There are 30 teams in the National Basketball Association.<\/p>\n
(How\u2019s that for insight?)<\/p>\n
Some have it easier than others. That\u2019s always been the case. The NBA practically has a caste system. Moving up a rung requires more maneuvering than Viola disguising himself as Cesario in Shakespeare\u2019s Twelfth Night.<\/p>\n
Take the Washington Wizards. They are cosmically stinky. The best player in the franchise\u2019s history is Wes Unseld, who, with all due respect, played in an era when an NBA head coach quite literally lit stogies during games.<\/p>\n
That was Red Auerbach, the head coach of a Celtics team that always gets to be good for no apparent reason. At least the Lakers play in Los Angeles. There\u2019s at least a causal explanation for their never-yielding goodness.<\/p>\n
Then, there\u2019s the Houston Rockets.<\/p>\n
Middle-upper class. Seldom among the best teams in the league. Rarely in the duldrums. This iteration of the team is no exception.<\/p>\n
There are teams you\u2019d readily trade places with. Please do not deny it. If the Spurs offered to trade rosters and assets, you would trade rosters and assets. Lest we even name The Team Who Shall Not Be Named.<\/p>\n
Yet, as a Rockets fan, complaints will find deaf ears with over half of the league\u2019s fanbases. They are objectively in a good spot.<\/p>\n
Maybe they shouldn\u2019t do anything about it.<\/p>\n
Rockets don\u2019t need to rush decisions<\/p>\n
This may seem like a 180. Consider it a publicly available internal dialogue of a confused fan.<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo is tempting. The logic is simple. This is the best player that is likely to be available while the Rockets have assets. Get him.<\/p>\n
If they do, you won\u2019t find complaints from me. More broadly, the Rockets\u2019 roster is flawed, perhaps irredeemably. We should all be cozying up to the reality that Alperen Sengun and Amen Thompson are not a natural fit. Neither is a natural fit with Antetokounmpo, for the same reasons, but the logic in acquiring him would be that the Rockets are already this good with a roster flaw, so imagine how much better they\u2019d be with an upgrade.<\/p>\n
Yet\u2026you\u2019re still trading the farm without alleviating your two non-shooter problem. You\u2019re solving your no franchise player problem, but creating a new no more assets problem. From a utility perspective, the math does not, as the kids say, math.<\/p>\n
Questions emerge. Are we 100% sure you need a franchise player in what\u2019s been dubbed in some circles as \u201cthe weakest link era\u201d? No, but I land around 90%. Depth matters more than before, but it hasn\u2019t usurped top-end talent as a priority. The best teams in the league have the best players in the league, and depth. You still need an elite player; it\u2019s just that now, it seems more optimal to have 5 good players behind them rather than 2 elite ones.<\/p>\n
(Unless you\u2019re The Team Who Shall Not Be Named. Then, you\u2019ve got Michael Jordan\u2019s successor flanked by Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren, and tremendous depth).<\/p>\n
Are we 100% sure the Rockets don\u2019t have a franchise player? No. I land around 85%.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s such a high bar. If it\u2019s going to be Sengun, he needs to shoot about 10% better between zero-and-three feet if he\u2019s not going to consistently shoot threes. If it\u2019s going to be Thompson, he needs to shoot 10-15% better from deep if he\u2019s going to functionally be a guard (and if he\u2019s not going to be a guard, he\u2019s not going to be a franchise player).<\/p>\n
Reed Sheppard is an unknown variable in that sense. He can\u2019t grow, so his three-point gravity has to be so immense as to offset his height. He\u2019ll need to improve his handle. There\u2019s no discernible statistical reason why he can\u2019t be the guy, but his flaw may prove the most debilitating of the group.<\/p>\n
Are we 100% sure the franchise player has to be currently on the roster, or Giannis Antetokounmpo?<\/p>\n
\u2026Now, we\u2019ve arrived at the question.<\/p>\n
If the Rockets think they\u2019ll have to trade for \u201ctheir guy\u201d, they may want to consider haste. These players are not getting any younger. They\u2019re approaching their mid-20s, and the \u201cyoung player\u201d luster will wear off quickly. That doesn\u2019t mean they must move for Antetokounmpo, but it does mean they\u2019ll basically have to pull the trigger on the next guy (Ant? Can Tyrese Maxey sustain his current offensive production in a winning environment, and would that make him a top-10ish player?) to hit the market.<\/p>\n
Could they still draft that guy? The Rockets have some premium picks coming up. Between the Suns and the Nets, they\u2019re likely to pick in the 2027 lottery. The class is seen as weak: But so was the class that yielded Antetokounmpo.<\/p>\n
(And Nikola Jokic, by the way).<\/p>\n
So many considerations. So much uncertainty. Here\u2019s where it pays to be an optimist. The Rockets are still young. They still have a lot of picks. The glass is half full.<\/p>\n
Why rush to alter a good situation? Within the next couple of years, this organization must clarify its direction. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s pressing enough to rush into anything now. If the Rockets do decide to get Antetokounmpo, it will be a defensible decision, but perhaps the best thing to do is sit back, see what they yield with their next crop of draft picks, and make a decision from there.<\/p>\n
The right choice could improve their class standing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are 30 teams in the National Basketball Association. (How\u2019s that for insight?) Some have it easier than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[7,292,194,4066,6,211,9782],"class_list":["post-622424","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\/116127070030171021","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622424","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=622424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}