How do you know the involvement that Stone had in the decision? If he doesn’t have any sway over his coach or owner, he is a useless yes man. Might as well hand Patrick the reigns or just pull a Bill O’Brien which they have effectively done, just not with the official title. I can and did blame Stone for the FVV extension, because he didn’t need to offer the guy 25m which was way more than the market dictated. Hell, I didn’t think they should’ve signed him at all, but, again, Stone has to do what Ime says. Tito signs the checks, but I don’t think he is very involved in any of the decision making. Both of us are speculating on who is in charge at the Rockets. I think the evidence leans towards Ime, which would make Stone useless.
The more I see how udoka keeps doubting reed due to his physical dimension (primarily) and his Defense (yes reed needs to improve further on the on ball defense, taking charge, body contact but he is still a good denfender , given his STOCK). the more I believe that udoka is not as good a coach as I have been believing all this time. Reed as a point guard , with his shooting, high IQ play making ability and unselfishness , will take rockets' offense to another level and optimize the strength of Amin KD AND SENGUN.
Well first of all I know Stone didnt have a lot of involvement in the Udoka extension because Udoka got a 6 yr extension which is longer than Stone's own extension. Why will he make sure Udoka has a job long after him? Thats how Udoka got that power and leverage cuz he is the one with job security. Secondly Stone isnt useless his hands are just tied. He is still the one who got Sengun to sign for less than max, still got Adams to sign for 12M, still got Bari to sign 25M and still didnt give Tari that extension. These contract details Stone has down pat.OTH Look at Morey giving 5 yr max to Embiid and PG. Sure Stone made a mistake with DFS guess what he is gone next year. Meanwhile Sixers are stuck with Embiid and PG for the forseeable future. Thats the difference. Considering Stone didnt even wanna pay Tari 20M I doubt he wanted to pay FVV 25M, thats an Udoka move. Finally Stone has to be a yes man because thats his boss. You cant expect a guy to defy his boss and get fired because in the real world very few among us would do that. Plus how would that even help? Stone gets fired and replaced and then the new guy will be the yes man. You think Fertita will sign someone who wont do what he says? lol
Oh sorry, misconstrued what was being said. Anyway, still hate those kind of posts, but to each his own.
You don’t know anymore than anyone else on how the FO works. I’m through arguing this bs. Have fun with your next useless apology post.
Best PG on the team by far. Get Amen back on the wing in his proper position and we may actually have something.
According to the Rockets he is only the 11th player to record at least 20 points 14 assist 0 turnovers and 4 steals since 1983-84. The only other active player to achieve that is Tyrese Haliburton. Safe to say Sheppard has proven he is the Rockets point guard.
Good to know. We all know Reed's strengths and one of them is great shooting. If he has an off night we gotta understand that every player has these off nights. Sometimes he will be exposed on defense... it happens but we gotta keep playing him and start him. Max out on making sure you give him the real opportunity and time to grow into his full potential. Freaking #3 pick.
I agree that Reed played well defensively last night. Yes there were blow bys but it happens to everyone. As the game goes on you can see his adjustments especially late in games to cut those down. What’s frustrating is all the tricky tack fouls when Reed reaches in which is self inflected especially in the paint. But overall his progress on this side of the ball is improving. I personally think it’s a matter of comfort and experience than it is skill that’s holding him back from being an average defender.
Since the All-Star break, Houston has outscored opponents by 40 points with Sheppard, Thompson and Durant sharing the floor
Especially at 37 minutes. It rarer to have that big of a gap the closer you get to 48 minutes. It means the rest of the team was -16, in just 11 minutes without Reed. Harden used to do that regularly. but fwiw: Fontecchio was also +17 is 38 minutes.
I've thought about that quite a bit. Thank the Lord that Stone controlled who we picked at 3rd in 2024 instead of Ime cuz we'd probably have Castle right now who is a very good player but redundant with our current roster and would allow Ime even more opportunities to go with his all wings lineups that don't work. Meanwhile the Spurs would be developing Reed into a hybrid of CP3 and Curry whose defense would never be a concern with Wemby protecting the paint.
I don’t think “microwave scorers” is the right comparison, nor necessarily what Reed was asked to do while ramping up his minutes Combo guards off the bench is probably a better comparison: Brunson playing off the bench due to Luka — NBA Champion Coach Carlisle Tyler Herro was a bench player for 1st 3 yrs — NBA Champion Spoelstra Harden at OKC was great — reached the Finals Ginobili — NBA Champion Popovich does pure PG Sam Cassell count? — NBA Champion Rudy And ofc, the 6MOY award is named after Havlicek — Red Auerbach how many offensive genius coaches did we just name? Anyhoot — true star skill doesn’t get hampered by bench role early in their careers…their stats might get hampered, but not their inevitable emergence into stars I could even say Halliburton behind Fox his rookie year had no adverse affect to development. Maxey even went to the bench for a stretch in Harden’s first year … and kept producing bottomline: Same for Reed, I don’t have any “what could have been” feelings. He’s come out of his bench era just fine. That’s what true stars do.
