Tari Eason

Guys were underperforming.

Tari Eason couldn't knock down a shot.

The burner scandal came out with Kevin Durant at the All-Star break, and this team fell to being in that 4-5 spot against the Lakers in round number one.

Now, they're getting Fred VanVleet back.

We're out there starting Josh Takogi.

Tari Eason went a whole month without making a single three.

Jabari Smith Jr. I've been doing TikTok series every year asking for hot takes.

Since 2021, people have been telling me he's going to take a leap.

But that issue is not necessarily, like, immediately resolved, but now the Rockets have five-man lineups they can put out there where they have adequate floor spacing, where they have adequate ball handling, right? Because another version of it is you could throw ...

They had Tari Eason in the starting lineup at points last year.

But guess what? Between Tari Eason, Amen Thompson, and, and Jabari Smith Jr., not one of those guys, uh, s- no disrespect to Amen Thompson, they're not great ball handlers yet.

Like, they're not great offensive initiators yet, and that put a lot of onus on Kevin Durant and Alperen Sengun to pull a bunny out of a hat and make things happen every play down on offense.

So it feels like just by nature of the additions that they have, by having Fred and Marcus out there, even if they're not the ones running every action down the, you know, down on the offense.

Amin Thompson is at 45 million less than his max.

Tari Eason is basically at like non-taxpayer MLE money.

Jabari Smith is like, you know, less than 25 million a year.

Even Kevin Durant took 30 million less than his max at the time.

That is a huge problem.

You can't downplay that.

If he was a center, that's one thing, but I don't know what position you call him, guard, wing, whatever, but it's really hard to have a perimeter or guard, wing position forward whatever you call him perimeter player it's hard to have a perimeter player who is that much of a non-factor as a shooter especially as you pointed out with shangoon who is also a non-shooter and even like i mean you know that the other guy like kd is obviously fantastic and jabari smith is above average like tari eason can hit them but they're not like They're

so-so.

De'Aaron Fox.

No. Tari Eason for...

I feel like the team still needs a guard.

I feel like still having Steven Adams, Clint Capella, Tari Eason, Jabari, Kevin Durant, and then Amin.

Like, let Amin go back to the three or the four, I feel like

would be ideal here.

And I think bringing in another guy.

who can switch point of attack and guard multiple positions on the perimeter and bring out the best in them on Thompson and Tari Eason and Fred Van Vliet.

There are a lot of really nasty defensive lineups, especially on the perimeter, that the Rockets can throw out there, and Marcus Smart is a huge reason why.

Yeah, and I think for me the key here, man, when we think about— Them investing, for one, they invested in Sangoon first, and now they invested in Eamon Thompson.

I saw Rockets fans are more so down on him than than than up.

But I mean, what do you think in terms of what this team is missing when you when you think about, you know, the Thunder, the the Spurs and kind of that upper echelon on the West?

I think Tari Eason is kind of a huge skeleton key for them because I think he was around 35-36% from three last year.

Got off to that really shaky start.

Oh, yeah.

Huh? That's what Tari Eason got? That's what people want to start seeing.

That five year is crazy, though.

You're going to start seeing the four year, 80.