We are not gonna catch OKC and SA chasing stars. And it would be a huge mistake to mortgage our future for an aging star anyway. As OKC, SA, Boston and Detroit are showing: the best way to build a franchise is to draft and develop your own players. They are also reminding us: you need a franchise guy to truly contend. KD is still amazing at 37, but what about inevitable drop-off at some point? Reed and Sengun are not sustainable together. Amen and Sengun don’t fit together. We don’t have a true franchise player. We are one game away from being the 6th seed and shockingly only 2.5 games from being the 7th seed with the Suns overtaking us. We just aren’t anywhere close to being a contender. And we certainly aren’t a FVV coming off knee surgery away lol. I think we have to make some tough decisions and reset the timeline this offseason. Fortunately we still have some great young prospects to continue developing, but we have to find that franchise guy and we have to start building a roster that fits together as opposed to accumulating raw talent whose skills don’t mesh. we either need to find the next Harden; a young player on the come that has the potential to be a franchise guy who is somehow available. Highly unlikely but we did it once. or Find a way to get one out of the 2026 or 2027 drafts. Sengun doesn’t fit but he’s a significant asset. KD doesn’t fit our timeline, but he’s a significant asset. And we also have valuable picks in later years. We have the assets to try and get a franchise player one way or another. That has to be the singular goal going forward. We are just deluding ourselves if we think otherwise. Will the org have the self awareness to reset our timeline and get the rebuild right? Discuss.
LOL..... Classic GARM....... "If you ain't first, you're last" Missing two key rotation players....... BLOW IT UP. Like have you ever considered maybe developmental is some linear thing.... ?
No, they will delude themselves into going the other direction. “We’re not a developmental team anymore.” “We’re missing Fred & Steve. It’s not our year.” … But get them back and a full offseason for DFS… They aren’t gonna trade Katie. While Sengun may go, it’ll be for someone older. They deluded themselves after last year they were a Katie away (from I don’t know what? Getting out the 1st?)
Agreed completely, at a bare minimum we need to move most if not all of the veterans and re-tool. I don't think that would even mean being a truly bad team again, we can probably still avoid repeating the dismal Silas years and at least be at the back end of the play-in mix. And I don't even think Udoka would be a bad developmental coach, he's been pretty good at establishing a culture and getting young guys to play hard. And if he doesn't want to coach for a non-contending team, he can always resign; his flaws have become pretty apparent and detrimental to any team actually trying to win it all. I would only caution that we need to be very calculating with a Sengun trade, and we are not under any strong pressure to trade him right away, so I'd field offers but only accept one that really makes sense for us. I think I'd want a high-ceiling but unproven young player + at least a couple of decent first round picks or a proven 20-something player who fits better. Anything short of that I'm going to bide my time and see what else comes available.
it’s not a knee-jerk take. If you don’t think we need a franchise guy to contend I think u are wrong. If you think we have our franchise guy on the roster I think u are wrong. Which one is it? I still hold out a lot of hope for Amen btw, but I think he’s pretty far away.
But those two guys don’t change a whole lot of the point OP was making, correctly in my opinion. Durant, FVV and Adams are all old(and fragile) and it seems like the org has decided that they plan to rely heavily on these guys, which is not great if we are looking for a long contention window. Our young guys are nowhere near ready to contend so a window with more time seems necessary…. Our young guys have glaring deficiencies that I don’t believe are going to just be fixed with development, I think improvement on the edges is likely but these guys aren’t changing big time. Sengun isn’t going to defend or shoot. Amen is not going to ever be a shooter. Reed will likely be a defensive liability. Neither of these 3 feel likely to ever become a top 5-7 player in the league. And we need one. They built a team, when healthy, with a 2nd round ceiling. Without health probably another 1st round exit.
Do you think Stone will tank a second time for 2026 and 2027? Does Tilman have an appetite for this so soon? Any concern on whatever anti-tanking reform Adam Silver said he has in store for the NBA effective next season? If just getting rid of vets, what is your max age cap requirement for the replacement players?
Spot on OP. I wouldn’t use the term “rebuild” though, it has the connotation of bottoming out and tanking. We’d still be a competitive probable play-in team minus Sengun/KD/Tari; and after lottery reform our own picks would still likely have high lottery equity. If your primary interest is Rockets championships I’m not even sure this plan is debatable. But if you’re satisfied with no hope playoff appearances, I see the argument against. I just hope Patrick Fertitta isn’t (because it will be in Ime’s personal interests and potentially Stone’s to avoid taking a step back to take three steps forward). We’re way ahead of them in the standings but it would be 10x more fun and there would be more fans in the seats if we were the 32-33 Charlotte Hornets this season. A core of high end offensive talent they believe in, no artificially accelerated “contender” expectations this year, playing with pace, and a real pathway to being the best team in the conference in the future instead of perpetual first round fodder for the top dogs in the conference.
