The type of rebuild stone inherited is unprecedented. It is common to tank a rebuilding team and get some consecutive high picks, but he got extremely lucky in getting #2, #3, #4, #3 in consecutive years, and then he also had a prime James Harden as a trade chip and got incredible return because the team he wanted to be on was a cluster of a franchise and the super team fell apart quickly therefore making the draft capital valuable, this doesnt happen often. Stone tried to sign guys like Oladipo to big money, and he declined, again he got lucky, but then he traded out of the Brooklyn picks, a team that would have been built around Bridges lol. The position you are put in matters in evaluating him. Tillman let him tank 3 full seasons + let him trade prime harden for draft capital, he has been handed a lot to begin with, and has done a poor job getting an above avg return. I will give him credit for getting out of a Jalen Green contract after blowing that pick and then extending him to an absurd overpay. Look at his redrafts, he messed up every draft except 2023. Reed would go 5th in a 2024 redraft. He has bungled an incredible opportunity.
Selective memory. At the time, taking all those draft picks without a superstar was FROWNED upon. The consensus here was that Stone got robbed lol. Now it was a blessing taking back all those picks? Yall are professional goal post movers. Remember the John Wall contract yall were b****ing & whining about, Oladipo? Those were contracts Stone was able to flip. He gave us a master class in how to take on & move salary, collect draft capital while staying flexible. Dont forget you guys complained about Stone giving Dillon Brooks all that money only for Brook to be a culture change for this franchise. Stone has done phenomenal. The ONLY gripe I have is not trading Sengun for Giannis if that was on the table. I hope he didn't let the Turkish fanbase scare him from shipping Sengun's azz outta here for the Greek Freak
Unfortunately Stone was never able to flip Oladipo or John Wall. Two guys with serious injury histories that couldn’t play at a high level anymore. I don’t remember anyone whining about the picks part of the Harden trade. It was the Oladipo part. And we have to acknowledge that Stone tried to sign Oladipo to an overpriced extension, which he turned down. Oladipo turned out to be a complete waste of value in that trade. The Wall for Russ trade was disappointing because Wall ended up being negative value, but at least the mediocre pick we got was packaged as part of the Sengun draft night trade. Still given what the Wizards got for Russ months later, it was clear we sold low. Taking on the rest of Wall’s contract also killed our cap space, so we couldn’t take on bad salary for draft picks while we were tanking. It wasn’t a catastrophe, but it wasn’t a good trade. the Dillon signing ended up being one of the best moves Stone has made and many of us were very wrong about the contract at the time…including me.
What? SGA wasn’t drafted. They traded PG13 for him who the Clippers gave reluctantly and got several picks out the deal. Everyone knew SGA was going to be great. They didn’t win anything until they got several vet free agents in Caruso (championship experience) and hartenstein to shore up that defense while bringing in experience because that home grown OKC talent wasn’t enough. What does “built” even mean? Signing players through free agents is building no different than drafting or trading for players.
Omer Yurtseven, Sengun’s fellow countryman and recently signed by the Vipers, is dominating in the G-league. Stone should call him up.
He is already a proven 8th or 10th man in the NBA, don't know why NBA teams are trying out old vets....just another joke.
I said this in the "Fire Stone III" thread, the bar should not be lowered for Stone. He was here under Morey and he took over after Morey. He should be fully aware of the standard at which he should be held. Morey was not allowed to tank after the Yao and Mac era. His two coaches that we can count under his tenure(I don't know if we count Adelman as his hire) Mchale and MDA both got conference Finals appearances and we had a 50 win team and a 60 win team with an MVP(who should've had more and I don't like Harden). Morey had faults(T-Rob, Royce White, lack of ppl skills), but he addressed needs in February and we were always aggressive in making moves. When Stone came in and made I believe it was the Harden trade he basically gave himself like 7 years by saying something like you can't judge him until the moves play out and that's like in 7 years. We are coming up on Year 7 and all we've done was get to the playoffs and lose to GSW and we're hoping to make the playoffs this year(but it's not our year). How can you want to win when the person who is managing the team you're on has thrown in the towel at the halfway mark of the season? I wanted to like him, but I believe he is in over his head. Saying "calm down we're sitting in 3rd" means nothing when we can easily fall to 7th in a day or so and 8 is playing better than us. There needs to be accountability, but that would be admitting mistakes were made and Stone or anyone else will not admit that. But, "It's just not our year". Pack him up.
