As Rockets get healthy, is a streak coming in March?

After losing six straight games earlier this month, the Rockets (35-22, No. 4 in the West) entered this week with three wins in their last five games. Tuesday’s podcast explores areas of encouragement, starting with a healthier roster out of the All-Star break, along with a few concerning trends — such as defensive inconsistency and issues on the second game of back-to-backs. 

Other topics on this week’s show, again sponsored by Houston’s Karbach Brewing and hosted by Ben DuBose and Paulo Alves, include analysis of potential starting lineup changes for head coach Ime Udoka and the underwhelming rookie season of Reed Sheppard.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Cheers, Rockets fans, Welcome to the lagger Line, an exclusive
podcast from the home of the Rockets, Sports Talk seven ninety.
The logger Line. It's proudly served to you by Carbox
Clutch City Lagger It is God, Oh Yeah, Red Nation.

(00:23):
Get Ready, Ready, get Ready. The lagger Line starts now.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Welcome aboard, Welcome back to another new episode of the
logger Line, as always served to you courtesy of Clutch
City Lagger of Carbock Brewing, their beer developed in collaboration
with your Houston Rockets. I'm your host, Ben Dubo's, editor

(00:51):
of USA Today's Rockets are a contributor to Sports Talk
seven ninety, official flagship radio station of the team. Joined
again by Powell Owl's your co host and producer out
of Portugal. You can follow him on Twitter, slash acts
at Palo Alf's, NBA, me on there at Benjubo's and
Carbock on there at Carbock Brewing. So as we chat
this Tuesday, February twenty fifth. Apologies for not having an

(01:13):
episode last week. By the way, coming out of the
Ulstra break, there wasn't a ton of news, no lineup
clarification just yet because Fred binflee did not return from
his ankle injury. We're hopeful that will change, perhaps as
soon as tonight, if not certainly within the next few days,
it looks like, so we decided to push it to
this break between the back to back coming out of

(01:34):
the break on Friday and Saturday against the Minnesota Timberwolves
and Utah Jazz, and another back to back Tonight and
Wednesday against the Milwaukee Bucks and San Antonio Spurs. Fortunately,
both of these are in Houston, where the Rockets are
eighteen and nine this season, as opposed to the last
back to back, one in Houston against the Timberwolves and
the second in Utah. Rockets just seventeen and twelve on

(01:57):
the road now have not won a road game in
the entire month of February, and unfortunately they lost on
night two of a back to back. That's becoming a
recurring theme since we last recorded a couple of weeks ago.
The same thing held in the earlier back to back.
It's a weird stretch of the schedule where the Rockets
have three consecutive sets of back to backs before the break.
Phoenix and Golden State one on the front end, lost

(02:20):
on the back end to the Warriors without Tary Easton.
Same thing coming out of the break beat. The Minnesota
Timberwolves lost to the Utah Jazz again without Tari Easton,
and it looks like that will be the plan again,
playing Tari on the front end of the back to
back against the Bucks tonight and perhaps holding him out
against the Spurs on Wednesday night. That's the way the

(02:41):
Rockets have played it to this point. They did get
a couple of important wins with Tari against the Suns
against the Timberwolves that could be very big in the
playoff race the draft lottery race in the case of
the Phoenix Suns who may not make the playoffs and
the Rockets have that pick swap right. But the bottom line,
the Rockets have certainly stabilized since that six game losing
streak earlier in the month. They're now three and two

(03:03):
in their last five games, but they have yet to
go on the sustained winning streak that we would like
to see to secure their top six seed in the
West and avoid the play in tournament and get directly
to the playoffs. That's the goal for this team. We've
outlined it plenty of times in the past. The Rockets
aren't in a bad spot. As of our recording time.
They're thirty five and twenty two, in a virtual tie

(03:24):
with the Lakers from the number four seed in the West.
They do have some separation two three games over the
teams right behind them in the standings, the Clippers, the Timberwolves,
the Mavericks, but it's not an overwhelming edge just yet.
Hopefully the Rockets are able to stack some wins and
restore that to four or five games by the time
the schedule starts to be more difficult again in the

(03:46):
final month of the year. That's what we'll see you
over the next couple of weeks. Rockets have a ton
of home games coming up, where again they've been very good.
One other silver lining i'll mention off the top the
three teams the Rockets are chasing or tied with, the
nug Gets, the Lakers, the Grizzlies. They all have schedules
amongst the five most difficult in the NBA over the

(04:06):
remaining six weeks or so of the season, Rockets just eighteenth.
Last I checked, one of the easy remaining schedules in
the West, so there are opportunities for the Rockets to
make up some ground in the weeks ahead to get
some separation from teams in the play in range and
perhaps get back to a spot where they have home
court advantage and at least one round of the Western
Conference playoffs. That's the hope. But at some point we

(04:29):
can't just talk about these potential avenues of improvement. They've
got to go out there and do it. And hopefully
with Fred Nfleet on the verge of finally returning from
his ankle strain. Houston's offense is absolutely cratered without Fred,
this can be the time to do it. We said
for a while that they need to. It feels like
the last couple of weeks they've stabilized, winning three times

(04:50):
in their last five. But can they actually stack a
winning streak, stack wins together and make up for those
six games they lost earlier in the month. Hopefully that
starts tonight against the Milwaukee Bucks. Paolo, I'll bring you
in here when we're looking at what's holding the Rockets back.
I know, against the Utah Jazz with the defensive into

(05:11):
the court, they gave up one hundred and twenty four points,
got cooked by Keyante George. Rockets are a dreadful five
and eight on the second end to back to backs
this season. Not having Tary Easton certainly doesn't help. They
also got crushed on the glass against the Jazz, But
you can also point to the offensive end of the
court where without Fred van Fleet, they've really struggled all
month long. Just what are your thirty thousand foot views

(05:35):
of where the Rockets are coming out of the All
Star break and what is holding them back, at least
to this point for being able to stack a few
wins together and finally get some separation from those teams
in the play and range.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
I think there's a few story largers that you can
keep track of that kind of explained this. But first
of all, I wanted to start off with a little
bit of a a little bit of gimmicky, but I
wanted to just so this doesn't mean anything, but typically
or people say that you see if a team is
a contender or not if they get to forty wins

(06:07):
before they get to twenty losses. And I think if
you look at door record at the time of the
start of the woozing streak, the six game woosing streak,
we were thirty two and forty. If we're not just
taken and at that point. If you ask anybody, I
think every I think pretty much everybody would tell you, hey,
they're probably going to get to forty wins before they
get to twenty.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Losses renate in their next eleven games.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yep, And now that's up. You know, that's just not
gonna happen anymore. And not that it means anything, but
it goes to show what the outlook was back then
and what the outlook is now. Where people are starting
to talk about or Bill Simmons was talking about, are
we going to drop or we would be his bit
to drop out of the top six into the play
in and so just just to kind of situate everything

(06:54):
and see where we're at versus where we were. And
I think it's from a consistency standpoint, which is what
you were talking about. It's the defense, and it's for
a while, We've talked about it.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
It has been.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Declining for a while. The rebounding has been declining for
a while, and for even for a detance. Think of
that sign. It overlapped with the boost from a man
starting and overlapped with the boost from Killen Green going
off during that you know, elongated stretch of by two
or three months, but now you know that has kind
of worn off and the defense hadn't paid back up,

(07:27):
and we thought that Javorie Smith Junior coming back was
going to be a big, big deal, was going to
be a big way of improving that. And against the Timberwolves,
you could definitely tell the difference between having Jaffari inter
rotation and not. But then against the Jazz, Javard just
had a terrible game, so you didn't see that impact anymore.
Maybe Dylan Brooks was already dealing with the illness that

(07:49):
he is now questionable with for next game, and it's
it was just kind of like a compilation of everything
was that has been going wrong. It was just pretty
much the game to forget. But it does help essentially
a centuate a point which is moving forward. I don't
think this is going to keep happening. I think team

(08:10):
was going to pick it back up now that they're healthy.
I think I'll be honest with you, I only watched
high of the Jazz game and equipsas on Twitter. I
was not you know, wasn't that game live?

