Rafael Stone

But why? Because I do think there's an interesting story to be told there.

And I think it's sort of reflected in these Amin Thompson negotiations because, you know, Rafael Stone, he does have a legal background.

Patrick Fertitta has a big business background.

Eli Whitus knows the CBA very well.

I guess the way I would sum it up, the Rockets have good people in their front office, but so do a lot of other teams.

And yet the Rockets, at least on the whole, seem to be more regularly getting these types of team-friendly deals than a lot of their competitors.

And so the theory I've got, besides the fact that they do a good job in negotiating and controlling what they can control, So when the Rockets flipped over from Daryl Morey to Rafael Stone in late 2020, and that was the start of the rebuild, the first couple of years were all out tanking.

One of the first things I was told at the time was that they were going to put a premium on restoring their relationships with agents.

And maybe it hasn't been clear enough.

Maybe Rafael hasn't been clear in communicating.

I think that's a legitimate communication criticism of Rafael Stone, general manager.

He's not been very forefront in talking to media and explaining the moves.

Right.

Daryl was very extroverted and loved to talk.

I can tell you that.

He'd even bullshit with the media at the games, right? And Rafael, he's a different cat, right? And maybe that's, but this job requires more, right? You can't do the bare minimum.

I think it was six, six or seven out of the nine that we, that we went there.

And, uh, I apologize to Fred, to Rafael Stone, to the Rockets.

It's a good organization.

Rooting for you this year.

Amin Thompson, his extension is going to kick in starting next year.

So when you factor all these costs in, now the Rockets and Rafael Stone have done an incredible job as far as they're not paying multiple max salary guys, right? They don't have a roster that's set up like the 76ers where three years from now, they're going to be paying...

I think they're going to be paying Jalen Brown, Joel Embiid, and Tyrese Maxey a combined like $176 million or something three years from now, which is absurd to think about.

Three players costing you damn near $180 million.

The first pick I would be looking to get rid of would be the Suns pick, not the Nets pick.

But if there's a world where it looks like the Rockets could find themselves in a much more favorable position based on either some injury luck or some struggles from either the Thunder or the Spurs, then...

Yeah, I would love to see Rafael Stone be a little aggressive around the trade deadline trying to upgrade somewhere on the roster.

It's just tough trying to pinpoint where that upgrade is.

And so he, he was excellent, but the turnovers that you mentioned, the ball handling not necessarily being his calling card, and the fact that, you know, not only is it not his calling card, but they just really did not have any surefire ball handlers.

We can all remember at the end of the season when Rafael Stone mentioned that they just did not have, they were not skilled enough- In the simple aspects of dribbling and passing the ball [laughs].

And so, and, and I think Kevin Durant was unfortunately a part of that, but it, it's, it's hard not to acknowledge it as, for me, as advertised.

I know a lot of people were disappointed with, with the way the season ended, and people were, some were disappointed with some off the court stuff that happened with Kevin Durant.

It's really fast.

Um, they're all, like, multiple choice.

There's a couple short answer questions in there about how you feel about Eme Udoka, Rafael Stone, all that.

But B. Scott, over or under, Kevin Durant, 25.5 points per game this season?

By personnel, I mean players, not necessarily management or coaching personnel.

Um, we have, you know, Rafael Stone, who's working wonders with these contracts, um, Amen's little trade kicker that he has.

Maybe it'll convince the Rockets to really, you know, light a fire under him and keep him, do our best to keep that guy.

I would like to keep him because another thing, and I keep seeing these rumors, man.

But it does feel like that contract has a really strong likelihood of becoming a steal of a deal literally as soon as this season.

It starts like by the time we get halfway through the season, we might be looking at that contract extension going, wow, this was another absolute masterclass by Rafael Stone.

All right, let's get into who we got here, trying to read through some of these comments, see what people are saying.

All right, let's go to.

So that's effectively a $44 million discount on a guy that within the lifetime of that contract could become one of the top 10 players in the NBA, depending on what his development looks like, depending on what his... future jump shot looks like with the addition and help of Chip England, all that stuff.

So, Rafael Stone does it again.

He did it with the Shingun contract.

He did it with the Jabari and Tari contracts.

Like all of these options are still in play.

We don't know what it's going to ultimately look like.

But the fact that Rafael Stone and the Rockets front office have gotten yet another great contract on the books for a super impactful player, one of the top, easily one of the top 25, 30 players in the NBA on a great contract.

just you got to give credit where credit is due.

That comes out to less than 25% of the cap max.

So Houston has done a nice job of getting their young players to sign at something slightly less than the absolute max that they can sign off of these rookie- Contracts, so, uh, Rafael Stone kinda continues that trend here going forward.

But, um, I do think for Amen Thompson to really blossom in Houston, I almost wonder if, like, he needs to almost develop this, like, Draymond Green type two-man game where Steph is handling all of this, and then Draymond was handling all the other stuff.

But I just don't know who that other guy is in Houston.