We\u2019ve been here before.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s worth remembering. This is not the first time in the Rafael Stone era that there\u2019s been widespread displeasure with Rafael Stone. It\u2019s familiar territory for Houston Rockets fans.<\/p>\n
Specifically, it happens on an annual basis at the NBA Trade Deadline.<\/p>\n
To be sure, their recent thrashing at the hands of a Brown-less Celtics squad was aesthetically horrifying. Rockets fans would have done as well to throw on Terrifier.<\/p>\n
Early in the season, the notion that Houston\u2019s rebound-focused attack was \u201cgimmicky\u201d was controversial. Now, it\u2019s axiomatic. Anyone should recognize that the Rockets are not going to win at the highest level with this strategy.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s friend of the show (who I believe still reads these?), Andrew Soukup, with a succinct summary of the problem. A pair of non-shooters. For all the high-falutin\u2019 conceptual stuff about dribble hand-offs, cuts from the high post, triangle offense, etc., the reality is that it\u2019s difficult to build a high-powered, portable NBA offense with two non-shooters in the lineup.<\/p>\n
So, the roster is flawed. That at least partly reflects on management. Yet, it would be an oversimplification to suggest that putting a flawed roster on the floor singularly characterizes a team\u2019s general manager as \u201cbad\u201d.<\/p>\n
Stone has done plenty well during his tenure.<\/p>\n
Rockets have drafted well under Stone<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a refrain I\u2019ve heard several times recently:<\/p>\n
\u201cFour lottery picks, four whiffs\u201d.<\/p>\n
Firstly, Amen Thompson is not a whiff. That\u2019s a consequence of fans overestimating the expected return on a fourth overall pick. He may not be \u201cRussell Westbrook, Defensive Player of the Year model\u201d, but he\u2019s certainly not a whiff. Such an assessment of Reed Sheppard is also absurdly premature.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, you can\u2019t judge draft picks in a vacuum. They must be judged in the context of the draft itself.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unfair to knock Stone for taking Jabari Smith Jr. with the third overall pick. The consensus could not have been firmer. There were three dudes in that draft, Bari was the third, and the Rockets had the third pick. All 30 GMs were making the same decision. Stone was not reasonably going to select Jalen Williams. He can\u2019t be retroactively held to a standard of \u201cshock the world or bust\u201d. You\u2019re locking him into a false dichotomy: either he\u2019s a genius or he\u2019s a bad general manager.<\/p>\n
By the way, there\u2019s almost nobody else in 2022 you\u2019d rather have. Jaden Ivey just got traded for a Kevin Huerter sandwich with extra Mike Conley. Dyson Daniels is fun, but Houston doesn\u2019t need a 12.7% three-point shooter in their backcourt. Tari Eason has been good\u2026<\/p>\n
How about 2024? If you wanted Matas Buzelis, gloat – but only a little bit. He\u2019s still got a negative Box Plus\/Minus (BPM). He\u2019s racking up basic counting stats for the Bulls, if that counts as an accomplishment. That said, he\u2019s certainly flashed potential, and if you think he\u2019d have been a better choice than Reed Sheppard, you\u2019re beginning to have a valid case. There\u2019s nobody else I can say the same for. It seems unreasonable to come down on Stone because there\u2019s one guy that he maybe (maybe) should have taken over Sheppard.<\/p>\n
Then, there\u2019s 2021: A Stone Odyssey. Not good. Bad.<\/p>\n
A critical error. The cardinal sin of the rebuild. Evan Mobley was the choice.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to hear \u201cthey wouldn\u2019t have drafted Alperen Sengun\u201d. OK – so they\u2019d have compounded the error? Sengun and Mobley would be a great fit together.<\/p>\n
On the subject of Sengun\u2026<\/p>\n
The Rockets had good lottery luck. Paradoxically, they also had bad lottery luck. Statistically, the balls bounced relatively well. In a vacuum, they got lucky.<\/p>\n
Contextually, in the four years that the Rockets tanked, the only two lottery picks who\u2019d have materially changed their fortunes were Cade Cunningham and Victor Wembanyama. That is it. Paolo Banchero is a bad fit with Sengun, and he has not been as good as Sengun, so let us not utter his name again.<\/p>\n
