TF was that...

What a kick to the balls.

PoppaB05 said:

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Udoka is a good coach…
Jalen Green played 35 minutes. Took 23 shots and made 9. Contributed almost nothing else and was a -10. Every other starter was positive

Something different has to happen if this team is supposed to contend

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Maybe he's a good coach but he wasn't tonight. To allow someone to jack up 15 3-pointers when his name is not Steph Curry is just plain dumb.

I hate Jalen Green.

I couldn't watch it but how does Cam only get 8 minutes?

Greens contract is very tradable. If they are going to do
something it's gotta be soon.

In the words of Calvin Murphy, that's unfortunate, Bill Worrell

Watching the first part of the third quarter it just seemed like they wanted to coast to a win. Not very inspiring on opening night.

All that freaking losing and we end up with scrubs like Jalen Green and Jabari Smith.

Yeah I know, it's only one game and I'm completely overreacting.

Agreed

Jalen Green thinks he's AI, but he's really Sw a g gy P

Our entire deep bench was underutilized all game

The Porkchop Express said:

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In the words of Calvin Murphy, that's unfortunate, Bill Worrell

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Calvin used to say this to me condescendingly whenever I passed up a corner three on his AAU team he coached 15 years ago then preceded to bench me about once every couple of weeks.

The Sengun turnover at the end was very ugly, as well

Don't know kpj was in the league, did his charges get dropped?

He pled guilty

30.2% 3PT
36.9%FG
Its game 1 but shooting at this mark against a team predicted to win less than 25 games is concerning. Hopefully by Tuesday morning we are sitting closer to 37% and 47% if not im afraid we will be sitting at 0-1 wins.

The 4th quarter was very frustrating. FVV took about 8 shots that he had no business trying. Green was MIA for part of it. Jabari just sucks. Tate should have had his 4th quarter minutes. I thought we drafted Reed so we had a shooter on the court? When the chips were on the table and we were throwing bricks up like game 7 we needed to go to someone who can shoot. Everyone was bad last night, every damn one of them.

superaggie73 said:

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TREX01 said:

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The 4th quarter was very frustrating. FVV took about 8 shots that he had no business trying. Green was MIA for part of it. Jabari just sucks. Tate should have had his 4th quarter minutes. I thought we drafted Reed so we had a shooter on the court? When the chips were on the table and we were throwing bricks up like game 7 we needed to go to someone who can shoot. Everyone was bad last night, every damn one of them.

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Need more Sheppard and Whitmore and less Green and Brooks

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Going to be hard to justify less of the guy they just paid $35 m / year to.

Someone needs to apprise Green that he's the Robin to Sengun's Batman. Nobody outside of Steph should be taking 15 three-pointers in a game. I'm not sure how it's possible to play 35 minutes and have 2 rebounds, 0 assists, 0 steals, 0 blocks, and 0 fouls.

Green, Smith, Brooks and Van Vleet were 9 of 35 from the arc and 16 of 53 overall. 16 of 53 is 30.1%. I know Jabari is 6-11 and Amen only 6-7, but I'd like those two guys to swap starter/bench status. Like Guitarzan, I'm pretty baffled Whitmore only got 8 minutes.
Shepperd looked OK for a debut. He had as many blocks as Jabari.

Memphis next, with Ja Morrant looking really strong in his first action back and Santi Aldama(???) lighting up the Jazz for 27 last night?

That was a tough 2nd half to watch last night. While discouraging it was just game 1 and these Hornets are not last year's Hornets.

Brooks only shooting 6 shots is an improvement.

That was probably the worst opening day in Rockets history in my life. So much promise and positivity immediately vaporized. In my season prediction, I picked us to land 9th. If I'm going to be truly honest, that prediction had some hometown hopes and dreams baked into it, all of which have evaporated. There are major red flags with this team/organization that have me seriously worried:

1) Ime is not a good offensive coach. We don't really have a system and we are happy to chuck 3's if we considered them "open". Here is a quote from Ime last night: "Fred is getting wide open looks. I don't think he's going to go 2-for-11 that often or 4-for-18, so that stands out, and Jalen, even the 5-for-15, wide open looks, you make 2-3 more of those and they adjust some. You want guys to stay confident & take those shots."

