Especially since they traded Dillingham and some pocket change for Ayo? They’d cook them. Houston messed up by not calling Chicago.

None of those guys are play makers though, the most assists any of them average for their career is 3.7.

The Rockets need a floor general to run the offense and get guys like KD and Amen and Sengun quality shots and run their half court offense.

Simply being a ball handler who can attack and a shooting threat is enough in this day and age. Most PGs these days aren’t some playmaking savants. They make basic reads at best, keep the ball moving, and sometimes throw a cool behind the back dump off on a fast break. FVV, Murray, etc for example.

A guy like Schroeder, Sexton, Coby White, McCollum, Ayo, etc would have been more than an improvement to the Rockets’ situation.

They could’ve got Tre Jones from my Bulls who’s on a small contract and was probably available. I think we were asking for Eason tho or at least good draft capital. Are they really that dead set on keeping Eason when he only plays like 20 minutes?

Thats true. All those ive mentioned are more of a combo scoring guard. But i do recall kd on fvv podcast commenting on how he needs a scoring pg simply as a threat to open up his game. Tbh i think thats the same for sengun who can playmake from the post if his lanes are not clogged up at the dunker spot.

As a okc fan, i can admit that seeing this reminds me of the many years with westbrook, except that westbrook was a much better playmaker and scorer and amen is a much better defender but without a reliable middy, he is just going to be an andre roberson type burden on offence.

I thought Ayo Dosunmo or Coby White would go there and flourish and help the floor spacing

They have Sengun Amen and Durant, they don’t need a Chris Paul. Just someone competent at bringing the ball up the court, initiating the offense, and to be a shooting threat when off ball. Everyone else can swing it around just fine. 

Even though he’s in Greece Corey Joseph would be a decent short term option IMO.

Simons can definitely play make. Averaged 5.5 apg on our awful 23-24 team.

The two years he got to be the main ball handler he averaged well

There’s a former rocket on the kings who has had success with KD in the past on a tradable contract.

agreed

I agree. The offense is atrocious. Without Adams, it’s just getting exposed. If I wasn’t a KD fan I wouldn’t be watching rockets games because the offense is super stagnant and ugly to watch.

Man I was trying to explain this to someone a few days ago. They are a team with great contracts if they want to keep everyone, but its a problem trying to salary match for trades.

They are 1.2m below the first tax apron, and 13m below the second apron. They also have 12.5m in salary exception for FFV. So theoretically they could package up a bunch of picks and try to do something, but any team trading high level talent want more than that.

Yeah that’s fair, although if that’s the case I’d still consider moving Sengun instead. A bit clunkier fit, but honestly not much worse since Sengun can’t shoot either.

Even if Giannis isn’t the guy you target though, my point is more that these guys shouldn’t be untouchable. It’s far more likely Houston (among a few other teams) goes the way of Memphis than Boston or Golden State, the fit isn’t good and neither young guy looks like a sure fire superstar.

I think the 2nd apron cap dynamics have only made that more true. That roster is going to get very expensive very quickly, and they’ll lose a ton of flexibility they need to make up for the bad fit.

Teams are just risk averse because they don’t want to be the exception who gives up the Clippers package. The thing is though, it tends to be the volume of picks and young guys who lead to those deals aging poorly, when the package is more concentrated because blue chip prospects are going back, you tend to see deals like AD to LA that age better.

What people don’t understand is that the roster was constructed specifically around three things happening this season:

1. Alperen Sengun becomes a passable (let’s say ~33% on low volume) three point shooter;

2. Amen Thompson develops any kind of jump shot at all;

3. Jabari Smith takes a jump from an average 3 point shooter to a good 3 point shooter (35% –> 40%)

*None of those things happened.* If you had come into this sub over the summer and predicted that Amen Thompson will not develop a jump shot at all, like *at all*, like he’s worse than Westbrook or Ben Simmons or literally any other guard, people would have said that surely that’s wrong.

