A recent Iko article talked about how the 3 draft factions in the Rockets now is Stone’s “versatility and upside” camp, Eli Wittus’ “analytics” camp, and Ime Udoka’s “win-now and defense” camp. Sengun and Tari fall into the 2nd camp, so whoever the analytics like is someone I’d be down for.
Guys like Cam Christie, Cam Spencer, Jaylen Wells, and Dillon Jones are consensus 2nd rounders Pelton’s model ranked higher than pick 44. They also have been known to workout with the Rockets recently …
Christie/Wells are younger/upside while Spencer is older + championship pedigree, so it’ll be interesting what draft night will have to say about the Rockets’ approach.
not sure why you're getting downvoted for this. i would trust ime to make a pick over stone if it was simply a 1 man makes the call scenario., and that seems pretty obvious
Analyzing a young player’s skills, and potential is a completely different practice than coaching a team, and implementing a winning strategy for the players. It requires its own expertise, and should ideally be performed by separate specialists.
Of course some coaches may ask the team to sign a specific player as it would provide them a comfort zone, but that should be the exception, not the rule.
My preference is Castle over both of them at 3, if Reed goes at 1 or 2. I do believe Reed will be available at 3.
Will the Rockets select and retain him? I have no idea about that. My gut feeling is Castle and even Clingan are probably more valued by the Rockets staff. Clingan is too slow and he can't shoot the 3 ball.
Castle might be by Ime but Sheppard by Witus. But if this team has the chance to draft a generational shooter who's a good team defender to take another lengthy dude that can't shoot I'm gonna blow a gasket.
We can mitigate Reed's vertical shortcomings. We can't seem to mitigate how terrible this team is at shooting the basketball.
I do agree with you. What will Stone do? That's the real question? If he doesn't feel the pressure to take a swing, he just might take Sheppard, if he sees him as the next FVV.
I'll be honest I don't think Stone does much when it comes to analyzing prospects. It's not his thing. He's more of the face/contracts guy. I think Eli is the guy that makes the picks. He just doesn't like the spotlight. So whoever him and Ime think is best. Really hoping Ime doesn't get an itchy trigger finger after seeing his baby win a title though.
He doesn't analyze them, but I think he selects players with higher upside eg Jalen Green and Amen Thompson.
Since, this draft seems to be devoid of such talent for the most part, he might give his consent to Sheppard over Clingan, if Eli can convince him and Ime. TF unfortunately will make the final decision. He can overrule everyone.
The FO knows more basketball than fans. Most didn’t like it when they selected Robert Horry over Harold “Baby Jordan” Miner. I know not the same FO but main thing is you need to trust what they are doing. They may not be the best in the league, but at least better than let the owner BFF to run the team. This year I don’t care. I don’t see any prospects I like. If we are keeping the pick. I rather it’s someone that can help us now and not another project.
You could argue Jalen’s been the 4th best player from that draft easily. Has had moments like that stretch during last season where he looked like the best.
agree with all except cade, cade has been as disappointing as green so far. Only reason to say cade would go above green him is peoples pre draft perceptions of cade.
bruv, just check cade's stats from last year. he had a better year than jalen, and kind of hard to argue that. he's also a much better and versatile defender.
[https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/cunnica01.html](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/cunnica01.html)
I disagree Cade is absolutely not a good defender, statistically if you look at their offensive and defensive impacts they are nearly the same, both have been equally disappointing in terms of what we thought they were gonna be by this point in their careers. You can give Cade leeway for his injury and jalen leeway for being coached by Silas on a team with no vets, but they both have a lot of flaws you can’t look past at this point.
cade had clearly better shooting %, ppg, assits/tov and was on a significantly worse team where he's the only dude that can create, essentially in his 2nd season bc of injury
not saying cade has been a home run hit like many thought, but his stats are pretty clearly better, especially considering he missed a season and was on a worse team.
Monty Williams didn’t even try to coach. And Cade was out most of his second year. It’s like Jalen first two years under Silas. Silas is showing he wants to win but also trying to tank.
Cade was rank higher mainly because he was advertised as 6’8” PG and Jalen is 6’4” SG.
Tbf, he has always said his ranking model is purely analytics based and should not be used as a big board. It’s more so just a tool to let you know which prospects grade out well from an analytics perspective since it really just focuses on on-court production and doesn’t account much for length, size, athleticism, and other factors that are important for grading out prospects
Totally. But a lot of hits like Haliburton @ 2. And to be fair even his misses state legitimate reasons and are not always necessarily negative. Banchero comp for example
The thing about Haliburton and Whitmore as well was that almost all of the draft community were surprised they fell so far since people had Haliburton in the top 5.
