Z Lowe: “I just scream,with FVV out, we need more of him (reed), put him back in the game"

Yes - Adelman loved those big men that couldn’t defend.

 

Well, Chuck Hayes could defend.

 

But couldn’t score - so probably would be a good fit also in today’s team
No intentions to offend the Chuck wagon - one of my favourite Rockets!

 

No Gary Payton...your twit is invalid

 

No proper head coach would trash their own player when asked a question by the media.

When someone asks if Reed Shepperd will ever get a chance to start and Ime replies 'Not now, if ever' it tells me he is a piece of ****. I know he is a piece of shot from banging someone's wife. But to make a comment like that about your own rookie, Ime is trash of a human being and terrible head coach i want him gone and i want to say *** YOU IME JOKER

 

Chuck Hayes free throw shooting made Sengun look like Calvin Murphy.

 

Maybe, but the Rockets' draft capital was gutted when Stone became GM. When Stone became GM I think the Rockets would have had 3-4 FRPs drafted by now, and 6 over the next seven years based on what he received without the picks Stone acquired. The Rockets have 5 good young players, and 8 FRPs over the next 7. Durant and Harden basically cancel each other out now. I think it is obvious the Rockets have more young talent than was expected from the draft when Stone took over and the draft capital remaining is much better than he was given. If he's bad at picking, he's excellent at draft pick management.

It just seems like it was a season ago that Stone was getting ragged on for poor draft pick management, and now he's getting pissed on for acquiring major draft capital and debateably not meeting expectations for those picks.

Overall, I think there are at least 20 worse front offices than the Rockets.

 

" I understand he’ll get picked on a little bit but he can guard Jose Alvarado"

Can he, though?

 

I don't think Stone is excellent at picking or draft pick management honestly.

There are certainly worse teams/GM's at it, but I don't see anything special with what Stone has done with getting picks and with choosing which players to take in the draft.

I personally think that the Rockets front office is in the middle, maybe top 33%. They are risk adverse, and they are cautious in their dealings which limits their mistakes. However they lack any real vision, attention to detail and lack the ability to project how pieces fit. Stone is very 2-D is how he does a lot of things, as if there is a check marked list with bold bullet points and that is all.

He also has been very lucky with regards to Oladipo not accepting an extension amongst other things.

I don't see Stone ever leading the Rockets to the bottom of the league - he isn't stupid and he is cautious, but I also do not think that the front office has the ingredients that the top 25% of the league has.

 

I think this is possible. I think a lot of the short-term moves have fallen apart this season, but I think the front office and Ime are not on the same page. I understand Ime not playing Reed when he was absolutely horrible for about 20 games. I understand the FO wanting Reed developed. I think Ime is on board with developing Reed, but will default to defense when the going gets tough. Ime is in a tough position, though. This team has huge holes that were meant to be filled by FVV and DFS who are a combined huge negative so far.

I think the FO purposefully didn't acquire another guard at the deadline, as the FO thought development was more important than how this season was looking.

 

When they traded for KD, most of rational Rockets fans saw it as a move to try and contend without losing much of our future. I think that is still the case and it's actually encouraging that the FO didn't burn valuable assets on a team that if we're being honest, probably isn't contending this year.

 

Using hindsight, here are the best players currently using EPM Estimated Wins for the Rockets pre-Stone FRP draft capital.
Scottie Barnes* (Stone actions of tanking allowed the Rockets to keep this pick.)
Jalen Duren
Amen Thompson
Danny Wolf

I get that EPM isn't perfect, but I think that is a reasonable estimate of the best possible drafting Stone could have done with neutral draft-pick management.

The Rockets, through draft pick management and drafting, ended up with the following instead:
Sengun
JSJ
Tari
Amen
Reed Sheppard
2 extra upcoming FRPs
2 likely better FRPs based on swaps

I'd say Stone got more out of than the draft picks that Morey left him by a wide margin. A lot of that is the Harden trade, but Durant cancels Harden, IMO, regading future value.

The biggest lucky thing for Stone IMO is Harden forcing his way out of Houston.

 

I think that is playing the results....and utterly pessimistic.

Those teams all have a no doubt franchise player that dictated the type of style and complimenting roster. The Spurs through sheer chance had the ability to draft two highly athletic point guards (not the Elite 8/G League type of guard/wing) in back to back drafts. Some of it just comes down to luck (or maybe rigging the odds).

It's ironic.... OKC isn't some great offensive team outside of SGA's ISOs... they don't run a bunch of complicated sets with a bunch of movement.... it's pretty station to station.... they don't have a bunch of lights out 3 point shooters... but they do play some elite defense. Does that model championship model sound somewhat familiar?

We still have the ability to make major moves with players we have, our current 2 year window cap situation, and our assets. I don't understand acting like we need to start asking ourselves if we are the JVG Knicks? That seems a bit pessimistic.

 

I actually think the opposite is true.... we don't have a vet backup PG because the FO wants to see what our young core can do. We didn't make any moves at the mid season trade deadline because the FO wants to see what our young core can do.

And FVV and KD are on pretty short term contracts. There's a chance we move KD after the 2027 season when he has a player option left.

 

We went from abysmally tanking to competitive in very short order. I remember discussing tanking with you.... you wanted to somehow thread the needle between using the 3 season window of the disastrous CP3 trade to both get the best picks while developing a winning culture.

We didn't have the draft luck of getting no doubt franchise players like Cade and Wemby or Flagg. Despite your complaining about Wood (who we signed the offseason before Harden was traded), Olodipo, and KPJ they are long gone and no way impacted our chances to put ourselves in the best odds for the 1st pick.

That's pretty baseless. If we replace Eason, it's because we went with Jabari over him but there's still a chance we resign.

I've seen nothing to indicate the Roxs would just trade Reed.... literally all rebuilding teams have a mix of vets and young core.

 

With a PO on his contract, couldn't KD just tell them......f*** off, I don't want to move?

 

This. I think a lot of folks are missing the forest through the trees.

I tend to think the coaching staff and FO are on the same page, we just had some bad injury luck. I think people underestimate the difficulty of developing team with a very large young core and maybe just assumed development would just go up and to the right.

 

Of course... I was thinking about this from KD's perspective of wanting to bounce.

He obviously knew the young core was still developing but if we have another disappointing season next year then maybe we get a late FRP or two.

 

Stone is likely not as bad as some folks say and not as great as others say. But where do u come down on trading out of the 2025 & 2026 drafts? Clearly Brooklyn was unlucky with their draft spot last yr. But that doesn’t change the fact that it was a good draft at the top, and 2026 is supposed to be generational. Feels like a significant mistake.