- 2 days ago
Seth and Sean discuss what direction fans as well as they themselves think the Rockets should go this offseason. Should they trade KD, trade other guys, or try to run it back with VanVleet and Adams back?
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Before we get into the results of the poll I put up, Seth, there's a lot of, on the text
00:04line,
00:05I saw a lot of this as a reply to the poll that I put up, and I'll read the
00:08question just so
00:09people have some context here as to what I was asking. Big, big picture, the Rockets offseason
00:15boils down to three choices. One, trade KD and build around the, quote, young core. Two, break
00:21up the young core, keep KD, add another older all-star. Or number three, run it back as is with
00:27Fred Van Vliet and Steven Adams returning. Those are the three choices because all reports are
00:32Emeo Doka's not going anywhere because that's the reply that I keep getting. Both, we are getting
00:38it on the text page. I was getting it over the weekend as a reply to this poll, which is
00:42none
00:42of these choices matter because Emeo Doka is still the head coach of this basketball team.
00:47Well, that's where I think that when, what was the first choice? Trade KD and build around the
00:52young core. Yeah. So the third choice was the one where you basically run it back. Correct.
00:56I think the third choice when running it back, that's my choice if, if he makes a change to the
01:03coaching staff and brings in somebody who's an offensive specialist and can be an offensive
01:08coordinator for the team, just like they did, like D'Antoni did with Jeff Bizdelic on the defensive
01:12side of the ball back in the day. That, but given those and that maybe that's the most realistic
01:19avenue, I would have to choose number three. The, just understanding that there's, there's more to be
01:24done than just running it back. That's what you think won the poll. Is that what you're saying?
01:29That's my personal choice. Yeah. I think that that number, I think that won the poll, but it wasn't
01:35a simple majority. Okay. It was like, like 40% or something. Okay. Okay. So Seth got it right.
01:42He's got the choice, right? And 45.6%. What do we do with that, Ben? What's the margin for error
01:51that we normally give Seth on these things? That's a, no, don't, don't. Five is 5%? I think so.
01:57I think it's 2%. I hold myself to a higher standard. You do? All right. Well, then it's definitely not
02:01two. You weren't within 2%. Yeah. Hence all the self-hatred. That's a good guess though, man. Yeah. 45.6.
02:06Your, your, your sentiment is correct, which is of those three choices, it's the winner and not a
02:12majority, you know, not over 50% of the vote, but I've got, I've got my finger on the pulse
02:17of
02:17Houston, Sean. You do. You do. Uh, what do you think was second of the other two choices that
02:23don't involve running it back of either trading Kevin Durant or trading to help Kevin Durant?
02:30I think trading Kevin Durant right now. Uh, I think, um, the Q rating for Kevin Durant right
02:36this moment and the optics of everything aren't so hot, uh, amongst the public sentiment, 33.8%
02:42said trade KD, keep the young core 20.6% said break up the young core and keep Kevin Durant.
02:50You're right. There is a, there is an appetite right now in the hand, in the fan base, a healthy
02:55appetite to move on from Kevin Durant. They've got this fun young core.
02:59They do. And they don't want to part with their fun young core.
03:01Back into this fun young team. Oh yeah. Uh, can you give me Schrager, Ben?
03:06Texans are this fun young team. I just don't want people to think that I just talk in this
03:11creepy voice for no reason. Um, so the athletic Sam Amick and William Guillory had a, had a
03:18pretty extensive piece on where the Rockets go this off season. And I, I think they're, I
03:23think they're running it back. I don't think KD is going anywhere. And I think in part the
03:27one, one, probably the biggest reason I think he's not going anywhere, Seth, is that he gave
03:32the Rockets a hometown discount before he even played a game for the Rockets on his extension
03:39with the idea that, uh, they would be able to use that money to, you know, stay under
03:45certain aprons, build the team. And it did that. They went out and made a bunch of moves,
03:49but unfortunately via injury and just some bad decisions, like Dorian Finney Smith, that was
03:55a bad contract. That was a bad decision. Yeah. You know, they wound up through injuries
03:59and bad decisions, having a team that was really five deep, you know, it was your starting
04:05lineup and then your, your bench at your bench by the time game six rolled around or game
04:11five and six is Josh Akogi, Aaron holiday. And if you choose to use Jay Sean Tate for a few
04:18minutes, just to, to throw some spackle on the wall or whatever. So I don't think, I don't
04:23think Durant's going anywhere in part, because I don't know what, I don't know how that would
04:26look for the Fertittas having a guy take a discount and then trading the guy off unless
04:31he wants, unless he wants to be traded. No. And I think that you see a better version
04:36of every single one of those guys. If Fred Van Vliet is back and the question though, is
04:41still given that the Rockets just, you know, they finally, at the end of the season looked
04:47a little bit more like the, a type of offense that had made some improvements, but that
04:52is, it is simple as, okay, with Fred Van Vliet in there, then you're going to be better in
04:56the half court. He'll be able to distribute the ball. The spacing will improve. Amon Thompson
05:01and Reed Shepard can be used more to their strengths. That's all true. But I think that
05:05there's a very, there's a very justifiable, justifiable skepticism that that's still not enough
05:12to lift them substantially above where they were offensively and last year. And that's
05:19the, that, that's where it comes back into, man, the coaching staff as a whole needs to
05:25have more answers than just, Hey, you joke is really good at getting good defensive efforts.