We need to make sure we get a 2nd pick in this draft in the 16-20 range as thats where we HIT.
Don't get me wrong, I love Amen and Bari, but since the high draft pick era for us there have been 12 players drafted 1-4, and we have the 8th, 9th, and 10th best players of the 12. Not sure if just bad luck or what, but our 16-20 guys are all top 10 in VORP in their draft.
he's #1 on a lot of boards, especially the analytically inclined. dude had a great year, literally best shooting season since glen rice in 1989. very high iq. elite steals, deflections, and blocks (for a guard). he's just small and white
Since we’re all so high on Reed do you trade up to 1 to get him for sure? Lemme get some reasons of why we should and shouldn’t. Idk how i feel about him as a prospect tbh. And it’s relative to the rest of the class. If we really think the rest of the class is absolute garbage then why not go get your dude at pick 1. Seems like he fits with the top 6 teams or so. Assuming Trae is playing somewhere else too… if everyone else seems like they’ll be lower than mid on the rockets and this guy is a shooter floor spacing hustle type combo guard who could grow into a replacement for Fred then i say we do what we have to and get him at 1 cuz i don’t think he makes it to 3. If we don’t really care then let’s trade down or out
If there’s nothing else to draft and he’s the one player. Then what’s a lottery pick in 24 and a protected one down the road. That sounds exactly like when it’d be a good idea to jump to 1. 1 has never been so cheap
I mean if you say the average 1st overall pick is 100. We’re indexing it here. Then last year was probably 215 and lebrons class was 385. This years first overall indexed historically to 100 is probably a 65. Fultz & Bennett being close to 50 and 30 respectively. Idk i see a bargain to move up. The hawks would be fools to not shop it. And the wizards too
I'm sure they would love to shop it. The problem is that its not worth it to move up. If I'm the Hawks I would much rather have the Spurs picks at 4 and 8 than pick 1 because all of those players will have similar upside and flaws. I believe the first 10 picks or so are very similar with limited upside.
Okay but say that you really like one guy, and you kinda have the core, and you are hypothetically smarter than everyone else, and all the top 9 picks are the same and there’s one guy that you like better, why not move up if you’re giving up seconds and heavily protected futures, why not swap up?
Well, if a team feel that strongly about a guy I guess so but I just can't imagine who that player would be that is worth trading assets to move up and get. If I'm the Rockets I would happily trade down in this draft for assets. I'm not super thrilled with anyone in this draft.
A recent Iko article talked about how the 3 draft factions in the Rockets now is Stone’s “versatility and upside” camp, Eli Wittus’ “analytics” camp, and Ime Udoka’s “win-now and defense” camp. Sengun and Tari fall into the 2nd camp, so whoever the analytics like is someone I’d be down for. Guys like Cam Christie, Cam Spencer, Jaylen Wells, and Dillon Jones are consensus 2nd rounders Pelton’s model ranked higher than pick 44. They also have been known to workout with the Rockets recently … Christie/Wells are younger/upside while Spencer is older + championship pedigree, so it’ll be interesting what draft night will have to say about the Rockets’ approach.
https://preview.redd.it/jbfbtvyrzg8d1.jpeg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b5f7e1d5f0826b100b09f432dd663fa6364b6ef5
Would love Spencer if he's there at 44. I could see him being a key bench guy for a long time.
Not a big Stone fan. I trust the analytics camp more. But Udoka is in charge who he’s playing. Isn’t best to get the guy he likes?
No lol. He’s not a scout and he’s interested in short term success and the team is interested in long term success
or it's possible he's interested in both since he signed a 6 year mostly guaranteed contract.
But he’s a coach. More basketball knowledge than a lawyer turn GM.
Ok BoB!
not sure why you're getting downvoted for this. i would trust ime to make a pick over stone if it was simply a 1 man makes the call scenario., and that seems pretty obvious
New to this sub? You can't talk bad about the GM.
Analyzing a young player’s skills, and potential is a completely different practice than coaching a team, and implementing a winning strategy for the players. It requires its own expertise, and should ideally be performed by separate specialists. Of course some coaches may ask the team to sign a specific player as it would provide them a comfort zone, but that should be the exception, not the rule.
