Grade the Rockets (This season so far)

B+

 

A.. They actually kept me engaged for 40 games

 

Home-A
Road-F

 

Overall, I'd give the team a B+. I'm a little worried about Jalen and Jabari, and Tari's injury has been a major hindrance. But Alpi's taken a huge leap forward, Amen and Cam are gonna be special, and the defense is (mostly) improved. They've been pretty good at home. If they can just figure out how to win on the road at some point, they're gonna become a Top 6 seed in the West and eventually take that leap to contender status.

 

Really you guys? Just a B?

We just got a new coach, overhauled the roster and installed a new culture. Only 2 players underperforming (Green and Landale). Everyone else meeting expectations or exceeding.

We went from one of the worst offense and defense in the NBA to 6th defense and 21st offense in one offseason. To be a true title contender you just have to be top 10 at each of these things. That’s without shelving the young guys - we have all 6 core young players in the rotation.

If you think any coach could have done this or that this roster should be winning more, you should go improve your basketball IQ. It’s easy to nitpick on someone’s excellent achievement, but most of you had no faith we’d improve this much by adding a a couple of elite role players and a couple of excellent vets to the bench.

Ridiculous. This is an A- in the first half given what we’ve done with what we’ve got - and we’ve retained all our future assets in the process. The only real downer this season is Jalen’s slow progress.

 

Overall and as a whole, I voted a B+ so far for the season!

The Rockets have taken huge-baby-steps this year compared to the last 3yrs under Smiley-Silas!! I can only imagine where we'd be if they had taken the chains off of Alpi sooner!! Perhaps we would've completely shied away from Lopez and would've gone after another high end quality player instead of Uncle Green and Jock Landwhale!

I digress... no sense on living on what ifs!!


Go Rockets!!!
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This right here. I gave a B- but after thinking about the road losses they deserve a C-. They are ABYSMAL on the road. I don't think I've ever seen a more Jekyll and Hyde team before.

 

B for the season.
I give the front office an F. They knew about Eason and the extended time he would miss. One of the most important core 6 and they just ignored his winning ways. Season could have been an A.

Stone,

 

D. The Rockets are 24-29. They aren't the fails that might not win 20, but can't say they are an average team either.

Grading the rebuild is different than grading this season. If grading the rebuild, probably a B- as I think the Rockets are laying a good foundation that could become something good, but could also fall apart depending on how they build from here. The Rockets need some offensive juice from a ballhandler to complement Sengun (whether from internal or external means). Defense really needs Tari.

 

C-

They have a passing grade, with potential to go down or up one full letter grade (D- or B-) by season's end.

 

But way ahead of where most experts thought they'd be this year. And ahead of where I thought they'd be. I expected to win about 10 more games than we did last season. If we win more than that, I'm tempted to give it an A-. Right now I'm giving it a solid B+. We've shown dramatic improvement on the defensive end. The young guys are showing tremendous potential and seem to be developing in the right direction. The vets have all been excellent additions and seem to be providing the leadership and structure the kids need. And, as a bonus, we got our back up center situation resolved for next season. I don't know what's not to like.

 

According to the stats the Rockets should be at around 28 wins, they’ve left around 4 wins on the court that they rightfully earned with their play effort. The youth and inexperience really does pop in the Pythagorean calculations.

Most impressive is their improved defensive effort, whereas their legs are starting to show the inexperience, because they have slowly been trickling down from being the top defensive team to #5.

The most disappointing seems to be their offensive woes. It must be difficult trying to figure out a way to keep Jalen Green engaged, when he’s only going to have limited touches in comparison to yesteryears, under Silas.

Props to Ime for getting a group so young to play efficiently, though it seems that the team is mentally exhausted. But he needs to figure out how to bring out the grit, when players seem to think they’ve been exhausted.

I think it’s a solid C+ grade. Which is very good mark, considering they have a lot to figure out, as the caboose can’t drag down the synergy of a progressing team.

High points are Green can be a plus on the defensive side of things. But is having difficulty being a plus on offense when he is playing in team sets.

And Amen Thompson looks like a future all star while not having to score, he impacts the game with defense, rebounds, steals, hustle, easy buckets by the rim, etc. He’d be the dream teammate for someone like Jalen Green whose supposed calling card was volume scorer; but Green is having a hard time scoring within the system.

The brightest star is Sengun, who has shown to be a franchise level center, that operates effectively on defense.

