game. If he, KD, and Fred remain mostly healthy for any one season, and you still have Amen and Bari, then you are a contender for that season. The "continuous cycle" you describe is the dreaded mediocrity treadmill. I really don't understand your response. Were Fred, Dillon, and Steven "mercenaries"? Is anyone we didn't draft a mercenary? Did we give Fred, KD, and Steven max deals? Or did they accept less to stay here? Does that make them less mercenary? And do you think ownership wants to trade for KD one year then rebuild the next? Or does your dreamcasting include a new, forever patient owner who would sign off on a continuous cycle of lottery appearances until we strike it rich?
Should have kept CAM......I mean 21 years old.....immature but an attack the basket mentality that we desperately need. We have ****ed it up. DD
I dont think Ime is going anywhere... so i disregarded that option... but I knew that was the one that fokls would be clamoring for - so there it is... lol! I opted for staying the course - with some bench tweaking... we've come this far - may as well run it out next year and hope for better luck on the injuries... but I'd certainly be open to possible trades among the core if the right opportunity came along... I'm also intrigued w the Giannis option... imo thats like going all-in for like a 2 year window.... again, depending on injuries, maybe we can pull it off one year or another... and if not and our old guys are all injury-riddled, well then u start the rebuild...
What i'd do: dump Ime and Stone, flip Tari and Amen for a relatively smart defensive wing (Herb Jones type) and a guard who can actually space the floor and isn't a cone on defense. Reed comes off the bench, plays ~25 minutes, Sengun-KD-Jabari-the new guard-FVV.
We're in this mess because fans were impatient and wanted a quick fix with KD. Now they are impatient again and want to fire anybody and blow it up. The problem was and still is fan impatience. You chose to make the trade, live with it. See what happens this year and when hopefully they are healthier next year. Then use KD salary cap money for a star. That was the plan right? Then do it and stop crying and causing even more damage.
I need a complete overhaul: coach, KD & Sengun gone for younger players and keep FVV & Adams to mentor the youth until we find that gem. Sengun should net us a nice player and picks. KD for some expirings. I rather watch a struggling young team that’s hungry over a dysfunctional and petulant group of egos lead by a giant teenager with questionable morals annd his emotionally unstable son ever again. That’s Ime and KD for you Texas inbreds. IDGAF about KD and Ime and shall rejoice when they’re gone.
