Houston Rockets Press Conference.
Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2016 5:46 pm
Location: Toyota Center
Speaker: Owner Lowell Ramos
Hello everyone. Glad you guys could make it at our new arena. It's great. Over 18,000 seats, 2,900 club seats and over a hundred luxury seats. It's the best. And we built it.
This offseason went well overall. We drafted a great guy like Ty Lawson. We signed a superstar in Kobe Bryant, and signed a young budding star in Ike Diogu; Though training camp has derailed some of our plans, the future still looks bright for our organization.
However, training camp is still fresh in my mind, and really the results aren't we totally hoped for. Glad to see guys like Horford, Lawson, Brewer, and Diogu work hard, get better, and come ready to play this season, but however we were disappointed in some young who appear to not have a future here in long-term. DeJuan Blair who was our first round pick really struggled in camp badly and unfortunately we had to let him go. We wish him well, but I doubt we will ever see him in a NBA uniform. J.J. Hickson is another guy who struggled which was really disappointing after having a great camp last season. But his team will be short here as well. Don't be surprised if we let him go during the season. And last we have Thaddeus Young. He improved in camp, but unfortunately we don't see much potential long-term. We had high hopes when we drafted him and he has improved, but unfortunately he hasn't been happy with his lack of playing time. The truth is, he's been too raw to get any meaningful playing time. He really should have stayed in school longer if he wanted more playing time. We still hope he can produce for us, but we don't see it happening.
That said, I want to get to the positives. We really like Kobe Bryant. This guy is one of the best scorers in the league and we think he will be big-time for us. He's definitely our go-to guy.
Another positive is Ike Diogu. He's been a great story in this league. He's gone from a low first round pick to now a future star. We hope he continues to get better and be our PF long-term.
Ronnie Brewer continues to get better. He's very athletic and is a very good defender. And his scoring has slowly improved.
Ty Lawson had a good camp too. We feel he can already score and we know he can handle the rock. The key for him will be his decision making and defense. But we like what we see so far.
Al Horford is the man. He's already one of the best defenders and rebounders in this league. He's so good that he is a great candidate for defensive player of the year. If his offense catches up with his defense, we could be looking at one of the all-time greats.
So let's go to our depth chart
Starting center - Al Horford. No surprise here.
Starting power forward - Stromile Swift. We like his defense in the paint and perimeter. And he's very athletic and smart.
Starting small forward - Luke Walton. We just picked him up, but this guy does a bit of everything. We really see him being valuable this season.
Starting shooting guard - The black mamba himself. We expect him to average between 25-30 ppg this season.
Starting point guard - Ty Lawson. He had a good enough camp to start this season.
The bench goes like this.
Combo big - Ike Diogu. This guy will score and be physical in the pain. This will allow his defense to catch up with his offense.
Combo wing - Ronnie Brewer. We like what he can do on the floor.
Backup point - Jay Williams. He almost edged out Ty Lawson, but he will see plenty of minutes on the floor.
Look for Melvin Ely, Thaddeus Young, and Maurice Evans to get minutes.
Speaker: Owner Lowell Ramos
Hello everyone. Glad you guys could make it at our new arena. It's great. Over 18,000 seats, 2,900 club seats and over a hundred luxury seats. It's the best. And we built it.
This offseason went well overall. We drafted a great guy like Ty Lawson. We signed a superstar in Kobe Bryant, and signed a young budding star in Ike Diogu; Though training camp has derailed some of our plans, the future still looks bright for our organization.
However, training camp is still fresh in my mind, and really the results aren't we totally hoped for. Glad to see guys like Horford, Lawson, Brewer, and Diogu work hard, get better, and come ready to play this season, but however we were disappointed in some young who appear to not have a future here in long-term. DeJuan Blair who was our first round pick really struggled in camp badly and unfortunately we had to let him go. We wish him well, but I doubt we will ever see him in a NBA uniform. J.J. Hickson is another guy who struggled which was really disappointing after having a great camp last season. But his team will be short here as well. Don't be surprised if we let him go during the season. And last we have Thaddeus Young. He improved in camp, but unfortunately we don't see much potential long-term. We had high hopes when we drafted him and he has improved, but unfortunately he hasn't been happy with his lack of playing time. The truth is, he's been too raw to get any meaningful playing time. He really should have stayed in school longer if he wanted more playing time. We still hope he can produce for us, but we don't see it happening.
That said, I want to get to the positives. We really like Kobe Bryant. This guy is one of the best scorers in the league and we think he will be big-time for us. He's definitely our go-to guy.
Another positive is Ike Diogu. He's been a great story in this league. He's gone from a low first round pick to now a future star. We hope he continues to get better and be our PF long-term.
Ronnie Brewer continues to get better. He's very athletic and is a very good defender. And his scoring has slowly improved.
Ty Lawson had a good camp too. We feel he can already score and we know he can handle the rock. The key for him will be his decision making and defense. But we like what we see so far.
Al Horford is the man. He's already one of the best defenders and rebounders in this league. He's so good that he is a great candidate for defensive player of the year. If his offense catches up with his defense, we could be looking at one of the all-time greats.
So let's go to our depth chart
Starting center - Al Horford. No surprise here.
Starting power forward - Stromile Swift. We like his defense in the paint and perimeter. And he's very athletic and smart.
Starting small forward - Luke Walton. We just picked him up, but this guy does a bit of everything. We really see him being valuable this season.
Starting shooting guard - The black mamba himself. We expect him to average between 25-30 ppg this season.
Starting point guard - Ty Lawson. He had a good enough camp to start this season.
The bench goes like this.
Combo big - Ike Diogu. This guy will score and be physical in the pain. This will allow his defense to catch up with his offense.
Combo wing - Ronnie Brewer. We like what he can do on the floor.
Backup point - Jay Williams. He almost edged out Ty Lawson, but he will see plenty of minutes on the floor.
Look for Melvin Ely, Thaddeus Young, and Maurice Evans to get minutes.