Rockets got unlucky with the first draft. JG made them believe they had a star and Sengun made them believe they had the next Jokic. So we've been treading water ever since. I would first explore trading whatever isn't named Reed or Amen to get into the Top 4 of this draft (chance that one of the power forwards is there at 5 but who knows). If not then trade Sengun, FVV, Durant, Adams and anyone else with value (DFS has negative value and he's fine to stay for a bit) for role players that fit around these 2. Not sure about Jabari but wouldn't lose sleep over trading him either at this point if it means bringing back a high draft pick in this years draft. If not then give him another developmental year, hire an offensive minded coach that can actually run sets for these 3 and go for it in the next draft. Also before anything else, fire Stone and Ime and everyone associated with them. This team desperately needs a fresh set of eyes.
I don't think we would be tanking outright. We aren't even making our own draft pick until 2028, unless we can manage to be worse than Brooklyn. We'd be re-tooling. Vets would go out, younger players would come in. Amen/Reed/Jabari is still a solid group, especially if any or all of the three take steps forward next season. KD, FVV, Adams, DFS, Capela are over $100M in salary, so you're getting real NBA players back whether you like it or not just to match salaries. Sengun, if we trade him, better bring back some immediate young talent, not just future draft picks, and also carries a $35M salary next season that needs to be matched. Basically I think the worst case barring major injury problems is that we'd end up being around .500 but would have a totally different, much younger look. If Amen/Reed/Jabari improve significantly, we might not even get much worse at all.
we shouldn’t have to tank to be players in the 2026 or 2027 drafts because we’ve got two picks in 2027 and assets to get into 2026 (although I think that’s gonna be a challenge). But the tanking reform certainly will impact calculations going forward. No idea what that looks like though. not advocating tanking or getting rid of all our vets. Again I don’t think we have to tank to take swings in these next two drafts. I’m advocating recouping rebuilding assets for KD and Sengun. Still think having vets on the team is important. We all lived through an era with just young guys and it wasn’t good. But we do need to consolidate around the young guys we want to move forward with and go out and aggressively find that franchise player. LA has theirs Minny has theirs Okc has 3 SA has theirs We’ve got to find ours. And he needs to be under 28 yrs old. We’d obviously take a step back without KD, but what’s the point of keeping him if we aren’t contending? Why not convert him into something valuable that helps us get our franchise guy?
We really need to go through your list of DD players….Greek TMac? Von Wafer? More recently…. KPJ? Cam Whitmore? Why are you attributed with the “DD curse” if you are so knowledgeable about basketball?
I would love to have Indiana or Milwaukee be in a win now mode and offer up their top 10 pick for KD and whatever they have to throw in to match salaries, Hopefully a solid player or at least not some albatross contract. Then trade Sengun only if you get solid value. Again I would be looking for another top 10 pick this year. If you did not get a defensive big with decent range on a jump shot for KD, hopefully you add one on a trade with Sengun. Try and get some other young player and a future 1st thrown in.
I completely agree with this, just would be shocked if it happened. I did not want to trade for KD. I understand the price was low but recognized we did not have a true franchise player and the best way to rectify that was to take swings in the draft. Obviously the likelihood of the 10th pick turning into anyone franchise worthy is incredibly low, but it's still a chance. Unfortunately, I'd be shocked if we didn't run it back next year with Fred. Going to waste another year essentially.
Taken in context, I think you will find what I said about all of them to be true. The first one through the wall always gets bloodied by those comfortable with status quo. RE: Team building - this topic. This team doesn't fit together well, as both KD and Sengun need or want the ball in the mid post area - and we are standing around watching them work. KD is much more efficient at it, but it kills the rest of the team as they can't create their own shots and KD isn't a great creator. Sengun is a great creator, and the team would be better with him INSTEAD of KD only because the ball would move around more - but because Sengun can't shoot the 3ball - he is super hard to build around. We don't have a balanced roster, we have leaned to heavily into older players, who will ALWAYS get injured, and we need to find a roster that fits, one that can DEVELOP as we go, let the young guys grow. KD is only 1 maybe 2 more years - and currently more efficient, so one of KD or Sengun must go......you can probably get more for Sengun as he is younger - but that doesn't solve all the teams problems - some still don't fit. Identifying the ones that do fit....Reed, Amen, Bari - allows you to trade anyone else if necessary to put together a balanced roster. There is a reason we are better ATM with Capela at the center position with KD - now if we didn't have KD we would be much better with Sengun initiating.....so got to pick a lane, or wallow in mediocrity. DD
My thing on KD was always less about contending, though the Rockers FO might see it different. It was a way for the FO and coaching to better evaluate what they have in the young stable. How much to continue invest. Based on current mood of team, and existence of threads like this, seems like Rockets is lacking. Putting an actual top 25 player with this group, how lacking is the group still? Last year, when the young stable under-achieves, was quota of Jalen minutes holding team back? (That's environment part for other young players). Even with KD giving what he has, it's also revealing how ineffective the offense is. That coaching might be lacking, and seems like the offense is proped up by bailout of superstars or FVV, instead of a more functional half court offense In which case, is a reset, even if a soft reset should include Ime? Because he wants his team a certain way. Is this what Rockets should do, build a Tibs/JVG type of squad.
