00:00Who deserves the most blame for the rocket struggles right now?
00:04It's the drive. The fellas are out today. I'm Luke Morrow alongside B. Scott.
00:08T-Mill on the steel wheels today. You can always text the show 713-572-4610.
00:15Appreciate you guys. The latter batch of texts and a lot of texts have come in about most underrated movie.
00:20But the latter batch of texts as we went to commercial break provided a lot more underrated movies.
00:25So you came through in the end. And I agree with a lot of those who texted in like the
00:30last, let's say, 10 minutes.
00:32By the way, also to tell on myself, I do have to correct myself. Chris Tucker wasn't even in that
00:37movie.
00:37It was Chris Rock was the...
00:39Dude, I was with you. I thought he was.
00:42I know.
00:42And so if I had seen, and that's also how you can tell that I really hadn't seen the movie.
00:47And if I had lied and said I had seen the movie, that's how you would have known that I
00:51would have lied.
00:52Because I would have clearly made that distinction.
00:55Right. As your black friend in the room, would not have allowed that to happen.
01:00I know. It's a bad look.
01:01Yeah. I wouldn't have allowed that. So that's how you know I didn't see it, though.
01:04I'm going to blame the Mandela effect. Because when I think back on that movie,
01:07I picture Chris Tucker running around trying to catch the chickens or the roosters, whatever it was.
01:12Not Chris Rock.
01:12Look, you're not saying that they look alike. They're just two famous black Chris's.
01:17Yeah, exactly.
01:18Who were comedians.
01:19Exactly.
01:19Yeah, man. I'm not going to hold that against you.
01:22You could, listen, this is America. You could do a lot worse.
01:26You could do a lot worse than confuse two black Chris's who tell jokes.
01:30That's true.
01:30You could do a lot worse than that.
01:32Chris Tucker might actually prefer it. Or Chris Rock, one of them might prefer it.
01:35They might be like, eh, that wasn't my best performance.
01:37Or that wasn't a great movie.
01:38You can claim that that was Chris Tucker instead of me.
01:41Yeah. Do a lot worse.
01:42Yeah. Check out the movie, though. It's still good with either one of them.
01:45Who deserves the most blame for the Rockets?
01:47The reason why I bring this up is because I had to come on here and defend E-May yesterday
01:52with Clint.
01:53I've been an E-May supporter and defender. Maybe one of the few left, I should say.
01:58But I found it interesting after the game last night.
02:02J.J. Redick was talking to the media.
02:04B. Scott, you were probably in the room.
02:05I was.
02:06And he was saying this about, you know, so a lot of the talk was what the Lakers did Monday.
02:10What are the Rockets going to do in response last night in the rematch?
02:15Here was J.J. Redick after the game when asked about the Rockets' adjustments.
02:19In that orange flash, every time he got the ball of going quickly and sort of not allowing the double
02:26team
02:26and rejected it a number of times and got to his spots, true fouls, hit his pull-ups.
02:33That was a good adjustment on his part.
02:36A little tough with the audio to hear, but he laid out what the Rockets did different.
02:40As he said, good adjustment for E-May and the Rockets and how they approach what the Lakers did Monday
02:44night.
02:44That room is tough, by the way. It's a small room, and they're using a microphone.
02:48It's like, yo, the room is smaller than the one we're sitting in.
02:52Oh, really?
02:53Yeah, and they're using a microphone.
02:54It's like, yo, we can hear them.
02:57Anyway, I digress, as you were saying.
02:59Yeah, so anyways, I bring this up.
03:02You could call it propaganda, whatever,
03:03but just in support of E-May, where everyone's talking about, you know,
03:06he doesn't know what he's doing, make no adjustments, yada, yada, yada.
03:09You have the other coach on the other side complimenting the change in the Rockets' approach
03:13in 48 hours in that rematch last night.
03:15And I shoehorned this into all this because, as I laid out yesterday,
03:19like, E-May's not the guy I blame most for all of this.
03:22Honestly, I put it more on the players and more on Durant, first and foremost,
03:27and then I would blame the GM and the team put together here not doing anything at the point guard
03:33position
03:33before or after the Fred VanVleet injury before I would even blame E-May.
03:37It's not to say he's blameless and he's doing a perfect job.
03:39I think there's a lot that E-May Adoka could do differently or do better.
03:43But I just heard that from J.J. Redick last night, and I thought,
03:46oh, well, you know, they tried something different.
03:47They made an adjustment, still didn't make a difference.
03:49The team just wasn't good enough last night.
03:52Where do you fall in line?