why do people keep bringing up Morey when the guy didn't win a championship and traded away many draft picks in favor of stars and built a flawed 2018 team with a flawed philosophy? let's stop this morey is a genius or that he was great delusion. In this business getting to the playoffs isn't good enough. Winning a first or second round isn't either. The end goal is championships and he certainly did not deliver any trophies to this organization and still hasn't with the sorry state of the sixers.
For some people, the star player is never good enough until after a title. Same people who said harden is not a 1A now tell us we need a prime James Harden. ESPN has destroyed the understanding of WHAT ELSE is required aside from a star player and how those things can significantly reduce your need for an all time great. Celtics won one without any favorite MVP candidates. That’s a real model for us but as the Celtics discovered, Udoka is not the coach for that model. Udoka needs too much. He needs the most talented scorers in the NBA to cover for his deficiencies and the best defensive squad in the league to satisfy his OCD. Guess what, any coach can win it all with that roster. We need a coach who can give an advantage or edge through better game management and rotation choices. These playoffs are the final test for him imo. We must finish in the top 4 in the West and not get beaten easily in the WCF. That’s the absolute minimum for a 3rd seed he has molded exactly the way he wants.
No coaches can win without dominant players. Rockets have one dominant player and several with scoring deficiencies and limitations. It’s not that difficult if Rockets fans are honest with themselves and put away the pride. Our team simply isn’t talented enough. Celtics won with dominant scorers. Brown and Tatum are dominant scorers. Teams need dominant players to win. SGA is a dominant player. Without him OKC isn’t winning shi+. Don’t get your point here.
Bring him in for the rest of the year as an emergency Capella backup. We sure don’t need any of the guys we could release: JD Davison, Crawford.
I mean the FO has pretty much telegraphed they were not going to spend assets on upgrading the point guard / playmaking spot but wanted to see what Amen/Sengun/Reed can do.
Getting extremely lucky would have been getting Cade or Wemby with the #1 pick. The GM works for the owner who sets the direction, it was Tillman who pushed for the WB trade and didn't want to tank (hence Olodipo and Wood). Stone can certainly convince the owner on a course and tanking under the restrictions of the WB trade was the most prudent course. BTW a team built around Bridges would have most likely acquired other players instead of just tanking without their picks. We generally went with consensus high picks so not really seeing how he bungled anything.
That is still not compatible with the saying 'Is it not our year?'...... Then he should have said, we are taking a gap year........but hell yeah, every excuse is probably a PR own goal at that point if you shortened your time line with a 38 year old.
he’s bungled plenty but I won’t bring up the WOW era. I’m not saying he’s the worst GM in the world. If you had 4 top 4 picks in 4 yrs and still don’t have your franchise player, you can call that unlucky. But then you need to be making other moves to get that guy. Not sitting out back to back drafts and telling folks you are no longer a development team. We could still be taking swings in this talented draft, and maybe “get lucky”. But Stone thought he had all the talent he needed and isn’t even putting the org in a position to potentially hit on a franchise guy. So is he unlucky or is he bungling our chance to get lucky, or both? He still hasn’t proven he can actually put together a roster that fits. If he can reset and pull off a bold move that gets us a franchise guy under the age of 28, or even a move that gets us a step closer to that, I’ll feel much better. But if he stays the course thinking we have what we need and we just star chase, he needs to be fired. The guy hasn’t proven a thing and we are in yr 7 of his leadership. What’s the vision for this team? I have no idea. Does anyone?
I think I've seen enough. I simply don't trust Stone to make the right decisions going forward. Remember, the front office was seriously entertaining signing James Harden again until allegedly Ime vetoed it. Outside the draft, Stone's trades and player acquisitions have been woefully subpar as well (e.g., Daniel Theis, Christian Wood, Oladipo, KPJ, etc.). He has made too many bad bets. The best trades/player signings were FVV and Brooks, and that was influenced by Ime.
