Houston Rockets Pre-Season Presser

[78#]

Hello everyone. This season will be a transition year for the most part. We've lost key contributors in Chris Bosh, Thaddeus Young, and Gerald Henderson who helped us make the playoffs last season and the Western Conference Finals the year before. Though we still have Al Horford and Ty Lawson, we're really anxious to start over to rebuild this organization and eventually pay our tax bill during the season.

We knew last season would be more difficult because of our key guys getting older. We got off to a solid start, but kind of the plateaued the rest of the way leading to the 7th seed and first round exit. Due to our upcoming tax bill, we decided to accept the player options for Horford and Lawson, but not Thaddeus since that would have gotten us too close to the cap.

The offseason was very slow for us since we had no draft pick and could only sign veteran minimums. We decided to focus on signing many young players with some potential to see if we could find some hidden gems including while signing veterans in Cory Joseph and Omri Casspi. We were happy with the guys we got including Boris Hailey who was the very last FA to sign. We didn't expect to land him, but were very surprised when he picked us for a veteran min.

Training camp was successful again for us. Out of the 15 players on our roster, we had 12 guys under 30 and everyone of them improved including key young players in Russell Gomez, Jonathan Treat, and of course Boris Hailey who improved his potentials across the board while totaling a +42. Even Al Horford was only a -15 at age 33 and kept his blue/blue status and actually improved his 3-point shooting. He had a very good preseason for us averaging 23/11 and almost 60% shooting.

Long-term we're looking at building this organization with strong young talent and accumulating points the next few seasons so we can be prepared to be aggressive in free agency when the time is right. We definitely want to win games this season and every season, but right now we need to focus on re-building as well.

Our depth chart will look like this:

Center - Al Horford will start again in the last year of his contract. We're hoping he can build off his preseason and continue to be an All-Star/All-League center. Russell Gomez will be the backup.

Power Forward - Boris Hailey will be the starter and we're excited to see what he brings to the table as a starter. Russell Gomez will be the backup.

Small Forward - We're going small here with Corey Joseph but he will have to share minutes since he's our primary backup PG. Jerami Grant will be getting the rest of the minutes.

Shooting Guard - Herbert Burgos will be the starter here. Though he's not overly quick, we like his scoring and defensive abilities. William Sullivan and Charles Sartin will split the backup minutes.

Point Guard - Ty Lawson will be the starter in the last year of his contract. Corey Josepy will be the backup

C - Horford/Gomez
PF - Hailey/Gomez
SF - Joseph/Grant
SG - Burgos/Sullivan/Sartin
PG - Lawson/Joseph

Thank you everyone. Now we'll be taking questions.

[false9]

The Southwest appears to be wide open this season. Even with the personnel changes, do you see yourself having a shot at the Division?

[78#]

The Southwest appears to be wide open this season. Even with the personnel changes, do you see yourself having a shot at the Division?

I'm not sure what to expect from the team. So many question marks right now. Depends on how the rest of the division stands. I still like Dallas.


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[kucoach7]

Talk to us a little more about Jonathan Treat. He has terrific athleticism and good scoring potential. Do you plan to train his defense, handling, and or passing to turn him into Lawson's heir?

[78#]

Talk to us a little more about Jonathan Treat. He has terrific athleticism and good scoring potential. Do you plan to train his defense, handling, and or passing to turn him into Lawson's heir?

We really liked him coming out of the draft and happy when we got him with the 19th pick. He has a chance to be a really explosive scorer. We don't have a lot of points so we may not train him unless we sign him to a long-term extension.


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[WigNosy]

Will Hordord be a Rocket next season?

[garbageman]

What's your plan for getting in the good tax-wise before next offseason?

[78#]

Will Hordord be a Rocket next season?

We definitely hope so. I want to McDyess him the rest of his career.


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[78#]

What's your plan for getting in the good tax-wise before next offseason?

Take some Adderall to write articles. Also maybe use the cap space to take contracts and get points. I think we'll pay off the tax pretty easily by the end of the season.


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[Soundwave]

Did someone turn the temperature down? Why is it getting colder in here?