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2023-24 Houston Rockets Thread - Climbing out of the Gutter?


BigOrange1

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The in-season tournament emirites nba cup has its pool drawing tonight at 6pm leading into the Rockets vs Lakers

Cam Whitmore, Reed Sheppard, and AJ Griffin will be playing for Houston. Interested in seeing Reed play point. If Whitmore lights it up, he probably gets shut down. Curious to see Bronny guard Reed or Whitmore. Knecht should also be playing

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Posted (edited)

He can be a starting PG on a playoff team. He will only get better. The new Stockton-Malone is Sheppard-Sengun.

Green should be shitting his pants right now. Sheppard and Whitmore are going to be the starting backcourt in 2025.

Edited by HtownHorn
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The first guy that's got to go is Dillon Brooks. I didn't love but understood the signing, but his services are not needed on this team anymore. With Amen's emergence (and Tari coming back) we have bulldog defenders that can replace his one strength. Brooks is just a horrible shooter and overall offensive player. Please move on. 

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Posted (edited)
34 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

He can be a starting PG on a playoff team. He will only get better. The new Stockton-Malone is Sheppard-Sengun.

Green should be shitting his pants right now. Sheppard and Whitmore are going to be the starting backcourt in 2025.

PG Shep

2/3 Whit and Thmopson

4?

5 Alpi

Who is the dream 4?

Durant?

Edited by ChickenSandwich
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Smith is the 4. He improved his shooting across the board. I think we will similar defensive gains in year 3, and 2nd year under Ime.

My rotation would be Sheppard, Whitmore, Thompson, Smith, Sengun, Eason, Dante, and a couple of vets to fill the CG and G/F positions off the bench.

You should have plenty of money after you get rid of Van Vleet, Brooks, Jeff Green, Tate, Landale, and not extending Green. That’s probably over $100M easily right there. If Sengun shows he’s ready to take the next step, give him the max extension before the season ends. Though I am not sure if you can give the max during the season. If Dante’s not ready and Adams returns to form then you can resign him to be the backup big.

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3 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

Smith is the 4. He improved his shooting across the board. I think we will similar defensive gains in year 3, and 2nd year under Ime.

My rotation would be Sheppard, Whitmore, Thompson, Smith, Sengun, Eason, Dante, and a couple of vets to fill the CG and G/F positions off the bench.

You should have plenty of money after you get rid of Van Vleet, Brooks, Jeff Green, Tate, Landale, and not extending Green. That’s probably over $100M easily right there. If Sengun shows he’s ready to take the next step, give him the max extension before the season ends. Though I am not sure if you can give the max during the season. If Dante’s not ready and Adams returns to form then you can resign him to be the backup big.

Agree with all of this but can’t imagine they let Green walk for nothing. Best case would be to trade for a star, who? And what extra player would be included?

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The eventual emergence of Sheppard on this team makes Jabari more palatable as our 4 of the future (as long as he gains some weight/strength). 

Adams should and will play significant backup minutes if healthy. I'm excited about him. 

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1 minute ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Agree with all of this but can’t imagine they let Green walk for nothing. Best case would be to trade for a star, who? And what extra player would be included?

I’d take a rotational guy like Kispert for him right now. Kispert’s shooting looks really good on this team. You need to give up the thought that Green is going to get a star back, he’s not. From this point forward it’s going to be diminishing returns.

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I really believe we should stop star chasing this year. The West is stacked and it's okay to have another season of competing hard with good chance of making play-in game. We're gonna get answers to a lot of questions with our young players this year.

- This is a make or break year for Jalen. Let's play it out. 

- Need to see Jabari take another step and get stronger

- We have team option next year on FVV, so this could be his last year in Houston

- Cam is a freak, still need to see improvement in areas outside of offense. Is he a future all-star or a heat check 6th man?

- Amen is a defensive beast, will his shooting improve?

- Can Tari bounce back quickly from injury and continue to develop the way we hope?

- What is the ceiling for Reed Sheppard? 

 

In order to fully get these answers, you gotta take away all of Brooks' minutes. 

 

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10 hours ago, Hank Kingsley said:

I really believe we should stop star chasing this year. The West is stacked and it's okay to have another season of competing hard with good chance of making play-in game. We're gonna get answers to a lot of questions with our young players this year.

- This is a make or break year for Jalen. Let's play it out. 

- Need to see Jabari take another step and get stronger

- We have team option next year on FVV, so this could be his last year in Houston

- Cam is a freak, still need to see improvement in areas outside of offense. Is he a future all-star or a heat check 6th man?

