How Do We Feel About The Rockets Winning With A Non-Shooting Frontcourt?

[dhackett1565]

The Rockets best lineup in the Regular season and playoffs mostly consisted of a Adams - Sengun - Thompson front court. How does it make us feel about those Fred - OG - Barnes - Siakam - Poeltl teams that failed here?

Do we think that if Masai had built the depth of those teams that the end result could have been different? Just thought I'd bring it up to see people's thoughts.

I'm not sure I follow the question. Which Fred-OG-Barnes-Siakam-Poeltl teams failed? They had... ONE of those, for like 20 games, no? And they lost a coin toss play-in game, barely, by missing every FT. That core, if kept together, is a high 40s win team at minimum, though maybe doesn't go too far in the playoffs.

The Siakam/Barnes core mostly failed because they lacked a real C. And the core with Poeltl failed because we lost Fred to FA (and then started the guy we signed to play backup PG, sabotaging the season).

I think at this point we're back to the same expectation as that team would have, but with a higher ceiling given the relative youth of the new core.

[tsherkin]

The Siakam/Barnes core mostly failed because they lacked a real C.

And because they needed a real lead scorer and didn't have one.

[youngRAPZ]

That team would’ve been fine had we got a top 3 pick. We would’ve taken Cade and had

Cade
FVV/GTJ
OG
PSkills
Jak

Or would’ve taken Mobley at 2 or 3 and had

FVV
GTJ(who we would hopefully upgrade with the assets used for Jak)
OG
PSkills
Mobley

I love 4 and I’m happy to have him but his positional fit doomed that iteration of the team. I have confidence this new team can reach a similar level to the 2 teams I posted previously.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[earthtone]

I’ll be honest I can’t root for the rockets because I don’t like Udoka or Dillon Brooks. Though Dillon I’m starting to like a bit more. Udoka just looks and acts like a serial killer with demons in his closet to me. I dont like his interviews and his body language. Would not surprise me if something about him comes out someday.

I feel like having serial killer vibes is kind of a prerequisite for being an NBA coach

Quinn Synder, Joe Mazulla & Jason Kidd are definitely top 3 in my “would probably be serial killers in not for basketball” rankings

[WaltFrazier]

That team would’ve been fine had we got a top 3 pick. We would’ve taken Cade and had

Cade
FVV/GTJ
OG
PSkills
Jak

Or would’ve taken Mobley at 2 or 3 and had

FVV
GTJ(who we would hopefully upgrade with the assets used for Jak)
OG
PSkills
Mobley

I love 4 and I’m happy to have him but his positional fit doomed that iteration of the team. I have confidence this new team can reach a similar level to the 2 teams I posted previously.

I agree in spirit. A couple of things though. Cade went first so you had to have #1 to get him. Mobley at 3 yes, but is he really a C all by himself, if you take away Jarret Allen?

It's funny, looking at the rest of that draft even in hindsight, only Suggs, Giddey, Wagner and Sengun at 5, 6, 8 and 16 are players who'd have helped the Raptors. If the Raps had been in the 5 or 6 slot Suggs or Giddey could have at least been the back-up PG and secondary playmaker the team needed to complement Fred.

[WaltFrazier]

I’ll be honest I can’t root for the rockets because I don’t like Udoka or Dillon Brooks. Though Dillon I’m starting to like a bit more. Udoka just looks and acts like a serial killer with demons in his closet to me. I dont like his interviews and his body language. Would not surprise me if something about him comes out someday.

Maybe you missed it, but he's in Houston because something already did come out about him.

Unless you were being subtly sarcastic

[Basketball_Jones]

I’ll be honest I can’t root for the rockets because I don’t like Udoka or Dillon Brooks. Though Dillon I’m starting to like a bit more. Udoka just looks and acts like a serial killer with demons in his closet to me. I dont like his interviews and his body language. Would not surprise me if something about him comes out someday.

Maybe you missed it, but he's in Houston because something already did come out about him.

Unless you were being subtly sarcastic

lol yeah I remember that. Was thinking even worse stuff he probably has done.

[Buff]

Fred was tied for the 3rd scorer on this team, lol. He averaged 14ppg on only 12 shots a game.

Give him credit, their core is very young, all under 23 years old and Fred did a good job keeping this team balanced.

He had to take a bit of a bigger role this series because the young guys were inexperienced and not showing up (Jalen Green and Jabari).

Only 12 shots a game? His scoring this year was built on sub 35% three point shooting and bad 2 point shooting, even for FVV. He was not an efficient player, PER wise he put up a 12.8 this year.

More important than PER, which doesn't actually describe efficiency...