03:53Who would you put the blame on most for the Rockets
03:55when you talk about things just haven't gone as planned here this season
03:59or certainly in recent weeks?
04:01Yeah, I would reorder your blame.
04:02I would reorder your blame list and just to start,
04:10point out that there is enough blame to go around here,
04:13and I think everybody does shoulder some level of blame.
04:20But if I got to nail it down, like to answer the question,
04:22I would start the blame up top with the GM, like even before the play.
04:28Like I would start it with the GM,
04:30and I would essentially just make it a trickle-down blame.
04:32Like I would go GM, coach, players, and keep it as simple as that.
04:39So I'd start with Raphael Stone,
04:40and that's because this is a roster construction issue by and large.
04:45Like I think it's the makeup of the team that is really the heart of the issue.
04:51How is it and why is it that you have a team,
04:54as we talked about yesterday when I joined you and Clint,
04:56that struggles with these three basic principles of basketball,
05:01of dribbling, passing, and shooting?
05:03You know, like it sounds like I'm joking, but if you watch the Rockets,
05:07you know that they are limited in all three of those areas.
05:11It's not to say they can't do it at all,
05:13but they are limited in dribbling, passing, and shooting.
05:16It's just the three basic parts of basketball,
05:21at least on the offensive side, right?
05:24What is the reason for that?
05:25Whose fault is that?
05:27And that to me is the biggest issue with the team.
05:30That's the fault of the general manager, the whole point guard thing.
05:33Why don't they have a point guard?
05:35I know we spend a lot of time talking about,
05:37well, they don't have a point guard.
05:38Fred VanVleet got hurt.
05:39But whose fault is it that there was not a backup point guard to speak of
05:45even before Fred VanVleet got hurt?
05:48And so certainly when he did get hurt,
05:51there wasn't somebody that was already there.
05:52And then after the fact,
05:54they didn't go out and get somebody that was more proven than the option
05:57that they already had,
05:58which they clearly have decided not to lean in as much as I think other people
06:01want them to with Reed Shepard.
06:03So not using your mid-level exception on a point guard
06:06and instead going out and getting Doreen and Finney-Smith,
06:09who you could argue is a duplicate kind of skill set
06:13in terms of what you got in Tari Eason
06:16and certainly on the defensive end with a man Thompson, right?
06:19So I would start there.
06:21I would start there.
06:22Now, when it comes to what they have,
06:24I would blame Eme Udoka for, like,
06:29why is it that their best offense is a Kevin Durant,
06:34Alperin, Shingun pick and roll,
06:35but they'll only run it, like, two or three times a game?
06:38Whose fault is who?
06:39Who do I blame for that?
06:41And whoever's fault that is,
06:42then you can go right under the GM, right?
06:45Is that the coach's fault?
06:46Is that the player's fault?
06:47Is it a mix of both?
06:49Honestly, whoever it is,
06:51like, those are tactical issues on top of the personnel issues, right?
06:55Why is Reed Shepard just standing over there in the corner
06:58instead of being the initiator of the offense
07:01when maybe your second best offense is Reed Shepard
07:04and Alperin, Shingun pick and rolls?
07:06You know, so why is it a team full of guys
07:09who don't know how to move without the basketball?
07:11You know, like, so that to me all starts with the GM.
07:15I'm with you on that,
07:16and it's that whole idea of the fish rots from the head down.
07:19But to your second point,
07:21that's where I put the blame on the players ahead of the coach,
07:23and I'll always do that in the NBA
07:25because I just think it's a player's league
07:27and it comes down to the players,
07:28and the coach has more of an impact
07:29almost off the court or in between the games.
07:31And how many times have we seen, you know,
07:33it becomes a gif and everything
07:35where LeBron's in the huddle not paying attention
07:37or he takes the white, whatever, you know?
07:38Like, I always put more blame
07:40and give more credit to the players in the NBA
07:42than the actual coaching
07:43when it comes to some of that scheme
07:45and the X's and O's or the plays that they do run.
07:47And so, even like Kevin Durant said,
07:49what did he say the other night?
07:50Like, I am the offense,
07:51and so when the offense isn't working,
07:52like, I'm going to put that blame more
07:54on the star of the offense
07:55instead of the coach on the sidelines,
07:57which is why I put the blame more on the players
07:59and specifically Durant ahead of Emei.
08:01But I am with you on the GM.
08:03Certainly, I would agree,
08:05should be ahead of the head coach
08:07and probably a poorly constructed roster
08:09in some aspects
08:10that has shown up throughout this season.
08:13Flawed for sure.
08:14Yeah, flawed, yeah.
08:15It's a good way to put it.
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