NBA.com (ROCKETS HAVE WORST STARTING LINEUP IN NBA)

4 starters cannot defend. Defensive liabilities when the shot is not falling.

 

Moves are coming in the summer. If there were a way to trade players right now, it would be happening. I'm not saying the moves will be good, but moves will be happening.

 

Three 6'11 players plus 1 or two 6'8 players...

6'2 player in and out as a starter.

What can go wrong....

 

Our front office completely lacks the ability to trade. It’s not even obvious they can mechanically do it, never mind do it poorly or well.

That’s what happens when you run a business like you run a laundry’s. It stops working when your business isn’t literally burger flipping.

 

We have a so-called defensive-minded coach and yet he can't figure out how to scheme for a lineup to be even league average defensively. What does that tell you about our coach?

Any coach can have a top 5 defense if he has legit defensive stoppers at every position in the lineup. Ime is nothing special and maybe even a bottom tier defensive coach at that if he can't scheme for a defense that can get stops when they need to. And he brings absolutely zero on the offensive end.

 

With sengun and reed on the flour we have 2 bad defenders. With Reed on the bench we have 2 non-shooters and one non-shooter for last 2 month (Tari). What wost?

 

Not surprising. I'll admit I've been saying since the start of the season when FVV went down that you need to start Reed, and see where it goes, but nobody can say with a straight face that Ime is an idiot for avoiding it for as long as he did since he has the need to win every game while we as fans believe development & potential mean more in the long run.

But yeah.... Reed is maybe the worst defensive player in the league besides maybe Luka. He is absolute trash most nights on the defensive end, and Sengun does two things that kills this team's defense as the anchor at center:

-He's very small for a center with SF/PF length.
-He wines on damn near every play about getting fouled and almost always is late getting back in the play

Right now you just CANNOT play both of those guys at the same time. Absolute trash defensive players.

....

This Summer if I was Stone I would be quietly shopping to see if there was another young player or players that are better fits alongside the rest of our roster, especially for the future with Amen. Because while the defense is one thing, the offense on the other end might actually concern me more long term. Because if Amen is the guy for the future, you REALLY need to make sure that all 4 other starters shoot lights out from 3.

 

Well neither are good lol. That's why Ime is giving it more than a game or two. We'll see if he pulls the plug for next game, and goes with Okogie or (can't believe I'm about to say this) JaSean freaking Tate just to shake things up. But given that Ime said they wanted to see this lineup for 5 to 7 games means that he knew it was likely going to look ugly, but they needed to get enough evidence to evaluate it WITH games where they could potentially see an offensive explosion to start games off.

That offensive explosion doesn't look to be happening anytime soon because as we all know from watching and playing the game ourselves.... usually your offense follows your defense. Defense is usually more important to get settled in, and to dictate the pace & flow.

So yeah, the no-defense starting lineup is probably worse, but you need to at least get some data behind it which they are getting... in spades.

 

WE'RE NUMBER ONE! WE'RE NUMBER ONE! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!

 

This Summer if I was Stone I would be quietly shopping for a new career. Because he sucks at this one....

 

Switch Okogie for Reed in that lineup and see what happens [spoiler: +8.9]

 

Josh Okogie was the best move we did this offseason.

 

but but... Reed is starting now... how are we not leading the league with our 'generational shooter?' I mean Ime is such an idiot for not starting Reed - well... here ya go...

 

Tandem (minus garbage time players) +/- Off Rating Def Rating
Reed and Sengun lineups -9.2 116.9 126.1
Reed and Adams 15.4 122 106.5
Reed and Capela 14.5 118..4 103.9

I like Reed's potential. I think Ime was smart trying to keep Reed and Sengun from overlapping too much. Some of this is opponents having better players on the court generally against Reed and Sengun lineups, but it is just one piece. Reed is not good enough defensively to play with Sengun at the moment. I expect they would work better on offense together than they have, but no offense is good enough to handle as poorly as they are defensively together. Outside some Devil's Fruit, I don't see Reed and Sengun working this season.

 

I don't understand why we ever went away from Okogie being the starter. We were playing well with him for the most part, he never had a massive dropoff in his shooting numbers. He doesn't bring a lot to the table offensively, kind of just a wide open three/free driving lane type of guy, but he spaces the floor okay enough to get away with having him out there, his defense is solid, and unlike Tari, he doesn't make too many idiotic plays.

Okogie as the starter and Reed/Tari to give us a burst off the bench was always the best setup for this team with FVV out. It would have been better still if Stone had gone out and got us Ayo Dosunmu or something, but since he sat on his ass at the deadline, it's just Josh. It's not that complicated.

 

The Rockets were not playing well with Okogie as a starter. Slightly above average for a month and half before Tari replaced him. Better than the Reed starting lineups, but not well since it was amazing the 1st 2-3 weeks. Putting Okogie back is not going to force defenses to go back to how they defended the Rockets the first 2-3 weeks of the season.

Also, Sengun looks like he's just not dialed in on defense when I watch (the last several games have been horrible on the eyes so I am watching in spurts). Reed makes it worse.

Okogie in over Reed likely is better in the short term. Ime is looking for a unit that can be great. There probably isn't one with the guys that are heallthy unless Tari goes back to being playable offensively.