Fred posted 51.5% TS, which was -6.1% rTS. He was an 89 TS+ player, posting -100.1 TSAdd. 79 2P+, 96 3P+. Below average inside and outside the arc. 74 FTr+, drew fouls very poorly. Got to the RA on 9.5% of his shots, and shot 52.8% when he got there, which was 16.8% worse than league average. Shot 39.3% from 3-10, which was good for him but 6.8% worse than league average. 43.4% from 10-16 feet (-0.9% relative to lgav). 38.2% from 16-23 (-1.5%) and 34.5% from 3 on 7.7 3PA/g (-1.5%).

He was literally worse than average on every component of scoring. Profoundly terrible at several parts. He has never been a good scorer. He hasn't always been this trash, but holy crap-bawlz, he was awful this year.

Basketball is a weird game. He sucks ass offensively, he always has. Yet in his role he seems to be extremely conducting to winning, at least in reg-season HOU and with Lowry.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

Both Deep three point shooting and game management/efficient passing he kind of excels in...glue guy skills but he gets the points/assists pretty high up at times to. Freddie All Star!!!

[Clay Davis]

I’ll be honest I can’t root for the rockets because I don’t like Udoka or Dillon Brooks. Though Dillon I’m starting to like a bit more. Udoka just looks and acts like a serial killer with demons in his closet to me. I dont like his interviews and his body language. Would not surprise me if something about him comes out someday.

I feel like having serial killer vibes is kind of a prerequisite for being an NBA coach

Quinn Synder, Joe Mazulla & Jason Kidd are definitely top 3 in my “would probably be serial killers in not for basketball” rankings

Quinn Snyder looks like a villain from a Christopher Nolan Batman flick.


I also always believed that he looks like Willem Dafoe from Spiderman (Green Goblin).




EVIL RIZZ

[tsherkin]

Basketball is a weird game. He sucks ass offensively, he always has. Yet in his role he seems to be extremely conducting to winning, at least in reg-season HOU and with Lowry.

Their offensive rebounding and ball protection overcome a lot of their lack of shotmaking during the RS.

[TheRaptor!]

I see a bunch of people lost the plot of this thread. I expected Houston to lose in the 1st Round but the whole point was them finishing 2nd in a super tough west and pushing the hottest team in the NBA to 7 games in their first real exposure to the playoffs.

Winning is done gradually and the Rockets are definitely on the right track but just aren't seasoned/skilled enough yet. Raptors will wish to be THIS good TWO years from now so chill on the "hating" lol

Absolutely not, the one lost is you.

They win off of rebounds, effort, and youth athleticism in the regular season. What you should've concluded from this series is no matter how young they are and how good they might be in the regular season, shooting is not something they can dramatically improve on and thus their ceiling is capped for THIS current core.

So their next step is to add shooters, simple

Not quite, not just shooters, but top tier scorers

Again, the topic is whether this front court will have success, the answer is an emphatic no.

Will the team have success? Yea, if they change up their front court.

/thread

[Scase]

Absolutely not, the one lost is you.

They win off of rebounds, effort, and youth athleticism in the regular season. What you should've concluded from this series is no matter how young they are and how good they might be in the regular season, shooting is not something they can dramatically improve on and thus their ceiling is capped for THIS current core.

Jesus, you're the one lost if you call a team having their first playoff run capped out. This season was a massive success for Houston and should only go up from here with internal improvement + other additions. They have one of the brightest futures in the NBA...

When I read these two lines, I can't help but think to our 2021/2022 season and playoffs. Roster construction limited us then.

Big difference being, Houston has a bunch of assets, we did not.

[Tor_Raps]

Absolutely not, the one lost is you.

They win off of rebounds, effort, and youth athleticism in the regular season. What you should've concluded from this series is no matter how young they are and how good they might be in the regular season, shooting is not something they can dramatically improve on and thus their ceiling is capped for THIS current core.

So their next step is to add shooters, simple

Not quite, not just shooters, but top tier scorers

Again, the topic is whether this front court will have success, the answer is an emphatic no.

Will the team have success? Yea, if they change up their front court.

/thread

I'd argue if they replaced Green with an actual scorer that they could be fine. He's their weakest link who is supposed to provide them shooting as well...

[ontnut]

I’ll be honest I can’t root for the rockets because I don’t like Udoka or Dillon Brooks. Though Dillon I’m starting to like a bit more. Udoka just looks and acts like a serial killer with demons in his closet to me. I dont like his interviews and his body language. Would not surprise me if something about him comes out someday.

I feel like having serial killer vibes is kind of a prerequisite for being an NBA coach

Quinn Synder, Joe Mazulla & Jason Kidd are definitely top 3 in my “would probably be serial killers in not for basketball” rankings

Quinn Snyder looks like a villain from a Christopher Nolan Batman flick.


