FVV injury - Dropping out of Top 3 Steven Adams surgery - Dropping out of Top 3 in the West Deadline no deals - Stone mocking fans with 'Not Our Year' - Laughing stock among pretenders Udoka being arse, Sengün being inconsistent, Tari playing arse, Bari with the January shet - No bench Get Higher 77 - Michael Dickerson Trading for KD - was a trade-off, time line forked up. Tilman in Sicily, nowhere to be found or seen, only Patrick and his siblings staying here.
In the early 2000’s, Ime Udoka was looking around and formulating ideas on how fast a team needed to be to win championships.
I have always hated this argument. I enjoyed the Astros in the non-WS years during their run. I enjoyed the Rockets the Rockets MDA era of the Rockets, even the first year when Harden looked like he just quit in the Spurs series. I also for the most part enjoyed last year's run. Because the end of those seasons still felt like "playoffs can be a crapshoot and there is always next year." If fans are all about championship or bust, the attendance of most arenas in the NBA would be half empty. But there's a difference between coming up short and things looking bad, like the final Dwight year or the Pippen year. Both these teams made the playoffs, but you know things are going down hill fast. This year gives a similar vibes. Let's say optimistically they make the 2nd round and get beat by one of the Spurs or the Thunder. Then what? All the old, injured, and not good players are still on the roster. There's no draft pick to add young talent. KD will be 38, and we still wouldn't know if Sengun or Amen can finally expand their game. If they don't make a huge run this year, everything points to next year being just as bleak unless they have insanely good injury luck and recovery luck from key players.
Thats not how it works with the Rockets. Once we make the playoffs we're in it. Its more realistic that we'll get Giannis than to have a bleak season next year
FVV going down. If we're first in the Conference or a couple games behind I believe KD keeps his mouth shut. I at least had hope we could get the guys some valuable playoff experience until KD's debacle. This season is now a complete loss. IF we don't flame out in the play-in, which is still a distinct possibility, the ceiling is a first round gentleman's sweep.
Should've signed a guard instead of DFS, then say develop Reed? Sounds contradictory. Problem with FInney is he forgot how to shoot. His 3PT% is down 12+ points from last 2 seasons. Blame coaching, scheme, or whatever but 25% shooting from a 3&D guy was never going to work.
Barely cracking 2nd round and someone goes out again, probably at the cusp of getting swept and winning 1 or 2 games.
I think there was a world where Steven Adams and offensive rebounding + KD's offense was going to keep us afloat a lot longer, so when Adams went down that was the final straw. When FVV got injured I knew the team would not be as good as last year's team. Now we're in a place where it's up to the head coach to try to make the pieces that are working work and it's not looking good.
PRE-CHAMPIONSHIP: (1a) 1986' ... Lewis Lloyd & Mitch Wiggins test positive for cocaine.............. POST-CHAMPIONSHIP: (1b) 1996' ... Sam Cassel & Robert Horry get traded for Charles Barkley .... These two time-stamps were absolute catastrophes for the franchise... CURRENTLY: The moment PooPoo Doka became GM and refused to get a REAL offensive assistant! ....... ....... .......
Out of those choices, I'd say the Adams injury. Because Ime is such a horrible offensive coach with no ability to make adjustments, the team was screwed at that point. They rely heavily on offensive rebounds and second and third chance opportunities which are now gone without Adams. Theoretically Clint could mitigate some of that, but Ime refuses to play him a lot of minutes for whatever reason. But I'd also like to point out a specific game that I felt was the turning point for the season. That loss at Utah on December 1. The Rockets were 13-4 going into that game, they were on a roll, their offense was kicking ass, and Reed had started the previous 3 games(all wins, all on the road, and 2 were at Phoenix and Golden State sans Durant). But after the Rockets fell to the Jazz, Ime panicked and sent Reed back to the bench, he never adjusted to the league figuring out how to guard the KD and Alpi ISOs, and the team has been a very average 26-20 over the past 4+ months.
Ime Udoka getting exposed last Playoffs against the Warriors, Buddy Hield destroying Steven Adams on 3 Point Shot. Everything blamed on Jalen Green was ridiculous instead of Ime Udoka not making correct changes and adding Reed Sheppard, Aaron Holiday in the Rotation. Tari Eason, Dillon Brooks were really terrible in the Playoffs.
I don't know if you know this, but most teams can play more than one guard at a time. In fact, the Rockets did it for the most of Stone's tenure first with KPJ/Jalen and then FVV/Jalen. Using multiple guards in a lineup is not a new concept that Udoka and Stone somehow decided to scratch in favor of playing all forwards and centers.
