ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Timberwolves 3/25/2026

Right now I’m probably around that same 60/40 split leaning toward keeping the core and upgrading—but let’s be real, this roster still needs a serious cleanup. The concern with running it back is timing. Kevin Durant is only getting older, and you’re relying on guys like Fred VanVleet and Steven Adams coming off major injuries. That’s not exactly a stable foundation if you’re trying to take a real leap.
Then you look at the Giannis Antetokounmpo route—it sounds exciting, but it’s not plug-and-play. You’d have to completely reshape the roster with real shooters and spacing, and honestly, I’m not convinced Ime Udoka prioritizes that. His system leans toward slower, grind-it-out basketball—more iso, more half-court—which can work in the playoffs, but only if you have the right personnel. Right now, we don’t.
And the James Harden situation just adds to the frustration. We had multiple chances—free agency and the deadline. But it felt like Ime knew this team wasn’t ready, and even some of the young guys like Jalen Green weren’t fully on board. Still, if that’s the case, you have to pivot and do something else.
That’s really the biggest issue—missed opportunities. It keeps feeling like we’re stuck in between directions, and that falls on the front office. At some point, you have to pick a path and fully commit instead of sitting on your hands and hoping internal growth fixes everything.

 

Yep, 1000%

I'd trade KD, not that he's been bad, I think the main issue is the coaching and we have no ways to get KD the ball cleanly consistently...but the timing is off completely.

Next year we're relying on FVV, Adams, and KD...all older players who can either fall off a performance cliff at any moment. What KD is doing is not regular, he could become cooked next year even, father time hits and it hits hard. FVV is coming off a major injury in his 30s...idk about relying on that. Adams is always hurt, that's been his career. As someone said, @carl_herrera I think...it feels like the young players are learning ISO ball when instead they should have been growing as a team together, falling into their roles naturally. I'd undo the KD trade if I could, I would have rather traded Jalen (if he had to be traded) for assets and solid role players.

This is why I do regret theKD move...before we were relying on Jalen and Sengun and while maybe the ceiling isn't as high, at least they were 22-23, so you can sell yourself that maybe things get better. The chemistry at least was better.

Now our window is tied to KD, for that reason alone I'd move on from him. I'd rather see what the team can do with Amen/Sengun/Bari/Reed, then go from there. The Spurs were right in not wanting to mess up their young teams chemistry to add KD. Not that KD would hurt that team, but what would they have given up for it?

 

I wouldn’t trade KD — the return just wouldn’t match his value. Anything we’d get back wouldn’t make us better, it would likely make us worse.
We can still build from this, but it starts with being honest about what we actually have. We need to stop overvaluing players just because we drafted them and take a real, objective look at the roster.
That’s why I felt like we should’ve moved Tari when we had the chance — now you’re dealing with a disgruntled player and diminishing value.

I just wish we had James harden at the deadline it would fix so much of our problem. He was the perfect fit.

It's frustrating to watch reed at times we have to keep him. This is really his rookie year. And I know with a rim protector he would do damage.
and we have to keep amen.
I think those two should be our untouchables.

 

Yeah I was banging the table for Harden. Ime is dumb for not wanting him, Harden would run his offense and make Ime look like an offensive genius and Harden is actually BETTER defensively than any point guard we have on our team lol. He can actually defend the post.

But I'd just trade KD to see what this team, what these guys, are made of. KD just sucks the gravity out this team. I'm not sure what we would get for him at this point sure but maybe there is a team that loses a playoff series that might think one year of KD will be good enough, like we were, I'd test it and see, because at this point I want to see what Reed and Bari can do with more shots and more opportunity. It might blow up in our face but obviously this KD thing is not a long term thing so...

Honestly at this point I feel our best move is hoping FVV can return in form and seeing what we can get from Tari and finding some way to replace DFS minutes. Those are the most realistic improvements this team can make outside of one of our young guys making more improvements. I was always colder on Tari in the trade market though I was one of the few people that thought it wasn't even close that you pick Bari over Tari every time.

Tari just doesn't have the toolset to be anything more than a role player. We saw that tonight where he had a massive mismatch with Conley on him and he had no idea how to take advantage of it. Couldn't post him up, that's not in his bag, couldn't shoot semi-contested middies over him, also not in his bag, so he put the ball in front of a guard with quick hands and the results were expected.

 

Sucking without a high lotto pick sucks.....

 

One of the worst regular season losses in franchise history if not the absolute worst

 

did julius really say this?

ime has been found out.

 

Probably not but he's right so let's pretend he did

 

Rockets front office don't care at all.

Why should we care?

 

The coach needs to be fired. How you lose 13 pt lead in OT with 2 mins to go? If they held the ball for 24 seconds violation they would have won the game. I had Udoka above Milk Hair but with these performance I think he is the most incompetent coach we ever had outside Silas. We keep losing in the end game because the coach is incompetent and dumb AF. How come we dont need that ball handler or vet pg to build that sizable lead, but when we collapse its always lack of pg or ballhandler? This is just coaching incompetence at play, crunch time we got no moves or counter moves and always get decimated by the opponent.

All these complaints about roster construction etc Bruh lets see this team with a competent coach first ok? If you got a dumbass coach like Ime unless you have HOF franchise players on the court who all coach themselves the roster will always look bad.

This team looks so bad because the coach is so ineffective. Cant design any plays, doesnt know what to do, plays the wrong guys.

Look at Mark Jackson vs Steve Kerr, Monty Williams to JB Bickerstaff, Mike Bud to Jordan Ott. These teams all had drastic improvements with minimal additions, in the case of Suns they actually lost KD and added 39% FG Jalen Green but somehow they improved so many times.

Having a good coach makes all the difference. The coach is like the chef, it doesnt matter if you A grade Wagyu beef if the chef is trash tier it will taste terrible and you will get E-coli.

It is now clear more than ever Udoka is a fraud. His coaching accomplishments on the Celtics are all done by his then assistant Joe Mazulla. Joe M probably retained the other good assistants as well, all Udoka has left are the dregs like Ben Sullivan and Royal Ivey. Ivey is just as clueless as Udoka, the two of them are literally dumb and dumber. As for Sullivan? Have you seen our 3 pt shooting? As the 3 pt coach he prob made everyone worse.

At this point Stone needs to take a stand and get Udoka fired. Mike Malone is right there. If Stone doesnt do anything he will be the scape goat and fired before Udoka gets canned.

 

Our offense won't get better as long as Ime is still the head coach.

 

Imanimal doesn’t have any inside information. He has been making sh*t up since he got on this board. All he did was just state something we all have already surmised right from the start of the season.

 

I finally did fall asleep in the 4th quarter. Should I rewatch the end of the game and overtime? spoiler: that's a rhetorical question

 

Choke City is back baby….too bad Suns likely won’t catch us. Need that play-in so we can just save the embarrassment of being toyed with during the playoffs.

 

No way can I fall asleep to Turnovers after Turnovers after Turnovers....... need to have what u had.

 

turnovers combined with the increasingly harsh tone of the comments in the game thread as the game progressed. Just not a whole lot of fun to keep up with what people were posting. At any rate I always figure: if they lose I'll be glad I missed it, and if they win I'll be glad to read about it in the morning.

 

lulz at this game

And how about this Bogut butt screen by Anderson … so sad