Speaker 2 (08:24):
But he post game since you didn't see it or
basically happened Keante George, no one could stay in front
of him. He drove it will all night. He hit
threes and if he did miss a shot, especially in
the second half, Laurie Markinen or Walker Kessler or someone
like that had an easy put back because they weren't
boxing out and they lost the rebounding battle by seventeen.
He may after a game called it embarrassing, and he's right,

(08:46):
it was just a terrible effort. I hope the second
game of a back to back, no Charlie Eason, Jabari
Smith still getting his legs under him after missing six
weeks with the broken hand, Dylan with the illness. Perhaps
I hope those were reasons why. But yeah, it was ugly.
They didn't stop keantage words at all, and on the

(09:07):
rare occasions that they did, they didn't get a rebound.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah, but this to say, even with that sum up,
I think from what I saw against the Timberwolves, it
felt like Killan Green had a little bit of a
more of a pape in a step. He seemed recuvenated
compared to how he was looking Preosar break. I thought
Opernching Goon did so as well. I think he was

(09:30):
moving better. I think out of the post he was
a lot smoother, and so I don't know what happened
from that transition from the one game to the next,
but I saw some stuff that I thought was worth
being happy about. And then, as you're saying, even if
you just look at the box score, the Rockets start

(09:51):
better from the free throw line. It's not better from three,
and it hat better from two. They had less turnovers,
and then there was a seventeen rebound different You just
cannot win if the opposite if the opposite team has
seventeen more possessions, you just can't win. Let's call it.
Let's say it's a the other team's getting one point

(10:13):
per possession on average, which is, you know, fairly good
for the league, whether it's it's nothing outstanding, or you'll
be heading into the game with the seventeen point handy gap.
If the other team is getting point point five points
for the possession and on offensive rebounds, it typically better
than that because put backs count as well, and that
that inflates your points per possession number. But let's say

(10:35):
they got half a points possession, which would be awful.
It would be like, I don't know, kerosl Vortol is
having a bad game, level of bad, you would still
be going into the game with an eight point five
point handy gap just off of those rebounds. And let's
be just honest with ourselves. The Rockets throughout the entire
season have not been a team that pulls teams out.

(10:57):
And if they're going to give up eight point five
points per game on the low, on the very very
very low end, they're not going to win many games.
And the other things that I think it's worth pointing
out is I think the Rockets have one win this
season when their position scored more than a hundred than
one hundred and twenty points, and it has happened twice
in the lot since the losing street began. The Timberwolves

(11:18):
scored one hundred and twenty seven on US when and
went off in the fourth quarter, not this last game
to boone before and the Jazz scored one hundred and
twenty four points on us last game and we obviously lost.
This is another team that can win by outscoring their opponents.
This is a team that has to win on the
defensive side of the ball to win. And no matter
when we saw against the Jazz that Big three didn't

(11:39):
have games that were that bad and we still lost
because that's just not how we win games. Our offenses
that were potent enough, we don't hult enough threes. We
brian games out and you're just not gonna score, not
gonna score enough for that whole hub. Oh. In all,
it just has to be the defense has to pick
back up. Hope. It's a scheme thing, and now that

(12:02):
we're getting out for the pieces back and then off,
it's back together. But it also has to be about
the rebounding. And that's effort that leads me to something
that can be worrisome on the long run, which is
is a head coach that you bring in for the culture,
for the effort, for the defensive identity. He's not a

(12:24):
good offensive culture whatsoever. His most creative play is going
down to stretch of games is finding a way to
get the most we can get out of it is
we get the guy we want the ball in an ISO,
and that's mostly how we try to close games out.
When we call him out, there's no fancy, no movement,
there's no fancy trying to get you know, cheap, really

(12:46):
inventive places. That's not how we win. We boast up,
we crash the boards. We isol a lot, and we
run some inverted pick and roll, which is kind of
creative but not really anymore. And so if email Doka
is the head coach of this team, we need to
have an edge on other teams defensively, in effort wise

(13:07):
on the rebounding because of the culture. If we don't
have that, then we will have to stop having conversations
about is he may Udoka the best fit for this
team if he's not getting the players to buy in anymore,
This is way too early to have this conversation. I'm
just saying if this doesn't get better moving forward, or
the other way you can do it is you can
change the team and you say, hey, these players aren't
buying in anymore, but we still believe in the coach.

(13:29):
We'll get other guys in. We'll reset the culture a
bit and hope that that gets better.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
So I think it's far more likely. But it is
worth noting, by the way, that even with this down
turn since the calendar turned, they're twenty twenty five, they're
still number one in the NBA in rebounding, and there's
still number four and defensive rating. Now to your point,
since the calendar turned or twenty twenty five. The last
twenty five games or so, they've been a middle of

(13:56):
the pack defensive team in terms of defensive rating, and
the injuries have been correlated with that at least to
some extent. Fred n vleet Jabari Smith missing extended time,
Tari Easton missing a good chunk of games in there
as well, but the ongoing issues related to his lower leg.
Also more back to backs in the schedule, which I
think was certainly at least somewhat of a factor on

(14:16):
Saturday Rockets getting into Utah about four am, so if
they didn't have their legs, I think that's at least
part of the explanation there. And then the rebounding. They
haven't been bad, but they've been good rather than great
during that same timeframe, especially on the defensive class. That's
where in the period without Jabari they really suffered. They

(14:37):
were still a good offensive reminding team with the men
Thompson and Tari Easton, but not nearly as good on
the defensive class. And so we can throw out all
these excuses and the reality is they were so good
for the first thirty five games or so of the
year that even with this downturn, They're still near the
top of the NBA in defense and rebounding for the

(14:58):
season as a whole. So I think that, combined with
the injuries and the tough schedule, offers hope that this
is going to resolve itself in the next couple of weeks,
especially with a lighter portion of the schedule in terms
of difficulty coming up. But at some point they've actually
got to do it right. I think that's your point,
is that since the calendar flipped to twenty twenty five,
they haven't done it. We're now almost to March. We

(15:19):
will be the March by the end of this week,
and so we can throw out all these caveats, we
can throw out all these excuses and say, hey, it
hasn't been easy, and it hasn't been, but at some
point they've got to actually turn it around, and this
is the time that it needs to happen.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
Yes, and we see it with good teams all the time.
Now we know before the season begins, there's those teams
that are getting older and that's sometimes aloft. There's the
up and coming teams that people take beds on, and
then there's the bona fide contenders that we know eventually
are going to be good. And what happens with those
teams is that, yes, throughout the season it can become

(15:53):
a slow you know, these teams will have rough stretches
when it comes to the Alstar Break, and afterwards, those
teams pick it back up and we start seeing which
teams can make a run in the playoffs because teams
start to take the games more seriously, they pick up form,
and that's how you want to head into the postseason.
And if the Rockus want to be one of those
teams for the first time this year, heading into years
years further, it doesn't matter that the way you want

(16:16):
games up to this point was from sheer effort, and
it doesn't matter that that does wear on players' bodies.
What matters is now it's time to go out and
play your best basketball and put all of the effort in.
There's no excuse anymore. There's no let's wait for the
Alstar Break. This is the time where you have to
buy in if you want to be anything in the playoffs.