First, not all "open" shots are "good" shots. Second, neither of these guys have demonstrated the ability to be a consistent and efficient shooter in their careers. That stat line is going to happen many times this season and Ime is just going to pretend that its ok. This guy clearly views basketball from the lens of a 3-and-D player: just play tough D and take open 3s...

2) A related issue, but nobody on our team can shoot consistently. We will have lucky nights were we shoot around 50%, but those will be buffered by plenty of sub 33% 3pt shooting nights.

3) There is little year to year development in offensive skills or basketball IQ from a majority of our drafted players. Jalen, Cam, Tari, Jabari and Amen are all basically the same player they were in college or high school. I understand they are all really young, but none of them have really developed an identifiable skill that isn't just pure athleticism OR greatly improved an area of weakness.

4) The organization is rewarding and reinforcing bad behaviors. When we resigned Jalen, I thought he certainly had showed something in the offseason. Possibly a bit of maturity, improved skills, or even a real commitment to defense. After watching that game, I can't imagine what possessed Stone to give him that extension. He is literally the sample player at the start of last year.

I'm still hoping that we scratch our way into the play-in game, but I've lost all expectations beyond that. I honestly think this team needs a big trade to fix it. Package Jalen's contract, a few picks and one of Amen, Tari, Cam or Jabari and try to get the next disgruntled superstar (not James Harden)

Grizzlies (1-0) @ Rockets (0-1), Toyota Center, 7:00 p.m.
Line: Rockets by 1.5 - REALLY?

What's up with the Grizzlies?
This is the 30th year of Memphis Grizzly basketball - the first six of those in Vancouver - and they've yet to make it to the NBA Finals, with just 1 conference championship appearance (2013) and two division titles, both of which came in the last 5 years. How long ago was it that the Grizzlies were the new team in the league? Well, back then they still played in the Midwest Division with the Rockets, Spurs, Mavericks, Nuggets, Jazz, and Timberwolves, and their savvy veteran on the expansion roster was Byron Scott, who is now 63 years old. They seemed right on the cusp of challenging the Nuggets for Western Conference supremacy a couple of years ago until Ja Morant decided to pull a Dave Chapelle and start acting insane after getting paid a massive amount of money. Morant tried to fight the entire Indiana Pacer team after a game, flashed a gun in an Instagram Live video, not once, but TWICE to get suspended by the league, then came back and hurt his shoulder, with the team going 27-55 last year. Now he's back and getting that nice, gentle treatment that everyone gets after acting like a thug over a 12-month stretch because he's really good at playing sports.

Who Are These Guys?
Well, they have a 5-8, 159-pound Japanese guy Yuki Kawamura and a 7-4, 305-pound rookie in Zach Edey, so about as bizarre a roster as possible. Edey is one of two Canadians on the roster (Brandon Clarke), , and they also have Spain's Santi Aldama, whose name sounds a lot like the planet where Andor and the Rebels steal all the money from the Empire in Season 1 of "Andor" on Disney Plus. I don't know if the Grizzlies are trying to win the "Up with People" award for diversity with this roster, but there is some fine diversity here. If you're like me and have no idea who Yuki Kawamura is, he torched the French and Victor Von Wemby for 29 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists in an Olympic game and the Grizzlies decided to sign him. I mean, the Spurs have 87-year-old Chris Paul at point guard, why not a 5-8 23-year-old from Japan who weighs as much as I did in 8th grade?

What's New?
They drafted the aforementioned Edey in the first round, and followed him up with Jaylen Wells from Washington State and then some dude named Ulrich Chomche from Cameroon. He's only 6-11. With a name like that I was expecting him to be like 7 foot 7 and weigh 130 pounds. They could have been the first NBA team to have two Japanese guys at the same time, but they lost Yuta Watanbe in the off-season to the lure of playing for the Chiba Jets Funabashi, a team, that, I swear to God, has Fightin' Texas Aggie DJ Hogg, the pride of Plano West, on its roster.