The larger problem is that those things *need to happen* for this Rockets team to be a real contender. Trading for a marginal guard, or leaning heavily on Fred VanVleet, doesn’t turn this Rockets team from mid-tier in the West to top-tier. Those developments for these players need to happen or this team isn’t going to contend.

Funny enough, Warriors actually did usually have two non-shooters on the floor for long stretches, because they would often play Draymond with a traditional big like Bogut.

The Warriors were basically the only team that could get away with it because they had the best backcourt shooting duo of all time!

Unless you have the equivalent of prime Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, it’s not gonna work. And even then, they still needed a good deal of depth shooters like Harrison Barnes and Andre Iguadola (in the clutch lol).

I agree although I think for perimeter players it really does need to be non-shooter to the extreme, like Simmons and Thompson type guys. Teams can generally make it work if you’re at least forcing close outs.

At center I think the bar is higher because it’s more of a stylistic thing. If a center wants to operate around the rim at all the fit won’t work, they really need to mostly play on the perimeter (which is likely why Simmons worked in Philly for as long as he did, Embiid has always worked from the perimeter a ton).

They wouldn’t have the money to extend white, he would only be here until the end of this season and I just can’t see the rockets giving up a first round pick for a 3 month rental for a guard that isn’t going to put them over the hump.

During the summer the deal could have been done. I do think Reaves is wildly overrated so he’s not worth a boatload. 

At the time of the fvv injury, i specifically was saying we could do a Reaves package for smith, Reed and some firsts.

The responses were, why would the Rockets do that? 

I’m getting Ben Simmons flashbacks

The problem is that he’s not slashing all that effectively often enough partly because Sengun’s not playing near the basket as much with Durant in. There’s just no movement to get Amen a head of steam, so he just kinda looks lost at the elbows. He’s still great in transition and occasionally he’ll find a clear drive, but often it’s just bogged down until he tosses it to KD.

So he’s a more athletic Ricky Rubio in that scenario?

and theyve tried parking him in the dunker spot to mitigate the issue from him in the corner

but despite being super athletic. hes still small operating out of the dunker. and theres a clear difference seeing Amen trying to finish over contact when you dont get a running start, vs a 6’⁹⁄₆’10 bigger dude

If your point guard is one dimensional in today’s game, hes the reason your offense is going to ineffective. Guys will be able to play passing lanes a lot better and double off the primary ball handler a lot easier

He was 14 PPG last year and is 18 PPG this year on passable efficiency. People really need to stop acting like he is Tony Allen or Herb Jones out there on offense. Athletic wings like him still have to be marked on the wing and baseline, especially if they are intelligent cutters and passers. He is also AT TIMES very productive in the guard slot when less athletic defenders are in the game. He shouldn’t be the lead guard, he almost certainly will never develop the jumper to be a lead guard, but he doesn’t need one and is only in this situation because they have 8 wings and no productive guards.

Amen makes Flagg look like Kevin Durant when it comes to shooting

So then you need to win now, and not fuck about with amen as a PG. fucking Dennis schroder would’ve helped them out

I feel like Castle will brick most 3s but if we’re 1 or 2 points down I swear he turns into Curry

Fox isn’t nearly a good enough shooter. They need a legitimate shooting threat from the PG position, arguably more than they need a playmaker. They have enough quasi-playmakers that a good Coach could make a free flowing offense work without a pure PG. Every single player other than Sengun and Amen have to be great shooters though.

Why would memphis want Jabari

Doesn’t work because at the end of this season you already have -46MM in cap space available with only 9 players on the roster. Even if you dropped Jabari for nothing in return to free up his 23MM, you are still over the salary cap by 23MM. You can only extend offers to free agents when you have cap space to do so.

The taxpayer MLE (around 6MM) is an option, but I don’t think it would be enough to pry them away from their current teams and would hard cap the rockets.

Brook Lopez is to broken jumpshots what Josh Allen is to project QBs

God forbid a guy makes a joke

CP is great with young guys

LOL Fred Van Vleet