05:29But yeah, we saw that. We saw that in the, we saw that against the Lakers. This is, this
05:33is why I want the Lakers to get destroyed by OKC, Sean. If you set aside your personal feelings
05:38about OKC for a moment, they need to really, truly understand that. All right, you can talk
05:44all you want about how you were a weakened Rockets team. The Lakers were, it was even worse
05:49for the Lakers, you know, Austin Reeves wasn't himself. You didn't have Doncic. Like I'll,
05:55I'll see those two and, you know, against Fred Van Vliet and Steven Adams and say, yeah,
06:01the Rockets were a more weakened team than, than you were with or without Kevin Durant.
06:06Yeah. Well, I mean, Austin Reeves, and he only played Austin Reeves in two of those games. He
06:09missed the first four games. So he was out for two thirds of that series. No, you're. And it's
06:14not like, okay, with Kevin Durant, it was just a completely different, uh, uh, completely different
06:19show offensively. No, no, no. But the games like game six, and I think joke has said this in the
06:26post game. He's like, no, this was, this was one of those games where we leaned on Kevin heavily,
06:31that type of game, you know, we just, we can't knock down any threes, you know, we're turning
06:36the ball over. Not that Kevin Durant was Mr. Protect the Basketball either, but, but yeah,
06:40that they, they missed him on, on Friday for sure. Um, so the, the William Guillory, Sam Amick piece,
06:47uh, outlines kind of the parameters of what the Rockets are looking at. They've got 10 players under
06:51contract. They got about 22 million in space underneath the first apron. I'm not going to get
06:56too nerdy on the salary cap in the NBA. They've got room to do some things. Um, biggest free agent
07:02decision they have is, well, I think it's, there's two, one's not a free agent decision.
07:06One's an extension decision. I'll call it contractual decision. Seth is, you know, if
07:11Tar Eason, Tar Eason is going to go out on the market as a restricted free agent. And I'm guessing
07:16Tar Eason, even as up and down as he was the second half of this season, there'll be interest in
07:20Tar Eason on the market without question. No, no. I think everything that we've said about the
07:24Rockets offense this season will have other teams saying, Oh yeah, well in a different
07:28environment, we're going to see the best version of Tar Eason. Yes. No, without question. I treat
07:33him like, like in baseball, you know how they do it where the guys come off a miserable year,
07:38but people look at the whole body of work and guys in baseball always end up getting much bigger
07:42deals than it feels like they, they, like they should like Framber, you know, Framber does Framber
07:48gets a deal as nobody in Houston wanted him back because he's, he's Framber Valdez and he's
07:53pitching very well, but he's pitching. I was just about to ask you, if you looked at his
07:56numbers, he's pitching, he had that one bad outing where he gave up eight runs. And other
08:00than that, he's a quality start machine. Yeah. He hasn't let up more than two runs in a game
08:04other than one, I think. Yeah. It hurts. And he's going, gosh, Sean, he routinely goes more
08:08than even four innings. I know we've missed that. We missed that. Um, the other big decision
08:15they have is Amin Thompson. He's eligible for a five-year extension this off season, Seth,
08:21of over 200, 250 million dollars. Is Amin Thompson a max level player? Understanding that there's a lot
08:31of guys in the NBA who get max contracts who are not necessarily all stars. Yeah. And I,
08:36going back to, I think Amin Thompson with an actual point guard on the roster. Yeah. Is that
08:42version of Amin Thompson that we saw last year? And I think he's worth that money. Yep. Yep. He's
08:47the best of their young core. He's the one, he's the one whose numbers when he's on the floor
08:53versus off of the floor. Oh, this year it was extreme. It was extreme. He was the only guy with
08:57a plus. Yeah. Yeah. It was extreme. Um, it was extreme for him. So I think he's going to get
09:02it.