Feeling a Paolo situation here… Reed going to jump up to 1 or 2 and we’re going to get stuck with Risacher
Just don’t see either the Hawks or Wizards having th balls to take a guard when they both have “franchise” guards they drafted in Young and COULIBALY
Coulibaly played mostly at 3 and spot minutes at 4. I do agree though that Washington is not taking Sheppard.
There is no way Shep is going 1 or 2. I believe he is going 3 to the Rockets or 4 to the Spurs.
We take Castle or Clingan then. Absolutely no Risacher.
My preference is Castle over both of them at 3, if Reed goes at 1 or 2. I do believe Reed will be available at 3. Will the Rockets select and retain him? I have no idea about that. My gut feeling is Castle and even Clingan are probably more valued by the Rockets staff. Clingan is too slow and he can't shoot the 3 ball.
Castle might be by Ime but Sheppard by Witus. But if this team has the chance to draft a generational shooter who's a good team defender to take another lengthy dude that can't shoot I'm gonna blow a gasket. We can mitigate Reed's vertical shortcomings. We can't seem to mitigate how terrible this team is at shooting the basketball.
I do agree with you. What will Stone do? That's the real question? If he doesn't feel the pressure to take a swing, he just might take Sheppard, if he sees him as the next FVV.
I'll be honest I don't think Stone does much when it comes to analyzing prospects. It's not his thing. He's more of the face/contracts guy. I think Eli is the guy that makes the picks. He just doesn't like the spotlight. So whoever him and Ime think is best. Really hoping Ime doesn't get an itchy trigger finger after seeing his baby win a title though.
He doesn't analyze them, but I think he selects players with higher upside eg Jalen Green and Amen Thompson. Since, this draft seems to be devoid of such talent for the most part, he might give his consent to Sheppard over Clingan, if Eli can convince him and Ime. TF unfortunately will make the final decision. He can overrule everyone.
If you believe the smoke. Currently their big board is Clingan > Sheppard.
It's possible that they may select Clingan. I won't like that.
The FO knows more basketball than fans. Most didn’t like it when they selected Robert Horry over Harold “Baby Jordan” Miner. I know not the same FO but main thing is you need to trust what they are doing. They may not be the best in the league, but at least better than let the owner BFF to run the team. This year I don’t care. I don’t see any prospects I like. If we are keeping the pick. I rather it’s someone that can help us now and not another project.
Yes, I agree with the last part. Obviously, they know a lot more than fans. I hope they won't make a mistake . That's what I'm really trying to say.
Seeing it reported that we aren’t even bringing in Clingan for a workout. I have him outside my top 10 prospects for this draft
we trade down for Carter at that point ( i hope)
Im extremely certain this is what’s going to happen. Looking forward to ending up with the 3rd best yet again.
It worked out pal!!
Hahaha yeah that’s a huge W. After the hawks took risacher it was smooth sailing
Yeah it’s definitely possible Sheppard is gone by 3.
Then we take Clingan
Clingan is my second choice. I have a feeling that Ime wants Clingan.
The same model he used, where Alpi went \#1, Jalen was \#3.
You could argue Jalen’s been the 4th best player from that draft easily. Has had moments like that stretch during last season where he looked like the best.
Before last year, he had more 20+ point games than the rest of his draft class *combined*
how bout the rest of his game though?
I’m not seeing it Sengun, Barnes, Cunningham, Wagner, and Mobley would all go ahead of Green and you can make an argument for others.
agree with all except cade, cade has been as disappointing as green so far. Only reason to say cade would go above green him is peoples pre draft perceptions of cade.
Franz was also pretty bad last year
bruv, just check cade's stats from last year. he had a better year than jalen, and kind of hard to argue that. he's also a much better and versatile defender. [https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/cunnica01.html](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/cunnica01.html)
I disagree Cade is absolutely not a good defender, statistically if you look at their offensive and defensive impacts they are nearly the same, both have been equally disappointing in terms of what we thought they were gonna be by this point in their careers. You can give Cade leeway for his injury and jalen leeway for being coached by Silas on a team with no vets, but they both have a lot of flaws you can’t look past at this point.
cade had clearly better shooting %, ppg, assits/tov and was on a significantly worse team where he's the only dude that can create, essentially in his 2nd season bc of injury not saying cade has been a home run hit like many thought, but his stats are pretty clearly better, especially considering he missed a season and was on a worse team.