Mobley and Chet Holmgren are both excellent, but they\u2019re ceiling raisers. It\u2019d be nice to have either, but they wouldn\u2019t fix this team\u2019s systemic issues. For that matter, neither would Wembanyama, but he\u2019s just so special that he\u2019d change the team by virtue of being him.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, you\u2019re asking Stone to – well, draw blood from a stone. If anything, the fact that he walked away from the rebuild with Sengun in the fold is a testament to his drafting acumen.<\/p>\n
So is Tari Eason. Give most NBA general managers everything Stone had. Most of them don\u2019t walk away with Sengun and Eason. Other than drafting Green, Stone has made no discernible, significant mistakes that could be identified even without the use of hindsight, which is notoriously 20\/20.<\/p>\n
What about on the trade market?<\/p>\n
Stone needs to make some signature trades<\/p>\n
Stone\u2019s approach to trading has been\u2026meiserly?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s not one deal you can point to and call egregiously bad. It\u2019s just that most of his deals have been in the vein of hey, I\u2019ll give you a non-rotational player for an even worse non-rotational player and a heavily protected second. Stone has made a bevy of moves that you wouldn\u2019t notice whether he made them or not.<\/p>\n
He has made one noticeable move. You know the one. How does it look now?<\/p>\n
Well, let\u2019s see. The Rockets have practically the same Win Percentage (63.3%) now that they finished last season with (63.4%). Yet, that\u2019s not a fair evaluation of the deal. Last year\u2019s Rockets had Fred VanVleet.<\/p>\n
The concept behind the Durant deal was always sound. Opponents were always going to sag off of Sengun and Thompson, as described above, and dare a shot maker to make shots. So, trading one of the worst shot makers in the NBA (sorry, residual Green Gangers) for one of the best ought to build on what was already a formidable squad. Even without VanVleet, that might be bearing out:<\/p>\n
If not for the loss of Dillon Brooks.<\/p>\n
There was no way to flip Green for Durant without including Brooks (or VanVleet). The money has to money. But the Rockets undeniably miss Brooks. They miss his point of attack defense, his (2024-25) floor spacing, and his tertiary shot creation. They miss his cultural impact.<\/p>\n
There should be no referendum on Green. This team was not \u201cbetter with Green than they are with Durant\u201d. They were better with Green, VanVleet, Brooks, and Steven Adams than they are with Durant. At some point, the raw, aggregate net rating of so many players outweighs even a (post-prime, but still) Durant.<\/p>\n
Circling back to the thesis: Stone didn\u2019t injure VanVleet or Adams. He didn\u2019t invent the CBA that required him to include Brooks in that deal. He was never going to let Brooks be the deterrent if he wanted Kevin Durant.<\/p>\n
So, Stone\u2019s draft record speaks for itself. The totality of his trade activity seems more positive than negative. Here, we have a defensible GM who\u2019s put a deeply flawed contender on the floor.<\/p>\n
Rockets are a work in progress<\/p>\n
The Rockets hold a lot of chips. So, by definition, they\u2019re not all in.<\/p>\n
Most of the key rotation players are young. They have a surplus of draft capital. Those are the chips; they aren\u2019t on the table. Analogously, they checked on a small raise by giving up Jalen Green and Khaman Maluach.<\/p>\n
So until they\u2019re \u201call in\u201d, the roster should be treated as an unfinished product. Hypothetically, say the Rockets replace Durant with a lesser version of a shot-creating wing in the draft. Suppose they do the same with any veteran on the roster and otherwise run this exact rotation until the core is in their 30s.<\/p>\n
OK. Now, the criticisms are fair.<\/p>\n
For now, it\u2019s OK if the roster is flawed. If Stone were to trade either Amen or Sengun and picks for Antetokounmpo this summer, he\u2019d better follow that up by acquiring players who complement Antetokounmpo. The roster can no longer be fundamentally flawed. The Rockets will be all-in.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s see how we feel about Stone then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve been here before. That\u2019s worth remembering. This is not the first time in the Rafael Stone era…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[7,292,194,4066,6,211,9782],"class_list":["post-586411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-rockets","tag-basketball","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-houstonrockets","tag-nba","tag-rockets","tag-rockets-analysis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116024200680181107","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}