- Amen is a defensive beast, will his shooting improve?

- Can Tari bounce back quickly from injury and continue to develop the way we hope?

- What is the ceiling for Reed Sheppard? 

 

In order to fully get these answers, you gotta take away all of Brooks' minutes. 

 

I’d be very cool with dealing Brooks for picks at the deadline. 

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25 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

I’d be very cool with dealing Brooks for picks at the deadline. 

I’m sure the Rockets front office would be too. They would probably have to send out a first round pick to move off of him. It was a dumb contract when they gave it to him and it’s still a dumb contract that has three years left on it.

Beware of summer league and small sample sizes and all that… And I only saw highlights of Sheppard, but that shooting and range shouldn’t surprise anybody. He’s one of the best shooters to come into the league I can remember. The question is whether he can stay in front of anybody and not die on screens. That will determine his ceiling but at a minimum he’s going to change the dimensions of the spacing on offense just by standing at the three point line. Add in his movement and it should really open things up. 

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5 minutes ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

I’m sure the Rockets front office would be too. They would probably have to send out a first round pick to move off of him. It was a dumb contract when they gave it to him and it’s still a dumb contract that has three years left on it.

Beware of summer league and small sample sizes and all that… And I only saw highlights of Sheppard, but that shooting and range shouldn’t surprise anybody. He’s one of the best shooters to come into the league I can remember. The question is whether he can stay in front of anybody and not die on screens. That will determine his ceiling but at a minimum he’s going to change the dimensions of the spacing on offense just by standing at the three point line. Add in his movement and it should really open things up. 

Russillo has a working theory that bad NBA contracts no longer exist due to the new salary cap. I’m sure the Sixers’ owners beg to differ on the Simmons deal. 
 

But I’ll agree on Brooks. The Rockets were only bidding against themselves. Most of the NBA observers thought LeBron/Klutch would bounce Brooks out of the league and he better start working on his Mandarin after the 2022-2023 season. 

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Posted (edited)

After this season Brooks will be on the books for 2/$21 per. With the rising cap, there should be a market for an above average role player to a contender. 
 

$20 million isn’t what is used to be (2 years ago) in today’s NBA

*He would fit on the Nuggets- rook out for year with tough injury 

Edited by ChickenSandwich
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2 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Russillo has a working theory that bad NBA contracts no longer exist due to the new salary cap. I’m sure the Sixers’ owners beg to differ on the Simmons deal. 
 

But I’ll agree on Brooks. The Rockets were only bidding against themselves. Most of the NBA observers thought LeBron/Klutch would bounce Brooks out of the league and he better start working on his Mandarin after the 2022-2023 season. 

 

2 hours ago, ChickenSandwich said:

After this season Brooks will be on the books for 2/$21 per. With the rising cap, there should be a market for an above average role player to a contender. 
 

$20 million isn’t what is used to be (2 years ago) in today’s NBA

*He would fit on the Nuggets- rook out for year with tough injury 

Bad contracts definitely still exist. I would argue that they’re even more critical as contending teams try to stay out of the second apron. In the grand scheme of things the Brooks contract isn’t that awful. But if Denver had $20 million, they would have given it to KCP. And the reason they are losing their supporting cast is because they gave MPJ a max deal that he isn’t worth. That is the definition of a bad contract. 

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I’m slightly curious where a majority of the team lives. I remember Harden had a big ass house with his mother in Sugar Land back in the day. I suspect he had a crash pad/boom boom room closer to Treasures.

Toyota is downtown, practice facility will be in the Galleria. Tangelwood or River Oaks would make sense, but not many gated communities in CoH. I wonder if they live in the Memorial Villages. 
 

The Sheppards are currently looking for a broiler farm with a holler in near Houston. Best of luck. 

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I know the rockets have at least one room at one park place that Harden used to use all the time 

I’ve seen Sengun there with his girl, not sure if he was using the rockets apartment or has his own 

McHale used to live there 

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Posted (edited)

Reed Sheppard has the most basketball skills and IQ on this team other than Alpi. Getting him at #3 is going to make this rebuild a success. Another great game for Reed following up on the opener.

Edited by Macklemore
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2 minutes ago, Macklemore said:

Reed Sheppard has the most basketball skills and IQ on this team other than Alpi. Getting him at #3 is going to make this rebuild a success. Another great game for Reed following up on the opener.

His hands on defensive are elite. He's now splashing Chris Paul elbow jumpers with ease. His court vision is fantastic. 

 

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