09:02I felt, I felt a year ago when he really started to ascend, you know, early in the season where
09:07he
09:07was coming off the bench and I forget somebody, I think it was Jabari got hurt. So they put Amin
09:10Thompson in
09:11the starting lineup and then it was, he was off to the races after that. And you could see, okay,
09:16he's, he's going to be an all defensive team level player barring injury for the entire prime of his
09:22career. The question was, is he going to get any better offensively? I don't know that he did this
09:26year. I, and again, I know you made the point earlier. It's valid, which is, Hey, a lot of times,
09:31cause there's no Fred Van Vliet. He was being asked as were a lot of guys being asked to do
09:35things
09:35that they wouldn't normally be asked to do. You know, I'm in Fred Van Vliet's out there. I'm in is
09:40a demon
09:40on the wing, getting in that dunkers position right there at the lower level of the lane and just
09:46shooting elbow jumpers. So there is some projection that needs to go on. If you're going to give him
09:51this contract. No. And I think with Amin Thompson, he's the last guy I worry about, you know, whether
09:56there was a loss of focus or there was a loss of intensity or anything like that. It was just
10:01simply
10:01that they, you had a bunch of square pegs and round holes this year. Yep. And if he goes back
10:07now,
10:07I think since all of this, always every discussion about every single player we're going to have
10:12comes back to Fred Van Vliet. That's where it comes on Raphael stone that you like, what the hell?
10:18Honestly, the construction going into next year can't be that if you lose an above average point
10:25guard, you're inept offensively as a team. Yep. That's just, it can't. Yeah. Fred Van Vliet. I think
10:31the, he's better than a lot of people want to accept that he is, but he's also, he's not an
10:36elite
10:36point guard and that you can't all of a sudden, because of the loss of that one piece, you've
10:42got no answers for the rest of the season through the, up, up to, and through the trade deadline.
10:46It just, it can't be that way. No, I was surprised in that poll that I put up, I was
10:50surprised
10:51that there was such a significant difference in the number of people that want to move on
10:55from Durant versus keeping him and going and getting another all-star just because I feel
11:00like the average fan, the average fan always like shiny new things. We like shiny new things,
11:05but you also, I think people understand what the challenges were this year and that it's
11:10not, there's nothing out there where you all of a sudden feel like, oh yeah, you swap, you
11:15swap out Durant for this guy. Now, now there's, you know, potential. Nobody saw the James Harden
11:20trade coming, obviously. So there's things that could develop that we have no clue about or
11:24wouldn't predict right now that there are answers. And it seems like with a few key decisions,
11:32you could get the best version of a lot of guys. And the fact that, I think the fact
11:35that Durant stayed healthy right up until the freaking playoffs, I think so people look
11:40at that as a positive. Yeah. If you take some of the pressure off of him and he was able
11:44to stay healthy at his age until the freaking playoffs, that you can run it back with him
11:50for a year. Yep. Um, the, so the question, he's been healthier than Antetokounmpo. Uh,
11:55I trust, I trust Durant's health more than I trust Antetokounmpo. Yeah, no, it's not even
11:59close. Yeah. He's, and I know he missed this most of this series, but yeah, it's, I mean,
12:03he was second in the league in minutes played behind Amin Thompson this year during the, uh,
12:08during the regular season. We also found out in this article on the athletic with Sam Amick
12:13and William Guillory. We don't have a name yet, Seth. We don't have a name, but we found out
12:18that it was, we found out that it was a two way player that bumped knees with Durant in that
12:24practice where he was going for a loose ball. So basically a G league guy. Yeah. I think,
12:30are they just trying to conceal this player's identity to protect him? Yeah. So he doesn't
12:35get, uh, so he doesn't get Jared Wayne, the Jared Wayne treatment. Yeah. I can't even wish
12:40Jared Wayne a happy birthday without him getting all. No, the Texans tried to last year. They,
12:45they put up a graphic. And for those who don't know, Jared Wayne was the, the Texans player that
12:50wrecked Tank Dell's left knee, the turn, turn Tank Dell's knee into tissue paper and smithereens.
12:55Um, so yeah, we found that. So that's, we're getting clues now. You remind Jared Wayne is,
12:59uh, the, uh, you've never seen the other guys, have you? No. The Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg.