(16:37):
And so it's just that strikes me as an effort thing,
and it strikes me as some care didness, because you know,
guys are getting blown by that typically don't get born by.
If there's one thing that, for example, Kill and Dream
can do on defense to stay in front of guys,
and he's been getting blown by Tarisan the same thing.
He's one of the most switchable wings I've ever seen,

(16:59):
and he is really good at staying in front of guys.
Sometimes he gets spit and he recovers. That's not saying
that doesn't happen. But he's getting beat on drives as well,
and he's been a step slow turning his body. There's
been a lot a lot of that going on. And
even a man who's the best defender on team, and
I think the best player over the over the past
few over even if even over this this rough streke,

(17:20):
even him, we see him take places off and we
see him give up buckets that we typically earlier in
the season wouldn't right. And luckily, I think that that's
that's something that if you if everybody puts their mind
to it, it's easy to fix because they feed off
each other, right, and if someone's I energy is not there,
every other players will start taking to let himself as well.

(17:44):
But if everybody buys into it together, I think you
can I think it's realistic to expect it to get
back to at least eighty or ninety percent of what
it was earlier in the season. I don't think it's lost.
I think it's a lost spot at all. You know,
hopefully this isn't quoted in two months as neat as
it being a dumb take. I'm not worried about falling
out a top six. I think we have a good

(18:05):
enough cushion. I don't trust any other teams that are
down there, but I do think that if you want to,
if you want to go into the playoffs with any
semblance of optimism, this is the time you pick it up.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
And I think they will.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
And my take about ima Udoka and changing the coach up,
changing the team, that's going to be a problem if
we get to it in a couple of months when
the season ends. I don't think that that's what's going
to happen. I'm just saying that's what's on the line
right now.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, And to your point on this being the time,
our friend Karthik Crosade Stanford KP on Twitter slash x
pointed out the difficulty of the schedule to close the year.
You have a stretch with two road games against the Lakers,
also road games against the Warriors and the Clippers, and
a finale against the Nuggets, all in your final seven games. Now,

(18:53):
it's possible that if some of these teams have clenched
their playoffs seed, that maybe they're resting some guys down
the stretch of the year and hope for that, although
I'm not sure how likely that is in a crowded West,
but the point is, on paper, while not murderers Row,
that's a consistent stretch of really good teams. Oh and
you have a home game against Oklahoma City in there.
So the only for sure win that you have in

(19:15):
your final seven is against the Utah Jazz, or should
be it's in Houston, but the Rockets did just lose
to the Jazz in Utah a couple of nights ago,
so I don't think you could even take that for
granted at this point. So I bring all that up
to say the Rockets have an opportunity in the here
and now over the next straight to four weeks. Not
every game is going to be easy, but you should

(19:36):
be able to sack some wins and build a little
bit of a buffer get back to closer to twenty
games over five hundred. As you mentioned, their high watermark
was eighteen over when they were thirty two and fourteen.
Now they've slid back to thirty five and twenty two.
They've sort of been alternating wins and losses for the
last couple of weeks. And so if you want to
build back that buffer, the fifteen to twenty above five

(19:58):
hundred range, which would put you back in the ballpark
of you know, if you're eighteen over five hundred, you
finished at fifteen and thirty two, and so I think
if you're at fifty wins, I think symbolically that's a
big round number for this team. That would represent a
ton of progress. And also I don't really see a
world where fifty wins does not have you in the
top six of the West. So it would mean that

(20:19):
you avoid the play in tournament as well. And so
this is the stretch of the schedule that you need
to start building back that margin. To your point, and
what Stanford kp was saying on Twitter, because down the
home stretch of the year, the schedule does get more difficult.
Now I want to transition our discussion to the back
to backs because I think that's at least part of

(20:41):
what's been going on over the last month or so,
combination of the injuries and a portion of the schedule
which has been very difficult logistically on this team, even
if they were at full health, which they certainly have
not been. Perhaps this back to back both at home,
they'll have fred ben Vleet back and that'll help their
offensive organization, limiting turnover a ton. I do like what

(21:02):
we've seen from Jalen Green and all pri in Shangoon
since the All Star break. To your point, I think
both are moving a lot better. Shangoon had the back
issues prior to the break, Jalen had the knee contusion.
I think both on the offensive end of the court
were moving much more freely against the Timberwolves and the Jazz.
By the way, that Minnesota win gives the Rockets a
tie in the season series. So if the Timberwolves do

(21:23):
make a run, I think, well, certainly it's a two
game difference in the standings that you won that game,
but also tying them it gives you a chance to
potentially win the tie breaker, and so that's a big
deal for down the road as well. By the way,
in the aftermath of that game, I saw a stat
that the Rockets lead the NBA in clutch wins, which
is sort of funny when we critique the offense and

(21:43):
their half court execution all the time. But the real
reason for that is that the Rockets play so many
clutch games, period to another. One of your points, if
the Rockets are struggling to blow teams out and every
game is close, then a lot of your wins are
going to be considered clutch by the definition, even if
you're not necessarily executing down the stretch of those games,
you're just having to hold on because you built up

(22:05):
a larger lead earlier, and I think that plays into
that stat a little bit. But regardless, there's reasons for optimism.
And now that the back to backs are close to over,
this is your third to last, these two games against
the Spurs and the Bucks this week. Hopefully the Rockets
are going to have a much healthier team and a
much more rested team down the stretch of this year,

(22:28):
and that bodes well for the playoffs because there aren't
any back to backs in the playoffs, and if you
look at the Rockets splits by rest, so they're five
to eight when having no rest, that's the second night
of back to backs, but they are seventeen and twelve
on one day of rest, and they are thirteen and
two when having two days of rest or more, which
they will have tonight against the Bucks, and especially in

(22:50):
the first round of the playoffs, will have at least
two or three of those games based on how the
schedule is spaced out when you have eight different playoff
series taking place at once, and the NBA wants to
maximized TV exposure for all of these teams. And one
of our recurring debates on this pod we've talked about
in the past with regards to the playoffs and the Rockets,

(23:13):
so called try hard advantage, that's what it's been referred
to on social media. We've talked about it at times
in terms of the formula for this team, defense and rebounding,
not just on the defensive end, but crashing the offensive
class as well, and the Rockets being disproportionately worse on
these back to backs because they don't have their usual legs,
and the fear has been what's going to happen when

(23:36):
you get to the playoffs and other teams are much
more focused and much more dialed in even if the
Rockets aren't literally on the back to back themselves, will
that advantage be eroded based on the fact that other
teams aren't treating it as one of eighty two but
they're much more locked in when you dive into the
no rest data the second night of a back to back,

