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

[mihaic]

Fred turning into Steph Curry the last 3 games is the biggest reason they’re still in the series.

Exactly. He could easily shoot them out of the game.

And to respond to the thread made, they didn't beat the old arse gsw yet, wait for game 7 they could be out in the 1st round.

I watched Curry live this year against Toronto. He's a half step slower than he used to and cannot sustain his usual running around the opponent defense for the whole game. He's still a superstar but on the decline. And his supporting cast is shyte. I feel like the Raps rookies sans BI could give gsw a good run.

He lead the rockets to second place in the west and is about to finish Golden States future title hopes, after ending the GSW dynasty in 2019.

How much more of a sample size do you need to understand that Fred is one of the best in the game in terms of impact and leadership? What will it take? Tell me please....

Dude in my whole post I had one sentence about Fred. I was referring to his 3pt shooting inconsistency, aka streak. I was not even focused on him, just agreeing with the other poster on his streaky 3pt. I hope you had enough sample size too, to recognize he is a very streaky shooter.

Seems like FVV is still in your head tho. LOL I moved on.

And, BTW, FVV's team did not beat old man Curry's team as you predicted, despite Steph having a pretty bad game for 3 quarters. And GSW is not a contender.

Fred had an ok game today but he should've shot the 3 more aggressively.

I still don't think Houston has enough going forward. They are a good team but I don't think any of their young players will become a superstar.

[mihaic]

Exactly. He could easily shoot them out of the game.

And to respond to the thread made, they didn't beat the old arse gsw yet, wait for game 7 they could be out in the 1st round.

I watched Curry live this year against Toronto. He's a half step slower than he used to and cannot sustain his usual running around the opponent defense for the whole game. He's still a superstar but on the decline. And his supporting cast is shyte. I feel like the Raps rookies sans BI could give gsw a good run.

He lead the rockets to second place in the west and is about to finish Golden States future title hopes, after ending the GSW dynasty in 2019.

How much more of a sample size do you need to understand that Fred is one of the best in the game in terms of impact and leadership? What will it take? Tell me please....

"i hate Fred, he might be good with them but he was bad with us, he is worth the money to them but not to us, he might have led them to second seed in the west but I stick to my opinion that he is a bad player and i refuse to believe he could positively impact us regardless"

What? All I said is Fred is a streaky shooter (was referring to his 3%). Please re-read. You guys contort everything said in the posts you quote.

[DelAbbot]

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.

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.

[PhilBlackson]

So much for that lol

[Buff]

If you need Fred to be your #1 or #2 you are not going to make it. Fred ought to defend and relocate for kick outs where, if he is on, he will win you games. Same as Pascal, once the defense focus on them its GGs. Good ass players, tho.

[PushDaRock]

The 2 Seed is a bit misleading when the gap between them and the 8th place team was only 4 games. I could see them taking a step next year but also could see them regress as well.

[TheGeneral99]

The Rockets had the 2nd best defense in the league this year and some solid depth.

Sengun - all-star caliber player only 22 years old
Thompson - incredible defensive player and elite athlete only 21 years old (likely a future all-star)
Jabari - solid young player only 21 years old
Green - decent young scorer only 23 years old
Eason - nice young player only 23 years old

Then they have very solid vets who are all good defensively like FVV, Brooks and Adams.

[TheGeneral99]

If you need Fred to be your #1 or #2 you are not going to make it. Fred ought to defend and relocate for kick outs where, if he is on, he will win you games. Same as Pascal, once the defense focus on them its GGs. Good ass players, tho.

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).

[PushDaRock]

The Rockets had the 2nd best defense in the league this year and some solid depth.

Sengun - all-star caliber player only 22 years old
Thompson - incredible defensive player and elite athlete only 21 years old (likely a future all-star)
Jabari - solid young player only 21 years old
Green - decent young scorer only 23 years old
Eason - nice young player only 23 years old

Then they have very solid vets who are all good defensively like FVV, Brooks and Adams.

The issue is that team is about to get very expensive.

Sengun and Green's extension kicks in next season, Fred's option either needs to be picked up or they negotiate an extension at a lower but still significant number.

Jabari and Eason are also extension eligible this off-season.

[ConSarnit]

Exactly. He could easily shoot them out of the game.

And to respond to the thread made, they didn't beat the old arse gsw yet, wait for game 7 they could be out in the 1st round.

I watched Curry live this year against Toronto. He's a half step slower than he used to and cannot sustain his usual running around the opponent defense for the whole game. He's still a superstar but on the decline. And his supporting cast is shyte. I feel like the Raps rookies sans BI could give gsw a good run.

He lead the rockets to second place in the west and is about to finish Golden States future title hopes, after ending the GSW dynasty in 2019.

How much more of a sample size do you need to understand that Fred is one of the best in the game in terms of impact and leadership? What will it take? Tell me please....