I also always believed that he looks like Willem Dafoe from Spiderman (Green Goblin).




EVIL RIZZ

Interesting little trivia tidbit...Willem Dafoe was the world's most watched actor for three years, topping lists in 2021, 2022, and 2024 according to Letterbox. I would not have guessed this.

[TheGeneral99]

The Rockets best lineup in the Regular season and playoffs mostly consisted of a Adams - Sengun - Thompson front court. How does it make us feel about those Fred - OG - Barnes - Siakam - Poeltl teams that failed here?

Do we think that if Masai had built the depth of those teams that the end result could have been different? Just thought I'd bring it up to see people's thoughts.

I'm not sure I follow the question. Which Fred-OG-Barnes-Siakam-Poeltl teams failed? They had... ONE of those, for like 20 games, no? And they lost a coin toss play-in game, barely, by missing every FT. That core, if kept together, is a high 40s win team at minimum, though maybe doesn't go too far in the playoffs.

The Siakam/Barnes core mostly failed because they lacked a real C. And the core with Poeltl failed because we lost Fred to FA (and then started the guy we signed to play backup PG, sabotaging the season).

I think at this point we're back to the same expectation as that team would have, but with a higher ceiling given the relative youth of the new core.

I agree.

I think that team likely wins around 50 games and goes to the 2nd round and would be a tough out for anyone.

Obviously the biggest issue is isolation scoring.

[ConSarnit]

The Rockets best lineup in the Regular season and playoffs mostly consisted of a Adams - Sengun - Thompson front court. How does it make us feel about those Fred - OG - Barnes - Siakam - Poeltl teams that failed here?

Do we think that if Masai had built the depth of those teams that the end result could have been different? Just thought I'd bring it up to see people's thoughts.

I'm not sure I follow the question. Which Fred-OG-Barnes-Siakam-Poeltl teams failed? They had... ONE of those, for like 20 games, no? And they lost a coin toss play-in game, barely, by missing every FT. That core, if kept together, is a high 40s win team at minimum, though maybe doesn't go too far in the playoffs.

The Siakam/Barnes core mostly failed because they lacked a real C. And the core with Poeltl failed because we lost Fred to FA (and then started the guy we signed to play backup PG, sabotaging the season).

I think at this point we're back to the same expectation as that team would have, but with a higher ceiling given the relative youth of the new core.

I agree.

I think that team likely wins around 50 games and goes to the 2nd round and would be a tough out for anyone.

Obviously the biggest issue is isolation scoring.

We went 12-20 without FVV to start 2023/24. That’s a 30 win pace. What’s being implied here is that FVV is worth 20 wins. That seems like an overestimation of FVV’s value.

We went 15-11 with Poeltl to end the ‘22/23 season. That extrapolates to 47 wins. We had a cream puff schedule after we acquired Poeltl (I implore everyone to look at who we played and our opponent injuries during that stretch). 50 wins and a 2nd round appearance does not seem likely to me had the team remained together.

[dhackett1565]

I'm not sure I follow the question. Which Fred-OG-Barnes-Siakam-Poeltl teams failed? They had... ONE of those, for like 20 games, no? And they lost a coin toss play-in game, barely, by missing every FT. That core, if kept together, is a high 40s win team at minimum, though maybe doesn't go too far in the playoffs.

The Siakam/Barnes core mostly failed because they lacked a real C. And the core with Poeltl failed because we lost Fred to FA (and then started the guy we signed to play backup PG, sabotaging the season).

I think at this point we're back to the same expectation as that team would have, but with a higher ceiling given the relative youth of the new core.

I agree.

I think that team likely wins around 50 games and goes to the 2nd round and would be a tough out for anyone.

Obviously the biggest issue is isolation scoring.

We went 12-20 without FVV to start 2023/24. That’s a 30 win pace. What’s being implied here is that FVV is worth 20 wins. That seems like an overestimation of FVV’s value.

We went 15-11 with Poeltl to end the ‘22/23 season. That extrapolates to 47 wins. We had a cream puff schedule after we acquired Poeltl (I implore everyone to look at who we played and our opponent injuries during that stretch). 50 wins and a 2nd round appearance does not seem likely to me had the team remained together.

It's not FVV being worth 20 wins. It's more complicated than a single player being worth that much. Similarly, Poeltl isn't worth 20 wins by himself - but moving from not having a starting quality C or a starting quality PG to having one can be more impactful than the replacement value of the player you add. Having Fred would also have short-circuited the bad rotation decisions that made the team perform worse than their overall talent (starting Schroder was straight up insane).