(23:57):
which I wrote about at Rockets Far you can call
it up at ats wired dot USA today dot com.
I published this after the Utah game, titled that by
the numbers, where the Rockets are lagging on game two
of back to backs. While defense and rebounding has certainly
been an issue overall since the calendar turned to twenty
twenty five for the year overall, and where the Rockets

(24:18):
are much worse on back to backs compared to the
overall season, it's actually the offensive end of the court. Defensively,
in terms of their rebounds, in terms of points allowed,
they're right where they are and in some cases even
better than their season long averages on these back to backs. Now,
they weren't against the Jazz, but that's one game. They've

(24:40):
had thirteen second nine of the back to backs all year,
and by and large, the story has not been that
the defense or the rebounding has been worse in those
thirteen games was against the Jazz, but overall, no, the
story has been that they have been a much less
efficient team on the offensive endo the court, shooting were

(25:00):
getting to the line less. They actually are making a
little bit more from three point range, but anything inside
the ark when it comes to shot creation, driving, the
legs just are not there. And it's especially interesting when
you dive into the individual player data. So there are
seven players that I think are gonna, you know, make

(25:23):
this team sink or swim. The five starters to begin
the year, Fred Jalen, Dylan Jabari, and Chagoon, and then
the Terror twins Amen Atari off the bench. I'm not
really looking for the data for anyone in the eight
spot or lower in the rotation because honestly, A they're
not that important and B they don't play enough to
where you would expect fatigue to potentially be an issue.

(25:43):
So when you look at that clear top seven, the
guys who the Rockets are going to be leaning on
to decide their season. So there are two that have
not really been affected by back to backs in terms
of their efficiency, all per In Shangoon and a Men Thompson. Now,
Shangoon hasn't been that efficient this season, as we've talked about,
but it's not like he's getting worse on back to backs.

(26:04):
He's about the same in terms of the true shooting.
A men has actually gotten better. A Men's about sixty
and a half percent true shooting overall. He's almost sixty
four and back to backs, which is I mean ridiculous.
He's a cyborg. But beyond that, Shanoon and A Men
are players who generally take their shots closer to the rim.
The formulas that lead to those shots for each of

(26:27):
those players are different, but the point is when you're
shooting closer to the rim, you're not as dependent on
your legs and the burst the way guys that are
predominantly remeter oriented players do to generate their offense. And
it's especially Jalen Green, Dylan Brooks, Jabari Smith Junior, and

(26:48):
fred Than Fleet that have gotten worse in these back
to backs, sometimes dramatically worse. Tory Easton's been a little
bit worse as well, but I'm not really counting him
for purposes of this analysis because at this point he
doesn't see to be playing on night two of a
back to back. You could actually argue that maybe they
should be playing them on night two of a back
to back instead of night one, so that you have
arrested Atari as insurance or some of these other guys.

(27:10):
But really, for purposes of this discussion, it's Jalen, it's Dylan,
it's Fred, it's JABORI. These are the guys that just
offensively their production tanks on night two of a back
to back, and I think that's where you can mount
a case for real optimism that, hey, once you get
to the playoffs, it's not so much that other teams

(27:32):
trying harder can take away this advantage for the Rockets. No,
it's more these players and their formula for success just
literally cannot handle that level of workload, especially on a
team that doesn't have that clear a one as we
talked about ad nauseum on this pod throughout the week's months,
even years, and so they need a little bit of

(27:54):
extra juice to generate offense, and these guys on back
to backs just simply do not have it. So I
find that really interesting and potentially encouraging that assuming the
defense stabilizes, When you look at where the Rockets have
been worse back to backs for the season as a
whole is something that has held this team back, well,

(28:14):
the guys that are specifically holding them back when it
comes to efficiency. That should not be an issue in
the playoffs, and I don't think it's related to anything
other teams are doing to them. I think it's just
the legs are not there, and that's something that in
the playoffs should be different once you have time off
in between games. Even if the other team is trying harder. Again,

(28:35):
I think at the bottom line, it indicates that a
lot of this is within the Rockets control. It's not
something that it's going to be potentially eroded simply if
the other team tries harder. No, if guys like Jalen
and Fred and Dylan and Jabari have their usual legs,
then they should be something closer to the versions of themselves.
If they are when the Rockets are seventeen and twelve
this year on games with one day of rust, and

(28:58):
thirteen and two when they have two or more days
of rest going in. So that's the case for optimism
I've got I'm curious your thoughts on that, Palo, and
I'm also curious to take on a couple of implications
from this discussion, and at this point there's only three
back to backs left, two after the next two days,
so perhaps it's too late to really change. But going forward,

(29:22):
I do wonder if it makes more sense to play
Chari Eastan on Night two rather than night one of
the back to backs, because Tari is useful insurance. He's
a very useful hedge if someone like Jalen or Dylan
is having a bad night and Dylan on Saturday, maybe
it was the illness, but he was just dreadful in Utah.
Tari can be a really useful insurance policy you didn't

(29:43):
have it. When you look at the data and you
see specifically who is worse on these back to backs,
maybe you should be holding Tari again. Not that many
more opportunities to do that for the rest of this season,
but maybe you keep that in mind for the future
if you have to limit Tarri on back to backs
next year. I hope that's not case, but just something
to sort of keep in the back of your mind.
And in a season where every game may count in

(30:05):
the standings, it's tightly packed in the West, who knows,
maybe you do need to look for every margin advantage
you can over these final couple of back to backs
as the season winds down. That's one ripple effect from
this data that I think perhaps the Rockets should consider
the other ripple effect. Does this not make the case
to potentially, once you're back at full strength, play Dylan

(30:28):
Brooks off the bench if his performance is strongly correlated
with having or not having legs and beyond just the
offensive down turn on back to backs. I think we've
seen the last two years he started off very strong
on defense, and then it slipped as the years progressed,
and he's nowhere near as good at denying trible penetration.

(30:48):
We saw it at times against Kante George on Saturday
when he would draw that assignment. Does it not make
the case for Dylan to potentially be the guy that
comes off the bench. And I think it was Adams
Bolane of Sports Audio six to ten that said, just
give Dylan twenty five minutes and six fouls and turn
him loose because when Fred comes back, and I don't
know if they'll immediately make the long term lineup decision

(31:11):
with regards to you know, a men has been starting
in place of Jabbari because Jabari is still working his
way back conditioning wise from that six week absence, so
it may.