Overall, it has been a lot to ask for, but things seem to be coming together.

 

It's a mixed bag. As of now I give it a C because of the failure of Jalen Green to have a "3rd year leap" where he becomes a starting caliber player and the really scary injury issues that are looking like they might derail Tari Eason's career.

The team has more wins, but they have those wins largely due to the efforts of guys who are not really part of the team's future long term. When it comes to the young guys....

Cam Whitmore and Amen Thompson have been inconsistent (as expected) but have shown some promise which is a plus.

Jabari Smith has bounced back as a shooter and is overall looking solid.....but no one is going to confuse him for a star.

Sengun has been a borderline all star, pretty much the best thing this team has to offter.

Tari Eason might not even exist anymore.

Jalen Green is just terrible, he has a career low in TS% and is bottom 20 in the entire league in that metric among qualified players and is bottom 4 in eFG% among qualified players. His defense has marginally improved, but he's still not any good at it. He still doesn't even attempt to box anyone out ever or put forth any effort on plays he's not directly involved in and even in the rare occasion that he puts forth any effort, his BBIQ is embarrassingly low.

 

Kinda crazy that Mavs, Kings and Rockets are roughly the same level of team according to point differential but Houston is 6.5 games back in the standings to both.

 

If the last 3 seasons were a F then this season is a C+ altho I'm not looking forward to giving OKC a top 10 pick.

Praying the NBA doesn't rig it more than they have to like they did the Spurs.

 

The Rockets told us they expected to make playoffs. I don’t understand how you can give Stone an A when we are not trending towards finishing at least in the 10th seed. If Udoka and this roster can obtain a play-in spot I’ll raise the grade and give Stone his credit. But right now I don’t think it’s possible in a tough western conference. We’d have to push out the Lakers or Warriors. Stone could’ve made moves before the deadline to give the team a better chance but chose not to which is a missed opportunity.

My grading metrics are:
A - Rockets get in the play-in
B - Rockets win at least 40 games, but miss play-in
C - Rockets win at least 35 games
D - Rockets win at least 30 games
F - Rockets win less than 30 games

 

The team started out strong, putting together 5 and 6 game win streaks leading through December. Some great wins versus teams like Denver, OKC, Dallas, NO, and Milwaukee probably boosting expectations to unrealistic heights.

Since then, they've struggled to string together wins, with losses to bad teams like Portland and Toronto, and blowouts against good teams like Minnesota and Boston. The defensive intensity of the first few months seems to have tapered off a bit, making the struggling offense an even bigger issue.

Are injuries to blame? Maybe. But players get injured all the time. Seems like the core is still not quite experienced enough and the roster is too shallow to overcome these bumps. There's also the sense that teams are gameplanning the Rockets better, and Udoka and co. are still figuring out the counter.

There's been a noticeable improvement to team effort and culture. Vet signings, sans Jock, are paying off for this season.

The returning young players are generally improved. It's hard not be a little disappointed in Jalen, the uptick in rebounding is cool I guess. Jabari has taken steps forward, but you hope there's another leap to be made. Sengun is a fringe All Star and still has room to grow.

Pleased with the rookies so far. Amen can do everything except shoot, and is able to generate paint touches even though teams sag off him. Figured Cam would be an explosive play finisher, but didn't expect him to hit 40% on 3 pointers. Their pre-draft flaws are still very real and obvious. I don't expect much improvement for the remainder of the season, but its nice that they've cracked the rotation and are positive contributors.

Could be better. Could be worse. But this season has been engaging and fun to watch. I give it a B.

 

This is my thinking too. If they make the play-in, it becomes a B rated season. If they crack the top 6 it’s an A season. By showing a 30 something win season, with adequate player development, it’s a C rated season. If they fall off the cliff after showing promise, because they mentally fold, it’s a D rated season. I think they’ve shown enough to have at minimum a D or better season.

 

Solid B. the start of the season had us thinking maybe we were much better than we are, but we forget how abysmal the previous 3 seasons were, lol

 

Would have been a solid A a couple of weeks ago when we were hanging right around .500, but we've fallen off hard. I'm down to a B+. Only reason I'm going that high is because I think injuries have played a role in our struggles. Our current pace would have us around 37 wins, which is just a few better than I expected. I think we should be able to increase our winning percentage a little after the all-star break when everybody (except maybe Tari at this rate) is hopefully healthy.