Right now it's a C- for me. The issue I have with him is we tanked for 3 years and it's possible we didn't get that franchise altering player. Stone has been getting by on selling hope for too long without producing results.
I gave him a C. He's mostly just done his job like any other GM would, nothing special. I would give him credit for drafting Sengun, Eason, and Whitmore with later picks but the 3 years of Silas/KPJ cancels that out.
C at best, and he gets no extra credit opportunities let’s see how he handles Jalen Green’s looming extension/future with the team
Well we have two solid vets in FVv and Dillon. 3 if you count Holiday. Edit: 4! Forgot uncle jeff. We have 6 young guys with legitimate NbA talent in Alpi, Green, Jabari, Tari, Cam and Amen. Any of whom could become bonafide stars. If you have 9 guys that clearly have NbA talent in your rotation, you’ve done well. IMO
(B-) He's been decent! Hate that he practically throws away 2nd rounders like they have cooties though!! Go Rockets!!! ....... ....... .......
I give him a C-. Building on a foundation of Wood and KPJ was not good, and obviously the Silas hire was bad. The John Wall and Olidipo situations were bad. These foundational moves helped create a toxic culture and significantly hurt the org’s reputation. Remember that Evan Mobley wouldn’t even work out for us and had no interest in playing for Houston. Remember the Wemby draft night reaction. Stone hasn't really made trades to significantly help this team other than draft night in 2021. I think this summer’s free agency acquisitions had a lot more to do with Ime. Hiring Ime was more of a Tilman decision. The culture and reputation turnaround is all Ime. As others have said, I’ll give Stone credit for the success of our mid-round picks, but our highest draft pick since Yao is looking like a miss. Asset management is well below par. In all, I give him a C-. We have a below average front office.
I think Stone gets a B- or maybe a B overall. He has mostly got the big things right - maybe in hindsight we wanted Barnes over Green but in the moment I thought the picks we made were a decent mix of risk/reward and several of our first round picks appear to be legit NBA rotational players which I think is ultimately the floor you want for establishing value on your roster. At the top of the draft, I think he mostly made the picks most would have made - where he has overachieved is in those picks later in the draft - trading up for Sengun and snagging Tari Eason, and Cam Whitmore were all very high value pickups that appear to exceed projection for what you normally get in those draft spots. My only complaint is it feels like he hasn't necessarily made the most of all the investment we have made. For instance, we drafted more guys than we had minutes for and so some of those picks I think were ultimately a waste(Tyty, JC, etc) - should have just traded them for future draft assets before we picked those guys....and why was Nix here so long? I guess we were taking a flyer on all of them hoping they would blow the competition away but they largely didn't and we didn't have minutes to even grow many of them. Additionally it felt like we maybe overpaid for Brooks a bit - seemed like the market for him was weak so I would have hoped we would have offered him less to make him a more valuable trading asset down the road. We also missed pretty badly on the Jock Landale signing. Also, while keeping Silas as long as we did gave us opportunity to pick in the lotto more often, I think punting on a strong development coach has hurt Jalen's value considerably. The strategy to let these players whither on the vine for the last two years and allow the team culture to be bad until this year to FINALLY bring in a real coach and real helpful vets was a very poor decision in my mind. ...bottom line is - this team has done a good job on the rebuild overall so far and there are pieces to start building a strong defensive team but obviously we haven't hit on a surefire franchise guy yet so the future seems somewhat dependent on how we want to build our team moving forward.....Do we go with the true team concept with no clear #1 guy and have Udoka building a hard working, defensive minded/share the ball team concept and hope one of our guys grow into that offensive focal point(maybe Alpi or Jalen) or a game changer decides to come to Houston as a FA OR do we feel like we can't move forward without identifying that franchise cornerstone and so we cash in guys like Jalen or Amen or Tari and a lot of those future firsts to grab a cornerstone guy now or grab another lotto pick, etc. I think the latter is a probably an overreaction and I'm glad Stone didn't trade Jalen this trade deadline to get that guy in NOW because I don't think that guy is available today but Stone's legacy moving forward is really going to hinge on what he does with Jalen/Alpi moving forward - keep one or both, and if one of them are traded, what is the return going to be for that.
A- from me. I think in an alternate reality we could be the Pistons. They have Cade and Monty Williams as their coach, they haven't really hit on any of their later draft picks, I guess Jalen Duran is alright. And they're 8-44. We got Udoka which was a home run. We got Sengun with a late pick, Whitmore with a late pick, and Tari Eason with a late pick. We added FVV who I think has done wonders for pretty much all the starters, Sengun especially. I'm still lukewarm on the Dillon Brooks signing, he's a bonehead and I don't really like him but it's hard to quantify how his attitude/leadership/mentorship has affected other players and the way they play on the defensive end. If we believe what his teammates say about him then it's been very beneficial. As for Jalen Jabari and Amen, eh, jury is still out I guess. Jalen was probably not the correct pick but he still might be, and even if he wasn't, I'm not super impressed with Mobley. I guess it probably should've been Barnes if we're using hindsight. And I still think he got incredibly lucky with the Brook Lopez situation. Overall though we're on pace to win 37 games which has definitely exceeded my expectations. He deserves a lot of credit for the drafting and the coaching hire.
For Phase One, accumulating draft picks and assets an A, tanking was the goal landing us Sengun, Cam, Tari, Jalen, and Bari. For phase two it's incomplete until the season ends or over the next couple of seasons also injuries have changed things significantly. At full strength, the team was a playoff seed early on with a very young core. But A- right now as we've improved over last year, players will recover from injuries, and all the core players are 19-22 and will get better with age. This is a long-term game
Felt like this poll would be more polarized than the others. He has done well at some things and leaves a lot to be desired in others. I gave a B- because overall, the team is headed in the right direction. LOTS of room for improvement though. If he sits on his hands in the coming off-season, then his grade drops dramatically. Looks like the median vote is about a C.
B- -Credit for Ime -Credit for Sengun (I know Witus was key here) -Eason, Whitmore correct decisions in middle rounds. -Brooks and FVV deals can be deemed as “positive” IMO.