Speaker 4 (31:20):
Not be a day one decision that as soon as
Fred comes back, imo Udoka announces what his lineup is
going to be for the rest of this season and
the playoffs, they may give it.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
A little more runway and allow Fred and Jabari and
these guys have been out to get their legs under him.
Perhaps Tari can come all the way back to where
he doesn't have back to back limitations and so on
and so forth. But ultimately, by the time the playoffs
start in April, the Rockets are going to have to
decide on a starting lineup. And we know how they
started the year. But A men Thompson has cub on
strong and I don't think for reasons I've articulated on

(31:54):
this pod many times in the past, but Amn Thompson
is going to come out of that starting lineup. He
is a guy that is clearly an emy Udoka struggle
of trust. When Imy did the widespread benchings that Warriors
game before the All Star break, when no one had
their legs, Dylan was benched, Jalen was pinched, Shangoon was benched,
A Men was not even though a men offensively wasn't
really doing much that night, he is still that trusted

(32:17):
on the defensive end. He is someone that I may
wants out there for maximum minutes, and if you're not
starting a guy and you're artificially capping his minutes at
you know, thirty or so. For reasons we've explained in
the past, it's tough to see thirty minutes if you're
coming off the bench. I don't think amn is coming
out of that starting lineup. And so then you have

(32:37):
two guys, Dylan Brooks and jaw Barry Smith Junior for
the other forward spot, and so there's cases for both.
With Dylan, he's a little more flexible shooting wise. He's
thirty eight thirty nine percent on threes for the year,
Jabari about thirty five percent. So you can argue that
Dylan gives you a little more agility, better floor spacing,
although perhaps Dylan is due to fall back a little

(32:59):
bit on those. With Jabar, it's the additional size, it's
the defense, the rebounding, the numbers that have cratered during
his absence over the six weeks or so that he
was out. You can make cases both ways, but if
you look at the data and you see that, hey,
Dylan is worse on back to back, is probably because
he to have his legs, and just the eye test,
we can look at this team play and say Dylan
Brooks is a worst player as seasons progress, and that's

(33:22):
probably correlated with his legs. It's not like he's not trying.
Dylan is as dowled in as there is in the NBA.
He's the ultimate competitor. The more plausible explanation is that
he just doesn't have the juice that he does when
he's at his best. Does that not make the case
for Dylan being a twenty five minutes per game six man,
whereas Adams Ferlane said, you give him twenty five minutes

(33:42):
six fouls and turn him loose as opposed to asking
him to sort of manage his body over thirty thirty
five minutes per night. And if that's the case, then
your starting lineup would be Fred Shalen, Amen, Jabari and Shinkun. So.
I know I threw a lot at you there, Palo,
but the two things that I really want to get
your take on would be a Tari in the back
to back. Should they be considering playing him on Night

(34:06):
two rather than Night one if he's limited, and then
the lineup implications. Does this data and the eye test
with Dylan's defense not suggest that Dylan may be the
guy that should and will go to the bench once
this team gets to full strength and has to make
his decision on who's actually going to start for this team.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
Yeah, I got I got to. I think. Well, oh,
there is one quick thing I wanted to point out
out on the on the thing about the back to
backs and the status of pel pulled up, I think
they're really literally interesting. I think it shows how much
ivan edge physically a man has over not only his
own team, but everybody else in the league because a
lot of the times, or at least a few enough

(34:44):
times that I remembered, it's a trend in this season
when we've fin when we've played back to backs on
the second half of the back to back, the other
team was also playing the second half of a back
to back. So it also is a statement to or
a testament to, how much better man is physically compared
to other teams. They are building teams as well, So
I just want to point it out and add that

(35:06):
I see your argument about the shooting, and I think
that this came against the cass is probably just an outlier.
How many games are you going to lose the rebounding
Bata by seventeen, but we shot thirty nine pc from
three man like, we're not supposed to lose those games.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
It's a it's an outlier.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah, it's an outlier, I know, but I just want
to point it out. And then regarding tar reason in
the back to backs, personally, currently, I think the chip
needs to flip or the swift leads to flip with
this team, right, and for the switch to flip, we
gotta go all in with the coaching as well. And
so you gotta say, hey, I think with too the

(35:44):
matchup dependent, we'll plit Tario against the better team and
we will risk losing back to back, but we will
give ourselves, the benchion the best chance to go on
a run and be both teams. Now we have this
person in the Bucks, I would play against the Bucks.
That's the first half of the back to back. That's
why I play them, because that's I'm most scared of,
especially because they mean Litward's ownless for some reason, and

(36:04):
so I'll play them there. I'm not sure what the
other back to backs are. I think we only have
a couple more users.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Is one that's next week.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
I'll play Tari against the Thunder and the Place of
hon the Street. They're on a roll. They're pretty interesting
right now.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
And to your point, by the way, Joka seems to
share your view, it's just to this point, it's actually
cost them some games. Tari didn't play against the Nets,
they lost that game. He didn't play against the Jazz,
they lost that game. I guess you could argue that
having Tarri against the Timberwolves played a role in them getting,
you know, a fairly close one that they probably needed

(36:39):
in the standings the night before. So I guess, I
guess you can argue that. But it feels like they've
let some games slip away that Tari has been out.
I guess to your point, though, it's sort of like
they have no business losing those games even if Tari
isn't available. It sounds like that's what you're saying.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, And it's it's about the message that you sin,
you play your best players and you and you get
your best line that possible. It's the best team if
you have to make that choice. I think that seems
a different message to the team, and I'm willing to
take that gamble because I think something drastic needs to
change with the team and the attitude, and I don't
think listen, I think this team needs to go on

(37:16):
a run and they need to get you know, those
eighteen games at the very least over five hundred and
to get to the fifty wins to be just someone
who can call a contender, not a Tier one, but
you can call them contender. And to me, that's what
you're aiming for. And if you don't get to that,
it probably it doesn't matter if you get forty seven
wins or if you get forty three. And so I'd

(37:40):
rather try and go all in and see. Hey, listen,
I think for this team from a morale standpoint, they
need that type of run, and the difference between going
five hundred the rest of the way and going three
games of a five hundred the rest of the way
is not that big of a deal and another rather
swing for the higher variant. So that's my take. I'll

(38:00):
play it. I'll I'll played matchup dependent and I'll risk
it more risk it by playing by it instead of
walking in a win by playing him against the worst team,
I playing against the better teamt also because you want
to you want to use those teams as a measuring stick.
The Nuggets now are not what the Nuggets were beginning
of the season, and we haven't played.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Them in a while.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
You want to see how you stack up against teams
like that. But yeah, the Thunder as well. Same thing.
So Chet's back now you want to see how do
you how do you do against with against the Thunder?

Speaker 2 (38:27):
With Chet?

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Moving on to your second kind of point, which was
about the rotation, I'm actually you know, just for the
people out there, if they followed me long, then to
have me and Adam Spelling and they'll have the best
relationship we had, you know, some episodes of Twitter beef.
But I think that's a really interesting take. The play
in twenty five minutes and let them just go ham

(38:52):
and and foul and not be worried about fouling out
because if you play twenty five minutes, you can have
three fould in the first half and not keep it right.
And if they and if he falls out, then he
files out. Everybody is healthy. Now you can afford that
Jay Chontet has been serviceable you can afford that. So
I do like bringing him off the bend. But I'll

(39:12):
double down on the hot take y side of it,
which is i'd startar instead of instead of instead of
Kibari for a while, just to see how it goes.
For reference, since start he came back from injury, he's
actually shooting forty one percent from three, And you can
say that that's arbitrary, but the injury was a pretty

(39:32):
long streat where he didn't play was what about ten
to fifteen games. Uh, And so he's hard enough from
three that you should try and see what you can
get from that. And that allows you to kind of
still have the Terror Twins effect. Yeah, while starting a
marine founcer.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Yeah, that's interesting, you would preserve that. And one other
thing I'm sure some will say, well, if you bring
Dylan off the bench, part of the motivation is that
you're sort of capping his minutes. Well, Kintari handle the
higher minutes. Actually he can. They're not playing them on
back to backs. But when he does play. In three

