The addition of Fred VanVleet provides a major upgrade as the Rockets try to move up the standings after three years of rebuilding, Sam Vecenie of The Athletic says in a discussion with Kelly Iko about the team’s prospects. Vecenie notes that VanVleet will be a reliable leader for Houston, which gave about 2,000 backcourt minutes last season to Daishen Nix, TyTy Washington and Josh Christopher.
The Rockets had been using Kevin Porter Jr., who is away from the team due to assault charges, as their point guard even though it’s not his natural position. Vecenie expects improvement just from having a true leader on the court, even though he views VanVleet as the league’s 12th- to 15-best point guard.
Vecenie adds that VanVleet’s shooting was down last season, but it was notably better after the Raptors traded for Jakob Poeltl to give them an effective screener. VanVleet can hit threes, make the right decisions on offense and challenge opponents on defense, and Vecenie notes that those are all areas where the team needed to improve.
There’s more from Houston:
- Vecenie also likes the addition of Dillon Brooks, but believes his four-year contract might be “a bit aggressive” because of the potential of Tari Eason. Vecenie says Eason was “phenomenal” at Summer League, and there’s a chance that he’ll be better than Brooks by the end of the season. Vecenie observes that Eason provides the same type of high-energy defense as Brooks, but without the questionable shot selection that can bog down offenses. At 40.2%, Brooks had the fourth-worst effective field goal percentage in the league last season.
- Coach Ime Udoka talked about the need for Brooks to play under control after he was ejected early in Tuesday’s preseason opener (video link). “You have to learn to control your emotions and stay in the game, Udoka said. “You can’t get yourself taken out in the first quarter.” Brooks said his reputation was responsible for the ejection, but referees determined that his low blow to Pacers center Daniel Theis was intentional.
- Free agent additions Jeff Green and Reggie Bullock are expected to make their debuts with the Rockets on Thursday night in New Orleans, according to Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle. Green signed with Houston this summer to be a veteran leader after winning a title in Denver last season, while Bullock was added last week for outside shooting help after the Spurs waived him.
Isnt KPJ the one that choked somebody and “allegedly” broke vertebra and stuff? I’m shocked Rockets even still have him on the roster.
Kinda that there’s so many pending legal cases I’m starting to get the corresponding players confused.
They’re trying to get rid of him without having to actually pay his contract. Either by trading him as salary filler to some other team, or by just getting the NBA to rescind his contract. That’s the only reason he’s still in the org.
And unlike Brooks, Eason actually defends off the ball, which is way more important than on ball defense
Eason needs to improve his on-ball defense, though. He was a negative last season in on-ball defense. Granted, so were most of his teammates given that Houston’s defense as a whole sucked, but he was one of the worst offenders, which is weird.
He can take the jump, the talent is clearly there. I just need to actually see him do so.
It will be interesting to see how they do and how good a coach Ime is
It’s going to take some time. I wouldn’t judge them by the All-Star break or after one year.
Like in DET, the problem in HOU is they haven’t been rebuilding for 3 years. They’ve been tanking for 3 years. They’ve accumulated the requisite amount of talent the league gifts to tankers, but there’s been no player or team development (beyond the inevitable development of a losing culture).
Now, supposedly, they’re going to turn this aircraft carrier around. Or at least show enough possibilities of it that the FO can keep their jobs. They may have a shot at the latter, for a couple of years. But I don’t see a contending team ever emerging from this mess.
Houston’s “rebuild” is worse than Detroit’s, imo. They at least have a structure that they were rebuilding towards, even if it was an ill-defined one. Having Cade, Hayes, and Ivey, plus frontcourt talents like Stewart, Bagley, and Duren, were at least an outline for the kind of team they wanted. Long, versatile guards who can play wing spots in a pinch, and sturdy, powerful bigs who are slightly smaller, yet more agile than most of their contemporaries. They at least had roles that made sense. It went worse than expected because of Cade’s injury, but there’s plenty to look forward to.
Houston didn’t even have that much. The biggest reason Sengun stood out so much there was that everything else was a train wreck when he knew his role and played to it as hard as possible. They just took whatever talent was most apparent to them, without any development plan. Whitmore and Amen Thompson are clear type fits (long wings with defensive upside and shot-making potential), but otherwise? The young guys are largely inconsistent players and tweeners. Jabari and Eason have grown into their spots (though Jabari still has a lot of work to do), but Sengun is fairly slow despite being undersized (which amplifies his defensive issues that will cap their team defense), Green still looks like a combo-guard to me despite being shoved into the most shots, and KPJ was never a viable full-time point guard and is now only a liability to the team because of his off-court actions.
I wouldn’t argue that, because everything is relative. Although at 15 wins in year 3 of a rebuild, the only things the DET FO can really celebrate are their own extensions. They haven’t been as overtly clueless as the HOU FO. They’ve even made some good moves to get proven NBA players (Grant, BB, Burks, etc.). Just hasn’t taken. Some of it’s been undermined by being talent junkies. But they have their #1 overall -pick returning from a lost season, and they’ve kept their powder dry in terms of cap space, so it’s easier to see them really turning things. But something has to happen soon.