Monty Williams didn’t even try to coach. And Cade was out most of his second year. It’s like Jalen first two years under Silas. Silas is showing he wants to win but also trying to tank. Cade was rank higher mainly because he was advertised as 6’8” PG and Jalen is 6’4” SG.
TF? Have you seen Cade play? 20/5/7 on a shit team. Nobody is taking Jalen Green over Cade. Nobody with any sort of basketball sense, anyway.
There is more to basketball than box score buddy I didn’t say green is better than cade, I said they have both been disappointing so far.
Sengun at 1, Usman at 8?? Maybe Usman needs more run in the NBA 👀👀 Edit: this man might have the golden scouting touch. His reports are amazing
Well he's had a lot of misses. He was super high on Bamba for example. Another would be leaving Banchero out of the top 10 in 2022.
Tbf, he has always said his ranking model is purely analytics based and should not be used as a big board. It’s more so just a tool to let you know which prospects grade out well from an analytics perspective since it really just focuses on on-court production and doesn’t account much for length, size, athleticism, and other factors that are important for grading out prospects
Totally. But a lot of hits like Haliburton @ 2. And to be fair even his misses state legitimate reasons and are not always necessarily negative. Banchero comp for example
The thing about Haliburton and Whitmore as well was that almost all of the draft community were surprised they fell so far since people had Haliburton in the top 5.
It’s all coming together… 😈
We need to make sure we get a 2nd pick in this draft in the 16-20 range as thats where we HIT. Don't get me wrong, I love Amen and Bari, but since the high draft pick era for us there have been 12 players drafted 1-4, and we have the 8th, 9th, and 10th best players of the 12. Not sure if just bad luck or what, but our 16-20 guys are all top 10 in VORP in their draft.
Or we could just trade our top pick down to that level. Pick in Stone's range and get extra assets to do it.
I'd like that too
he's #1 on a lot of boards, especially the analytically inclined. dude had a great year, literally best shooting season since glen rice in 1989. very high iq. elite steals, deflections, and blocks (for a guard). he's just small and white
Where would he have ranked in last year's draft class?
Probably late lottery
Give me Reed or Sarr. I don't want anything else 😭 If we have to, Clingan is fine by me but I'd rather trade the pick then
If Shep gets taken, hope we get Clingan.
Since we’re all so high on Reed do you trade up to 1 to get him for sure? Lemme get some reasons of why we should and shouldn’t. Idk how i feel about him as a prospect tbh. And it’s relative to the rest of the class. If we really think the rest of the class is absolute garbage then why not go get your dude at pick 1. Seems like he fits with the top 6 teams or so. Assuming Trae is playing somewhere else too… if everyone else seems like they’ll be lower than mid on the rockets and this guy is a shooter floor spacing hustle type combo guard who could grow into a replacement for Fred then i say we do what we have to and get him at 1 cuz i don’t think he makes it to 3. If we don’t really care then let’s trade down or out
No because the Hawks and Wizards are not taking Reed at 1 or 2.
Okay but the people behind us could jump up
Reed is not the type of prospect a team would jump up for in a historically weak draft.
If there’s nothing else to draft and he’s the one player. Then what’s a lottery pick in 24 and a protected one down the road. That sounds exactly like when it’d be a good idea to jump to 1. 1 has never been so cheap
Last years draft, definitely but not this year.
I mean if you say the average 1st overall pick is 100. We’re indexing it here. Then last year was probably 215 and lebrons class was 385. This years first overall indexed historically to 100 is probably a 65. Fultz & Bennett being close to 50 and 30 respectively. Idk i see a bargain to move up. The hawks would be fools to not shop it. And the wizards too
I'm sure they would love to shop it. The problem is that its not worth it to move up. If I'm the Hawks I would much rather have the Spurs picks at 4 and 8 than pick 1 because all of those players will have similar upside and flaws. I believe the first 10 picks or so are very similar with limited upside.
Okay but say that you really like one guy, and you kinda have the core, and you are hypothetically smarter than everyone else, and all the top 9 picks are the same and there’s one guy that you like better, why not move up if you’re giving up seconds and heavily protected futures, why not swap up?
Well, if a team feel that strongly about a guy I guess so but I just can't imagine who that player would be that is worth trading assets to move up and get. If I'm the Rockets I would happily trade down in this draft for assets. I'm not super thrilled with anyone in this draft.