Dude in my whole post I had one sentence about Fred. I was referring to his 3pt shooting inconsistency, aka streak. I was not even focused on him, just agreeing with the other poster on his streaky 3pt. I hope you had enough sample size too, to recognize he is a very streaky shooter.

Seems like FVV is still in your head tho. LOL I moved on.

And, BTW, FVV's team did not beat old man Curry's team as you predicted, despite Steph having a pretty bad game for 3 quarters. And GSW is not a contender.

Fred had an ok game today but he should've shot the 3 more aggressively.

I still don't think Houston has enough going forward. They are a good team but I don't think any of their young players will become a superstar.

Is there any actual evidence FVV is any more of a “streaky” 3pt shooter than anyone else?

The whole nature of 3pt shooting (and only having to shoot 36% to be effective) makes it appear “streaky”. Just because you go 2/8 some games doesn’t make you streaky when making 1 more three would have made for a “good” game.

“Streakiness” (variance) is built in to all volume 3pt shooters and as such isn’t streaky at all.

[JB7]

The Rockets had the 2nd best defense in the league this year and some solid depth.

Sengun - all-star caliber player only 22 years old
Thompson - incredible defensive player and elite athlete only 21 years old (likely a future all-star)
Jabari - solid young player only 21 years old
Green - decent young scorer only 23 years old
Eason - nice young player only 23 years old

Then they have very solid vets who are all good defensively like FVV, Brooks and Adams.

The issue is that team is about to get very expensive.

Sengun and Green's extension kicks in next season, Fred's option either needs to be picked up or they negotiate an extension at a lower but still significant number.

Jabari and Eason are also extension eligible this off-season.

Yes, this is where it gets more problematic for the Rockets. They will probably start consolidating some of these younger assets for a veteran scorer (who will have a short window with the team), primarily because these younger guys can't get it done in terms of clutch scoring, and they are starting to get more expensive.

Question is, out of all the deals they will make in the offseason, do they come out of this with a truly competitive core that can last beyond a couple of years?

[Pointgod]

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

You need shooting in this league to win. Team defences are just too advanced to force the offense into taking the least efficient shots. I think eventually you either run into a hot shooting team or your team is the one that goes on a hot streak.

Agreed that Houston’s rebuild has been really good, but they need to strike now to bring in a superstar or else they could end up like the Memphis missing the opportunity to push into the upper echelon.

[ConSarnit]

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

But your premise was flawed from the start. Consider how the Rockets won games off of offensive rebounding. Here are the Oreb rates for Adams and Şengün:

Adams: 20.2% (best in the league)
Şengün: 11.4%

2023 Raptors:

Poeltl: 11.7%
Siakam: 5.2%

The Rockets have players who are far better at offensive rebounding than we had. The Rockets front court is also far better a screening than our potential “big” lineup. We could not replicated what the Rockets did because we don’t have those skills.

Even if we had built a team like the Rockets there is no guarantee we would have found the same level of success because we didn’t have the same “big man” skills.

[ConSarnit]

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

You need shooting in this league to win. Team defences are just too advanced to force the offense into taking the least efficient shots. I think eventually you either run into a hot shooting team or your team is the one that goes on a hot streak.

Agreed that Houston’s rebuild has been really good, but they need to strike now to bring in a superstar or else they could end up like the Memphis missing the opportunity to push into the upper echelon.

You can’t win at a high level in the league having 2 non-shooters on the floor. The only team who has pulled it off had Steph and Klay in the back court.

The Rockets played like we did under Nurse. Offensive rebound and run. Works in the regular season but the offense grinds to halt in the playoffs. If making the playoffs is a good enough goal for you then sure, it can work. If you have loftier ambitions then “janking” up the game like these Rockets and the 2023 Raptors doesn’t work at the highest levels.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

If you need Fred to be your #1 or #2 you are not going to make it. Fred ought to defend and relocate for kick outs where, if he is on, he will win you games. Same as Pascal, once the defense focus on them its GGs. Good ass players, tho.

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.

[tsherkin]

If you need Fred to be your #1 or #2 you are not going to make it. Fred ought to defend and relocate for kick outs where, if he is on, he will win you games. Same as Pascal, once the defense focus on them its GGs. Good ass players, tho.

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.

[WaltFrazier]

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

[TheGeneral99]

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.

This is accurate but he was also elite in defense and finished 23rd in DBPM which made him a positive on the court overall.

[tsherkin]

This is accurate but he was also elite in defense and finished 23rd in DBPM which made him a positive on the court overall.

Sure. Not really relevant to my post, but he does other things besides scoring pretty well. He's a solid playmaker and game manager, too. He is, however, a poor scorer. And was abominable this season in particular. Absolute trash over the first 3 games of the GSW series, then hot for 3 games. Not bad in the last one, either. Typical of Fred, he's a bit feast-or-famine based on whether or not his J is falling, because he isn't particularly good at hitting shots in general, but most notably inside the arc.

[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.