Reading is fundamental. The context clearly indicated that I am talking about the future. Obviously he has made moves in the past. I said, "without making a single move we can add Tari Eason and Steven Adams". Obviously they won't be healthy until next season. We can improve our team next year without making a single move. WE WILL MAKE MOVES THOUGH!
Plays a huge part in prospect evaluation and player evaluation. He was the strongest advocate for Sengun for example. He also was pushing for Scottie Barnes at #2. He also is very good at the cap and getting trades done. He hired most of the Rockets “nerd cave”. He is quiet and keeps a VERY low profile. Daryl Morey has said he is the best talent evaluator he has known and would be a GM if he wanted to be. A lot of the stuff that the current GM takes credit for came from Eli. The expectation was that Morey or OKC or LAC would pry him away from the Rockets. So his extension is a big deal.
Looked like a pretty good value at the time, but let's remember that Brooklyn was setting up what looked like a monster team that could stay together for years. We didn't get back a headline piece (i.e. OKC coming away with SGA for Paul George). It looked like a "quantity over quality" trade at the time--very possibly a bunch of tail-end first rounders. It looks better now that Brooklyn is a lotto team that might be stuck there for awhile. But even with hindsight, it's still TBD until we see how the rest of the picks pan out. One mid-lotto pick in a bad draft does not a great trade make. So far, I wouldn't say it was a bad trade at all, but I wouldn't say I'm blown away by it either. That could change with the benefit of hindsight, I guess.
Exceptional? Not sure about exceptional. They went and spent a quarter of a billion dollars on three players this off season. Worthy of a contract extension? Yeah, I think so.
Not so sure about that. TF has looked in the recent past. Also the title means less in basketball than other sports - the power in the building varies. To be clear, I don’t expect them to hire someone at this point, but I also do not think it is completely off limits either. For example - If someone like Bob Meyers decides he wants lesser hours and to still run a team, I could see the Rockets interested. It adds another voice to the mix - but often who has power varies. In the Rockets case, right now Udoka has a lot of pull.
It’s too early to know if Stone is going to be good or not. I do think he earned an extension though. The team did improve and have the Nets lottery pick as well…. This stuff could fall apart quickly or continue to improve… but at this point Stone has them close to where they hoped to be in 2024.
Yeah, in Meyers' case is hard to find another assignment that could potentially top what he did with the Warriors..... I can see Meyers staying a TV personality or go into business actually.....
What Stone lacks I feel is the double down and Follow Up on things that he does well.... It feels like he does a step forward and then becomes totally tentative to do the follow up move.......like he is looking at Ime the whole time, very tentative and unsure body language for a 51 year old......
It is very possible he stays out of the game in an executive position - hard to say. I know he was very mentally exhausted when he left the Warriors. Recently he made a comment that led me to believe he may be open to a return in the future - but I don’t know him personally or what motivates him.
Stone has already done enough to prove himself with hindsight we can see moves like Harden trade, draft picks, FA signings and Udoka proved Stone is a good GM. He also works well and synergizes with other talented people like Eli Witus and Udoka who everyone here have hard ons for. Part of being a manager doesn't mean you aren't the best in everything, but you find others who are better at certain things and let them do their job. Everyone sees that as a sign of weakness but to me being able to manage multiple personalities and allow them to contribute to the best of their ability without power tripping or asserting dominance that's a sign of a good GM.
You do realize that Harden himself signed with an agency that was specifically tasked to do negotiations and he wanted to help the Rockets with a decent haul.......despite of what was reported of ill will and what not.... Harden was 60%-70% responsible for the haul, I am grateful for that.......
You do realize at the end of the day Rafael Stone as the GM has the final call on everything right? He had the choice of Nets or Sixers and chose Nets. CF "GMs" here were clamoring for all star Ben Simmons and saying Stone and Fertita got nothing for Harden. Just look up past threads right after the Harden trade. The agency is just there to put pressure on the Rockets to trade him, not get max value for him. If Harden wanted Rox to get max value he would have said he'd play for anyone lol gimme a break dude.
Bc for the normal fan it is okay to research less and say oh well the GM is responsible for all the things, yeah well, he is responsible but he does not do all the things..... Be better at research, mang....... That is why posters here suggested to put a President of BBall Operations in front of Stone! To get someone who has the connections within the NBA.
You are the one who needs to do research. Harden wore a fat suit and threw balls at teammates. Even blasted the entire team post game. How is that someone who wanted the Rockets to get max value for him? That's just pure BS you invented. Harden was doing literally everything he can think of to lower his stock lmao and you are telling me to do research. Posters here are the ones who wanted Stone fired I don't care about the collective GM abilities of the forum. These people said FVV was the worst signing ever and the Rox would be lucky to get 35 wins. Now they want somebody to take over from Stone. Based on what?
I think you are wrong about being a 50 win team so soon. The effort for wins over .500 gets a lot harder. This year 50 wins was a 5 seed in the west - doesn’t seem like a place Houston is anywhere close to right now. We saw it at the end of the year when teams(like Dallas) started to turn on playoff mode - we got blown out of the water because playoff level is not a level any young guys had ever played at yet in their careers - and it showed by how we got humiliated this year. …along those lines I think you underestimate how hard Stone’s job will become in the coming years as the Harden asset trove starts to dwindle and you have to start paying your rookies and make compromises. This year and next is the easiest it will ever be for Stone because you have a roster of player performing well above what you would expect for guys making the amount of money they do…but once those rookie contracts expire - this gets tough because you start getting locked into deals that are a lot harder to maneuver around. I think THAT is the real reason why wasting the first rounder he wasted might be an issue because even parking them for the future would have been better strategic moves than what he actually did. Otherwise I agree - he mostly got it right. He never hit the home run, but he has a number of solid players to show for it and a lot of flexibility with roster construction moving forward because a lot of these guys are versatile players. How he handles the Jalen and Sengun picks is going to be the first big domino and he can’t afford to miss opportunities like he did earlier in his tenure with the Lopez situation or with the Silas situation.