13:06I have not. Nope. There's a Mark Wahlberg's nickname, and that is the Yankee Clipper,
13:10because he accidentally shot Derek Jeter. Oh, so you've talked about that. Yeah.
13:14Yeah. I haven't seen it. And that's hilarious. So he's despised on the police force. I love that.
13:20He's a guy there. Some guy wouldn't stop at security. Yeah. And so, you know, Derek,
13:25so Mark Wahlberg shot Derek Jeter. That's hilarious. The Yankee Clipper. Oh my God. That's great.
13:31That is great. Oh man. Oh yeah. That's what Jared Wayne and this random G leaguer would
13:37want them to get the Yankee Clipper treatment. I guess not. I guess not. Um, this, this number
13:42hurt before Steven Adams injury, the Rockets were grabbing 41% of their missed shots with
13:50offensive rebounds. That, you know how crazy a number that is. So I get getting Steve, I getting
13:54Fred Van Vliet, but I had to pick one to come back next year of the two. I pick Van
14:00Vliet just
14:00because the, all of a sudden the rest of the team is being asked to do their normal
14:04jobs again. Yeah. But even if they got back just Steven Adams, that's a huge, huge get
14:11back. It's a, it's a, you know what though, but this is the problem though too. It's a, it's
14:15a huge get back in that. Cause we can, we can be a horrible shooting team, but it doesn't
14:20matter. Right. Cause we get so many second chance opportunities. Right. I don't, that's
14:24I can't make them good shooters. I got to get a solution. Right. But I don't know if that's
14:29the recipe for championship and greatness. Yeah. No, I it's not, but I'd rather get more
14:34of our misses than less of our misses. Granted more Mulligans instead of a, instead of an
14:40actual good golf game. No, that's true. That's true. But I'd rather have the Mulligans, you
14:44know, like if I can't have them, I'd like to have them. It would be nice. Um, so a lot
14:49of people weighing in on this. Most of the people weighing in are like, yeah, yeah. Wake me
14:53up when email joke is gone. He just got an extension. Yeah. He's got three years left on his
14:58deal and it's a guy and it's a pricey deal too. He's your grumpy guy. Yeah, man. He
15:03is your guy. Um, here was Kendrick Perkins. This was before game six. This was after Reed
15:09Shepard had for 30 seconds, put the team on his back in game five with the, uh, the, to
15:15the, the little, uh, jump shot that he had to go up five and then the steel and the dunk
15:19off of LeBron. This is Kendrick Perkins. I, does this wind up in take a mania? We'll see.
15:24This is Perkins on Reed Shepard. Let me say this. Reed Shepard, you a bad mother
15:30white boy. Boy, you is a bad white boy. I ain't lying. He's it to me is more to him
15:37than just being the shooter. He's a hooper. Yeah. He's a hooper. He could finish. He
15:43has the mid range. He's not afraid. He'll, he'll dunk on your ass if he catch you slipping
15:49and he plays with a certain type of tenacity. That's a bad motherfucker right
15:54there. Okay. Um, so I, boy, I don't that, that, that's, that feels like a prisoner of
16:01the moment thing right there from Perkins. That's where I like with Kendrick Perkins
16:04is, uh, look, he's, he, he comes and goes and he sways in the wind depending on what he
16:09just saw in front of him. He's just coming up with extreme takes. Where are you with
16:13the other? Where are you with Reed Shepard right now? I think, uh, the same as I am with
16:17Ahmed Thompson and everybody else, it's that he's just, he's, yeah, he's not a, he's not
16:23a point guard as of yet. No. And there's all the, he's got limitations and liabilities that
16:29he's got to work his way out of. Um, and he can be a nice piece on a well orchestrated
16:34offense and joke is not the guy to orchestrate that off. No, it gets better with Fred Van
16:39Vliet. And it'd be nice to be able to bring him in, in certain situations. I mean, he
16:43could, I could see him being that lethal guy. You go back to those heat teams where they
16:46had eight different guys on the bench that were three point sharp shooters. That's yes.
16:52Those that's he, he could be a part of an offense like that. And, uh, that's, and that's, you
16:58know, you don't have to make a imminent decision on him or anything. So I haven't abandoned him
17:02or anything, but I also think that he's not in a, certainly wasn't in the ideal role this
17:06year. No, no. And when he shot the ball horribly in the post,
17:09season that that's, that's the biggest concern for me. He was bad in the playoffs this year.
17:13He was really bad in the playoffs this year.
Comments