What Have They Done Lately?
Well, they started the year 1-0 with an impressive road win at Utah. Morant looked like he hadn't missed a beat, with a 22-point, 10 assist game. Aldama, who I admit I've never heard of, went nuts with 27 points on 5-10 three-pointers, and the best TCU alum since Kurt Thomas, Desmond Bane, had 24 points. The little Japanese guy didn't play. I'm assuming he'll dunk on Jalen Green at some point tonight.

The Last Time They Played
On February 14 2024, the Rockets lost to the Grizzlies 121-113 on the road after winning their first 3 matchups. It was the weird game where Brooks, Sengun, Aaron Holiday, and Amen Thompson each scored 19 points. Jabari and Jalen chipped in by going 0 for 10 from the arc and combining for zero free throws. GG Jackson II, the man-baby from South Carolina, scored 20 points off the bench for the Grizz. Apparently that guy broke his foot last month and is out for the first half of the year. Looking up this box score also tells me that Derrick Rose, who I thought retired at least 7 years ago, played for Memphis last year.

Defense optional tonight

In the 3rd quarter they finally decided to pressure the ball and it made a huge difference. The line up with Tari, Bari, Amen and Cam was able to blitz their ball handlers and led to several run outs. They need to hang their hat on that. We don't have a dominating shot blocker, so we have to attack opposing guards before they get into the paint. If we don't, we are going to give up a mountain of layups and shooting fouls.

That's more of what I was expecting from this squad. The second half against Charlotte and the first half tonight were entirely to lethargic and passive. The defense has to be extremely active or we are wasting our athleticism and depth.

Spurs again tonight. Have a tough few weeks to open the season but I guess that is just the West like every year.

Apologies for my lack of previews. I was banned on Saturday morning for being hilarious.

Happy with the win Monday, but it's the kind of win where you're like "yes, but". Green lights it up for 36 but the rest of the stat line looks like a vast wasteland - 1 rebound, 2 assists, 0 blocks, 0 steals, 0 personal fouls (not a complaint, but something you would get if you were trying to guard anyone), and 4 turnovers. All that in 38 minutes. Starting to remind me of Kevin Martin, the guy we ultimately traded for Harden. But even he was good for a steal a game.

Great to see Steven Adams out there doing Steven Adams things. +11 in 14 minutes of play - 6 points 3 rebounds.

The Porkchop Express said:

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Apologies for my lack of previews. I was banned on Saturday morning for being hilarious.

Happy with the win Monday, but it's the kind of win where you're like "yes, but". Green lights it up for 36 but the rest of the stat line looks like a vast wasteland - 1 rebound, 2 assists, 0 blocks, 0 steals, 0 personal fouls (not a complaint, but something you would get if you were trying to guard anyone), and 4 turnovers. All that in 38 minutes. Starting to remind me of Kevin Martin, the guy we ultimately traded for Harden. But even he was good for a steal a game.

Great to see Steven Adams out there doing Steven Adams things. +11 in 14 minutes of play - 6 points 3 rebounds.

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Next time Jalen plays D will be the first time. He can score when he is focused but really doesn't bring much else at all.

It is nice to be able to win on a night Sengun doesn't give you much on the offensive end and always nice to beat the spurs.

To show how hot of a start Jalen Green is off too:

The only players in #NBA history to match or exceed his 115 points and 19 threes through the first 4 games of a season is Stephen Curry (4x), Luka Doncic, and Kemba Walker….

Most importantly, he’s currently top 10 in the NBA… pic.twitter.com/NK07oZ3bRb

— Bradeaux (@BradeauxNBA) October 30, 2024

Just me or does Luka look fat?

WE RUN THIS STATE!!!!

Did not know that Calvin Murphy was a professional twirler.

Since the Ags play at the same time as the Rockets on Saturday, does anyone have a single Rockets ticket they'd be willing to part with at a reasonable price?

With Milwaukee falling apart, would Rockets fans want to put together a trade based around the Phoenix picks and Jabari to get Giannis?

Guitarsoup said:

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With Milwaukee falling apart, would Rockets fans want to put together a trade based around the Phoenix picks and Jabari to get Giannis?

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I don't even want to know what he would cost. Gotta be astronomical. It is true though that you cannot win in this league without all-star/MVP caliber players so if the price was right its worth entertaining.