I don't think Trae Young is coming to the Rockets, but his same playing style that people hate also givens him the ability to almost single-handedly beat vastly superior teams in the playoffs. It's not just a fluke based on 2021; This time last year the Celts had no business NOT sweeping the Hawks, instead Trae went nuts and nearly took them to 7.
I think Sengun, Bari, Amen, Brooks, Eason, Adams, etc. could easily absorb Trae's defense. It's easy to hide one poor defensive guard. It's much, much harder to create offense when you don't have a consistent offensive creator in the backcourt.
Good counting numbers, but efficiency plummets. Harden is roasted for his drop in efficiency in the playoffs. 61.0 TS% in the regular season down to 58.6 TS% in the playoffs for his career. Trae Young sees his efficiency go from 58.1% in the regular season down to 53.3% in the playoffs for his career, which is really awful. He’s done a lot of inefficient chucking to get those points in the playoffs thus far in his career. Edit : And just for reference here are the Hawks defensive rating ranks since Young has joined them. Not all on him, but it’s pretty grim. 19 : 27th 20 : 27th 21 : 21st 22 : 26th 23 : 22nd 24 : 27th
Again though, it's a question of fit. How do you play Trae with our guys without the defense going into the toilet? He gets destroyed by his man on a regular basis, and we're just not built to hide that kind of defensive weakness--we don't have an elite rim protector, or even a good one, and we only really have a couple of guys who can fly around and help cover multiple positions (Amen and Tari). Our defense is really based on stopping guys at the perimeter and there might not be anybody in the entire league worse at that than Trae Young.
No you really don't. Giving up a top defender who is everything Ime wants in his players and culture for the exact opposite is foolish. Amen and Sengun need to be untouchable.
On .533% TS though which is well below league average efficiency in the playoffs from the statmuse data. He's averaged (.402/.297/.852) shooting splits. His offensive numbers are big but he's inefficient (in the playoffs), averages high turnovers, and is awful defensively (he's a short, skinny, mediocre athlete, there's not much he can do about it) Trae is of course very talented and entertaining, but for Trae's game to work as the leader of a championship team, he's got to be a lot more efficient. His defense is so bad that he needs to be truly amazing offensively - for a winning team that is. A little bit above average in the regular season efficiency and below average efficiency in the playoffs isn't going to cut it, clearly.
The exact opposite? Murray is a better player than amen is now and more impactful. Hes also a terrific defender and has won all defense honors already. You can actually run an offense through him .
Almost being the operative word here. I guess I could see a path to success like Harden if we put a defensive death lineup of Paul/Ariza/Moute/Tucker/Capela around him. (Amen, Eason, Smith, Adams?) Still a potentially expensive experiment, though.
Tough question. But I'm not looking for a big splash free agent. Not yet at least. I'm more in the camp of just getting a two way elite shooter like Malik Beasley in FA. He's a good defender and great shooter to have coming off the bench. He or Trent Jr would fit the bill for me, but I think Beasley would be a perfect compliment to our young core.
There is no denying his offensive skill set. But teams will target Sengun and possibly Jalen in a playoff series. Trae would be a 3rd guy. That's a lot to overcome defensively imo.
You finally have a coach that has a clue about defense with that you don't bring in a guy that makes James Harden look like Gary Payton on the defensive end of the floor.
Lost the argument and went to spelling. I guess you are too Gen Z to understand AI is Allen Iverson as well. My bad, thought you were a bit smarter than that. Carry on
Leaving aside my opinion on Beasley and Gary Trent as to how much they'd help this team, the question remains that you think the Rockets can do better than Trae Young as the 2nd offensive option that is absolutely necessary to be more than a .500 team in the west. So do you think that player is on the roster? Or do you think there will be an OKC-Harden that the Rockets can trade for in a year or two?
....you think I'm not smart, yet you are the one who has been wrong with nearly everything you have said. Hell, I'm probably older than you but who is counting another instance where you are wrong? I remember a time of Houston basketball when Hakeem was still Akeem and wasn't even in the NBA yet....and by the way, that goes for Jordan too!