(40:12):
of his last five games, he's played at least thirty minutes,
and two of them he's played thirty four minutes. So
I know they're keeping a close eye on him on
the second night and again not letting him do back
to backs, but when he does play, he doesn't seem
to have any limitation. They're letting him go thirty thirty
five minutes. So there could be a pathway there, And
they did open the door to that by starting Tari

(40:33):
ahead of Jabari in the game again September Wolves when
Jabari came back.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
Yeah, exactly, that taboo is gone, so that you don't
even have to worry about that anymore. And it does
open up the possibility of or the possibility is still
open if you'll just start dealing and a man and
you bent Tari and Tabari, I guess well, it opens

(40:58):
you to the possibility of playing Jar as the backup
five and playing small ball for wrong like prolonged stretches
of the game, and seeing how that fits into not
just as a death kind of but how that finds
into a team that you know, if if if you
have a man in Entariter or two in the starting

(41:18):
mine up and giving you that I really there, you're
gonna need some help of the bench, and perhaps you
can you know, get some of that back by by
playing Javari at the five and just being a switch
everything you know, defense and trying to turn that into
into extra offense. And you can run, and you can
try and run some fun stuff which we don't at all,
which is you can try some pick and pop with

(41:39):
Leewen and War. You can try some pick and pop,
which we don't. We really just can't through pick and
pop at all because it's either Saying or Steven Adams.
And so that's basically an entire you know, play, an
entire part of the playbook that we just can't run.
And so I think it's something that we should try.
It kind of conflicts with my previous day that we
should go all in and try to get as my

(42:00):
int as we possibly can, and typically you do that
by not changing that much. But I'm really intrigued. I
think those could be you know, cool weapons for you
to deploy in the playoffs, depending on the team that
you're facing it if you're facing a smaller team, I
think that makes a lot of sense. And obviously there's
the other argument against it, which would be, well, we
just saw how much of a difference tirally not being

(42:21):
there makes for the rebounding or they are not being there.
It makes for the rebounding and now you're still not
going to have him there for as many minutes as
it possibly could, but you're still gonna have him out there. Right,
It's gonna be a little bit less, but you're still
gonna have him out there. I think the gain of
having the chemistry between tire and the men outweighs what

(42:41):
that would be. And you know, if it doesn't work,
it doesn't work to go back to what you had before.
But I think it's something worth trying.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah, And it's not that much of a risk because
there isn't a status quo with all the injuries. It's
been so long since they've been at full health that
it's not really the risk that it would normally be
when they're just playing game after game, week after week
with the same lineup, the same rotations. They've been so
disjointed for the last six to eight weeks with all

(43:08):
the injuries and all the ripple effects from them, that, yeah,
if you wanted to try something different, this would be
the time to do that, because it's not like you're
really disrupting some sort of strong chemistry. All right, last
segment before we wrap up, the pod, and we'll try
and make this a little bit quicker because there's much

(43:30):
less to discuss on the court with this guy, and
that's Reed Shepherd. There's been a lot of re talk
on social media over the All Star break because you know,
his performances in the Rising Stars games were very similar
to what we see at the NBA level. Not only
did he not make shots, he didn't take a lot
of shots. He's been timid, he's been indecisive really. Other

(43:51):
than the three games at the G League level when
he clearly had a green light and performed very well,
it's been fairly consistent and that not only is he
not making a lot of three if he doesn't seem
to have the confidence to take many of the imperiod.
This is a guy who was built as a generational shooter,
and so you combine that with the guy picked right
after him in the draft, Stefan Castle by the San

(44:12):
Antonio Spurs, having some really good games playing the same position.
There's some talk, some fear that, hey, what if the
Rockets missed? What if Reed is a bust? Now I'm
not going there. The sample is way too small. This
is a twenty year old who was a sixth man
on a good but not great Kentucky team this time

(44:33):
a year ago, a three or four star recruit out
of high school. So this idea that he's supposed to
be ready year one in the NBA, and if not,
we need to panic he's not the guy. I think
that's silly. There's no reason to feel dramatically different about
Reed's long term potential right now than you did prior
to this season. Any of those takes are a reactionary.

(44:56):
I don't care how bad the numbers are, especially when
you see what he was able to do at the
giving level when he did have the green light, he
had a longer leash. There's something there. I'm not going
to predict that he's going to realize all of that potential,
but what I will say is that I don't think
the potential is different now relative to five six months ago,

(45:16):
before this season started. If you liked Reid in August
and September, you should like him now. You shouldn't feel
that differently about Reid as a prospect. Even though it's
been a bad year one, and even though he's been
out played by Stefon Castle, it's way too premature to
say that Castle would have been the better pick, so
I will push back on that. However, the angle that

(45:37):
I am concerned about, and this is where I want
to bring you in, Paolo, what does the roadmap look
like moving forward, not just this season, but next year
as well, assuming Reid is on the roster for figuring
out when Reid is actually ready to do more at
the NBA level, Because you know, he gets a few opportunities,

(45:58):
but number one, he hasn't taken avantage of them. And secondly,
this whole notion of him being too tentative, it's tough
to really fix that. If he's going to play, you know,
five minutes in just the first half on night to
go back to back because the Rockets are down a
few bodies. If the runway is that limited, it's hard

(46:18):
to expect his approach to be dramatically different in my opinion.
So even if he does play, and I'm sure he
will at times, and also mop up duty and any
blowouts and so on and so forth, I don't think
it's reasonable to expect. You can hope, but I don't
think it's reasonable to expect anything to dramatically change over
the final six weeks of the season. With his play,

(46:40):
especially because with the Rockets trying to lock up a
playoff spot, home court advantage, potentially seeding all those implications,
imo Udoka is going to want to lean even more
on veteran players that he can trust as opposed to
younger guys for developmental purposes. So at this point, I
think read is what he is and any growth is
going to occur in off season training camp and probably

(47:03):
leading into next year. I don't think this is a
situation like Clint Capella ten years ago, where he suddenly
catches fire in the last ten games and all of
a sudden it's playing rotation minutes in the playoffs. I
would love to be surprised on that. My personal opinion
is that ship has largely sailed when it comes to
this season. However, moving forward, the question that I have

(47:24):
how will the Rockets know that he's ready? Because you
know another reason for optimism with Reid we have seen
prospects these last few years. Look at Jalen and Shabari.
They weren't good their rookie year, just like Reid isn't
good now, and they have steadily improved as they have
gotten more opportunities. The thing is those were tanking years,

(47:45):
so they were going to get opportunities no matter what.
And the Rockets got to see that they were making progress,
and so Steven Silas and then he May Ujoka were
able to gradually give them more responsibilities and trust them more.
Last year, well, Amen Thompson is an outlier. A Men
Thompson came in when the switch had been flipped to
try and to win, but a Men was just way

(48:06):
more advanced defensively than almost anyone else in the Rockets
core seven. I guess Tarry Easton Atari Easton was good
as a rookie, so this comp doesn't really apply here.
We're talking about guys. You weren't good as a rookie,
but you want to and you trust will get better,
get to that good level. As for yours progress. So

(48:26):
Amn was able to earn playing time immediately because unlike
most other young guys, he was already that advanced defensively.
And Cam Whitmore he didn't play in the first half
of his rookie year, but in the second half you
had the injuries to Tarry Easton and then all for
Inch Shongoon, and you simply needed someone of that size
and finishing ability that could put the ball in the bucket.

