Troubles all around, but not in Rockets Town.
The Houston Rockets enter the Summer League portion of 2024 with few clouds on the horizon. The Rockets were a .500 team last season, with the point differential (+1.9) of a team that was better than that. Road woes (and “woes” barely describes just how bad the Rockets were on the road, especially early in last season) doomed them to struggling for .500. The Rockets finished with a perfect bookend of 27-14 at home and 14-27 on the road. Finding a just under .500 record on the road, while keeping the same home split (please) gets the team to 56 wins. Seems impossible, but the Rockets probably should have won about 46 games last year, in my estimation.
What we saw towards the end of the season, was very much a team that could have hit the play in game. That’s real, tangible, progress from a team that finished 22-60 with a -4.5 differential the season prior.
Rafael Stone expects internal growth from young players, and it’s absolutely not dreaming to think it might, and in fact, should, happen. None of the Young Core are older than 23. Consider that the Lakers “steal” of the past rookie draft is…23.
The Rockets main woe last season was shooting, and backup point guard play. The Rockets just drafted the best statistical “high major” NCAA mens shooter, well, ever. Will Radovan Pastira Reed Sheppard be NBA starter level, or anywhere near a finished product next season? No. Very few PGs come into the NBA ready to play point. Those that are ready have a statistical profile like Chris Paul’s. (Wait, Reed Sheppard does have a statistical profile like Chris Paul, well, a bit better actually.)
The Rockets have a settled roster, with a deep well of young talent and scary veterans (well Steven Adams anyway) on the bench. They have no real holes to fill, and can play a lot of different ways now, bigger, smaller, extremely wingy, defense first, offense first, you name it, they can do it, now. At least on paper.
What mostly remains is deciding what to do with Jalen Green and Alperen Sengun’s contracts. For myself, I wonder just what else Sengun has to do? It seems a no-brainer to me, when we see that his trajectory at his age mimics a fairly decent non-American center, Nikola Jokic, while doing it on a much worse team overall. Perhaps Sengun, like Jokic, just isn’t enough of a lob threat?
Jalen Green is more problematic. If you believe, as I do, that players improve at different rates, and that whatever Green needed to develop, Silas et al simply didn’t provide, then you might be hopeful. Hopeful, but perhaps unwilling to pull the trigger on an extension. Except that Franz Wagner, a player with very similar stats, and rates, last season, just signed a $224 million extension. The Rockets could save about $5-6 million per year on a deal, signing it now, versus next season.
Does that mean the Rockets have to follow suit? Not exactly. I’d argue for one that the Rockets are, ah, an historically better run franchise than Orlando for one. They also already have, perhaps, a plausible Green Replacement in Cam Whitmore, maybe Reed Sheppard, and even AJ Griffin. While Griffin can almost certain shoot better, he’s in pretty much every other respect a worse SG than Jalen Green, and has been a high injury risk from high school. Compare this to Green, who has shown the trait of generally staying healthy and available.
Green played 67, 76, 82 games played in his first three years. While those games weren’t always what you wanted to see, he did play them. I think this, despite there being no guarantees of health, is an underrated trait in NBA players (one that Sengun shares, BTW). Having an expensive, but slightly lesser, player available versus perpetually out, or doubtful, is a hidden source of value. (Looking at you, Clippys.)
The Rockets don’t have to do anything, and if Jalen Green breaks out, they can simply match any offer. That’s bad for vibes, but almost no one ever just takes the qualifying offer and risks the lifetime wealth on offer after their fourth year. If it is, indeed, on offer. This is perhaps the way to do it, especially since the Rockets probably do have other options in house, and let the vibe of a mountain of money soothe damaged egos, should it come to that.
I’m covering all this now, so we can set it aside henceforth. Why not enjoy summer league without constant bickering, recrimination and worn out words of support and distaste?
Enjoy the Rockets summer of love, as fans of, as it turns out, the same team, where everything is in its place, and nothing is really wrong. Nothing that can’t be easily fixed, anyway.
There really are no major worries for the Rockets at present. So I suggest we enjoy the metaphorical drinks poolside in the Las Vegas cabana of our minds and look forward to bottle service and the omakase at Ito in the Fountainbleau on someone else’s tab.
PS- It’s going to be weird to have a VSL with very little NBA free agency in progress. But that does mean there’s little chance Russell MFing Westbrook gets traded to the Rockets again mid-game, right? Right?