(48:49):
He had an athletic profile that that team a year
ago needed and he Mayo Joka had no choice but
to sink or swim with him, and fortunately they were
able to swim. The question with Reid because especially if
he's not making these threes, it's not like he has
some defining physical characteristic that clearly makes him better than
anyone that is currently playing. How will the Rockets know

(49:11):
when he is ready to play more minutes to get
an opportunity to develop if he's not out there playing.
I don't think it's as simple as put him in
the g League because he's already played well in Gjiligue.
We've already seen that. I mean, you can do that
just to keep him from getting too rusty. But if
he goes down and plays well to the GJ League,
I don't think anyone's going to say, wow, Read Shepherd
is ready. The same questions will be there of well,

(49:32):
Red played well in G League before, but is it
going to translate to the NBA level this time? So
my question for you, Paulo, it's not so much how
do you feel about Read Shepherd the prospect? Because I
like him I don't need that question answered. I still
think he's going to be a good NBA player for
the same reasons we liked him in the pre draft
process and after the Rockets drafted him last June. My

(49:54):
question for you is, how will the Rockets know this
year or in future year, and how should they know
that he's ready for more responsibilities because this is new ground. Again.
This is not the tanking years where guys who are
going to be out there regardless and you'll know simply
based on their production whether they are developing and ready
to take on more responsibilities. This is not a Men

(50:15):
Thompson or Cam whitwar where either they're clearly ready or
there's a clear deficiency. There's a delicate there's a fine
line to walk here. If the Rockets don't trade him,
I know they could, they could trade him, but that's
a hypothetical. We're talking about the world where he stays
on the roster. How do you think they can and
will determine if he's ready for more minutes? That's my

(50:36):
question for you, Paulo.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
So first of all, I want to touch on I
know believe this wasn't the question by but I didn't
want to touch on his performance so far because I
think it's relevant. I think because of the type of
prospect that he is, a lot of what he does
and doesn't do well boils down to is the bunkling
in from three That's the entire premise of drafting him.
It's okay, can this guy be a Freddly replacement? Just

(51:01):
the guy? That's when teams are working with Apron shinghun,
it's gonna just punish them, right. And so if he
is shooting forty percent from three string I think forty
four or forty five percent in college, nobody's saying a thing.
Everything's on track. So that's just the biggest vary us
about it. But I will also say that it does
worry me how he looks on the defense. And he's

(51:23):
looked better at times, he's looked worse at times. But
to me, it sometimes strikes me as he struggling because
he doesn't have the tools, and he's twenty and he
can still get better at that, and we know he's athletic.
We'll see how that develops, right and and sometimes you know,
I think, as I he's got.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
The wrong mentor and Fred van Fleet for that body
type by.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
The way exactly. And I think something that I've learned
as I've watched more and more basketball is that athletic
tools are a little bit overrated when it comes to
playing defense. If if the if the mindset's that, if
you're defending the right way, if you're stepping in and
keeping the right distance between you and your matchup, and

(52:03):
you don't leave your feet, and you you know, anticipate
with the other person's doing. A lot of defense is
just mental and communication. And so even if he's not
going to be a lockdown guy, or even if listen,
look at Aaron Holiday, right, Aaron Holidays passed all on
defense and it's mostly it doesn't have the size, doesn't

(52:24):
really have the quickness, but he works right. And if
you asked anybody about Aaron Holiday before he came to
the Rockets, everybody was, oh, that tiny little guard that
played for the Pacers for a while and then played
for the Hawks and was basically out of the league.
You wouldn't expect Aaron Holiday to play to be trusted
the way he is. Why he mayodoka and sometimes it's misplaced,

(52:45):
but a lot of the times it's not. And he's
been a part of runs game against the Warriors was offensive,
but sometimes defensively as well. He's been handy. Just to
say that, I'm worried about the defensive side of it,
but not too worried. What I'm mostly worried about going
forward is one of the reasons I advocated for training

(53:05):
for Fox that early was because I could kind of
see it coming, and I'm being I was being too pessimistic. Well,
apparently I wasn't that Reed was going to struggle and
if he didn't hit the ground running, it was going
to be tougher and come back and play play significant minutes.
And so to me, it made sense to cash in
on what was a lot of draft hype, a lot

(53:26):
of people saying he was the best guy in the draft,
because of Summer League, because of everything like that. It
made sense to perhaps trade him for a really high return,
because even though he's a young guy, it's going to
take a while before the Rockets get value back for
him if the plans to play it. If the plan

(53:46):
is to get that value back on the court with
him playing as a Rocket, that's going to take two
to three years at the very least. And if they
want to wait for that, that's school. But if you
want to wait for that, you can't overreact doing those
two because that's the timeline you're set for right now.
If you want to get that return, that value return earlier,

(54:08):
you're going to have to do it by trading him.
And perhaps you should have done that already. And so
I think now they're committed to him overcoming those issues
on the court and eventually paying back the Rockets for
their faith and their draft pick via on court production,
and then afterwards if you want to trade, and you
can trade them. But now that we're at this point,
you can't be overreacting up until probably he gets to

(54:30):
the beginning of his third year and you see, Okay,
at this point, how are you doing. He will be
twenty two years old. How's the progress going? Because you're right,
there's not many ways in which he can play if
if he's not confident shooting the three, that's the biggest thing,
or if he's not if he's not making them, which
is why I think you should just send them to

(54:53):
the TV. And and a lot of people say, oh, well,
we did that already and he was too good to
play there. Listen, he had two really good games, but
that was it. He played two games. Anybody can have
two games, and I think he used too good for
the league. But that's better than running on the bench
and playing spot plan that's here and there, and so
you can continue to develop him that way. And you

(55:17):
know it might look like at the emotion at first,
but for his day to day progression, for his day
to day life, he'll just be playing for a different team, right,
He's not going to be reminded every day, oh, I
was the mode. And eventually he'll settle in, He'll be
he'll get used to playing on that on on on
on the on the Vipers, and it will be hey,

(55:37):
this year's for development, and it won't be the constant
daily worry of oh, I'm not playing, Oh I only listen.
Especially so because we know that even though we're a
young team, you don't get to practice much liliter at
your season. There's games every other day. You know, there's
shoot around, but there's really no not that much real

(56:01):
practice in between games because the season is so long,
and because because games are happening so often, and so
because of that, I think the best decision will be
the send into the Chile. I think next season you'll
give him a fifteen game buffer to see how it looks.
He probably won't be ready, and he sent him to
the Killing to give him a full season there. And

(56:22):
if he's you know, if he has a twenty game
stretch where he's just unguardable there and there's really, really,
really nothing you can take from it, then you bring
him back and give him another chance. But what I
would urge people to see is that at this point
he's his valueless probably decreased enough that there's no real

(56:43):
real point in trading him. He'll get pennies on the
dollar all worth. It might as well bet on the talent.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
And then the perspective of trade value, you're probably better
off expanding the gree League sample, because whatever chance you
have of him being a trade asset, you probably need
to be able to make the case that hey, he
would just artificially capped at the NBA level by having
a really good team and it just wasn't realistic to
get him minutes. And if he goes down to the
G League and consistently plays well, then it's easier to

(57:11):
at least make that argument, as opposed to right now,
if he's not playing at the NBA level, and the
G League sample, while good, is like three games. The
sample just isn't there, not saying that it'd be a
slam dunk argument if you explain the sample of ten
fifteen to twenty games, but it's at least easier to
make than the one that they would have to make
right now when the sample is three.

Speaker 3 (57:30):
Right, yeah, exactly. And it's actually this has with a
different debate and I won't get into it, but it's
actually one of the main reasons why I think it
would make sense to have loans in the NBA likely
to here with football or European football.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
Now that's an off season discussion.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
Yeah, there's things out there that it will only play
retepert of real minutes, and the Rockets wouldn't mind sending
him there. Right, It's better than the T League and
if not within the NBA, well them overseas, different type
of competition a lot uffer than the Chi Week. But
that's bubless for right now.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Rockets would blend him to the Jazz and then he
would cook the Rockets in a loss, which I know
happens in European football all the time, where guys that
you've won. No, No, European football that you can't play
against the teen ye lows you.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
Right, Yeah, you can say, yeah, that's a clause you
can have, right, you can make it so you can.
But nowadays nobody lets you.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
Dude, I want to revisit this in the offseason, the
concept of a loan system for young NBA prospects on
good teams who were blocked. I'm fascinated by that. We
won't get into it today, but dude, I like this.
Let's let's revisit this during the dead period of August
in September.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
Yeah, but it's yeah, it's definitely a the debate. But
now getting back to to to what I was saying,
it really is just about that if you're not gonna,
if you're not gonna at this point, and unless that's
a team rationally still you know, high on him, then
you could explore that trade in the off season. You see, Hey, listen,
if it's a team that's starting over right, that's going
to give him a lot of chance. Listen, if the

(59:00):
Sun's gonna trade Booker and kV and just bought them
out and they don't have appointing guard prospect and there's
really they're probably not gonna take one with their own
pick atwelve and reach a protect atoney and they value
him over I don't know, a couple of late firsts
or what a couple of first from Rockets future at

(59:20):
that point. If he's really valued, then you consider it.
But I don't think that's the case. And because that's
not the case, the way you're going to extract value
from him is going to be on the court by
developing him. Because he's still still a really good talent.
It's just that he's probably underrated by the market right now,
and so you play that game. But doing that and

(59:44):
saying that you don't want to trade our young players
also means that you have no choice but to be
patient with them and don't call them busts. By or
a full season into their careers right read hasn't gotten
the chances. I'm not making it excuses, but unless you're
actively advocating for trading him, calling him a bus doesn't

(01:00:07):
do him any good, doesn't do the Rockets any good,
doesn't help with his development. If you're a Rockets fan,
one of two things either are on the trader now
and go whatever you can for him, or you have
to support him as a player and hope for the
good of the team that he develops, and being toxic
towards him, calling him a bust. You know, I know
people say players don't check social media, sometimes they do.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
You're not having that, that's the bottom line.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Yeah, you know, if you're a fan of the team,
you're not helping and that there's there's no problem with
calling a spade a spay if that's what you believe.
But don't be overwhelming, you know, poasting that everywhere, because
that's not any.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Good agree and especially because the guy that he's getting
compared to Stefan Castle, it's a total Apples to Orange
scenario because the Spurs aren't really trying to win, and
especially not now that Wenby's been shut down so well.
Apples to Orange is a guy that's getting a long
lead in every opportunity versus a situation like Houston where
every game is precious and he may be okay, is

(01:01:02):
looking for every margin that he can get.

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
Yeah, and and listen, I'm this is the one that
triggers me a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
Castle has had some good games, especially a recent stretcher
of good games, but he's back to what he was
and for the season he is a thirteen to two
point three player with a true shooting percentage just fifty
point six. Yeah, he's a fifty percent true shooting player.
He's shooting twenty eight percent from three to fourty one

(01:01:30):
break from the field, seventy three from the line. And
he has an okay assist assist to turnover ratio for
a point guard. Just to say that, you know, that's
a typical bad player on a bad team that gets
a long runway type of stat line. It's it's you know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
And now people are hanging him up because of the contest. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
The volume numbers are the volume. The stats in volume
are okay, it's it's a thirteen three and three season.
The efficiency numbers will god awful for the season. And
so listen, I'm listen. Reads don't look any better, But
I think it's they're not that much different from each other.
One just gets up more of the spot blacks because

(01:02:11):
he gets to play more exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
And of course we'll see Castle when the Spurs play
at two at a Center Wednesday night.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
Yeah, and I'll just say, listen, if a retaper right
now have fifty four games under his belt, playing twenty
five minutes a game. I guarantee you he'd have a
thirty five point game where he was just wlides out
from three or stretch of game when he was like that,
and and you and his season efficiency numbers will probably
still suck, but he'd have that streat that would hold

(01:02:38):
onto the differences. We didn't get that chance, so you
didn't get to roll that best.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Yep. Agree, All right, Well, we'll bring the episode to
a close here. I just wanted to do a Read
segment because it feels like he's been more of a
point of discussion recently because of the All Star Break,
because of the rising Stars, because of Stefan getting some
shine coming off the Dunk Contest and getting those counting

(01:03:03):
stats on a bad Spurs scene. It feels like that
discussion is picking up a little bit, especially because we're
at a point in the season now where if it
hasn't happened at this point, I don't think it is
this season. In terms of Read being a good rotation
player for this team. That ship has sailed. You're going
to be talking about next year or the year after that.
We're talking about actually keeping him in Houston and realizing
his value, and so it feels like, whatever chance there

(01:03:26):
was of him making a clear step this year, it
needed to happen by you know, it's hard to say
an exact date, but I'll say in the All Star
break at the latest. And so with it not having
happened as the calendar turns to March, I think the
reasonable expectation at this point is that it's not going
to happen this year. And so this is sort of

(01:03:48):
a read in review, if you will, just sort of
reviewing his rookie season, what we've learned, what we have learned.
Hopefully we'll get a larger sample in the G League,
and what we saw in that limited sample of three
games earlier, the sure will continue to be the case.
But you know, when the year eventually ends for the Rockets,
hopefully after a playoff run, we'll do, you know, year

(01:04:09):
in reviews of what we learned about various players on
this team with Reed, we're just sort of doing that
now because it feels like, in my opinion, we've reached
a point where he is what he is right now,
and we're just going to have to pick up that
discussion in the off season and in the years ahead
should they keep him with regards to when and if
he is ready to take that next step. Anyway, that's

(01:04:29):
where we will wrap for today's episode, and I promise
in the weeks to come, we'll talk much more about
the players who actually are deciding whether the Rockets do
go on a playoff run or not. Just want to
do this read one right now coming out of the
All Star break, and we'll turn our attention to be
true rotation players. What emo Udoka decides for his starting
lineup once everyone is back healthy. We'll pick that up

(01:04:51):
as the twenty twenty four to twenty five season winds down.
For now, this is where we'll break and if we
want more concept before our next episode, the best place
to get it is online. You can follow me on
Twitter or x at Benjubo's powlo at Powlo, ALP's NBA,
and this show at the logger line where if you
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(01:05:14):
a PLODS review at your location of choice. We greatly
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