So I want to give the Houston Rockets the benefit of the doubts, but I just can't. I just cannot. They are a dumpster fire. They continue to surprise me in the most awful way humanly possible. Last time we checked out on the Rockets, Steven Silence was throwing his
team under the bus. Remember he was like, oh, yeah, they're not playing on the defensive end, they don't get after it, where Eric Gordon was saying things about how they're not improving, they're not getting into their man, they're fighting over things and not helping each other, not doing what they're supposed to do. Pretty much an indictment of this entire team not being on the same page. And then Rockets are awful. They're the worst team in the league.
They're thirteen and forty five, and that's the worst worst record in the NBA by a long shot. They are one and nine in the last ten. This is not a good team, right, But there's a lot of not good teams. This is like a infested organization though, And the more you look into it, the more you say to yourself, what is happening there? How do you fix it?
Because it is really off the rails. So now we've got some new news on some more things that apparently are disturbing as it relates to their third overall pick from last year's draft, Jabari Smith Junior. Yeah, he's an absolute mess. They've broke him. I'm gonna say it again,
Houston Rockets have broken Jabari Smith. According to Mark Spear at Andscape, apparently the Thunder, which has nothing to do with the Rockets, but the Thunder promised Jabari that they would draft him at number two overall, a belief that they extended all the way through draft night, which, let's be honest, they probably also said that the Thunder probably also said that the chat they knew Jabari, or at least assumed that Jabari wouldn't be available, so they were
just trying to kind of like, I don't know, he's him. His dad then told Mark Spears, when they called chet Holgren's name, he lost it, leg went to shaking. I looked at him. He's in tears, almost in tears, and I forgot that he told me, okay, see, promised to draft him, So I kept my mouth closed about that. I talked to him and I'm like, well, hey, what are you doing straight in your face. Man, you good, you good? You good? You know the camera was right
at our table, bro, Can you blame him? He thought he was gonna play for Mark Dagneil who probably did not know, and Sam Presty and Oka See with a bunch of bucket getters that also passed the ball around to going to Houston post James Harden Houston gross I would be in tears too, and this year has been a disaster. They have broken him. He is the worst he's maybe ever been in his career right now, just
off the radar. The fact that he's in the Rising Stars Challenge is really sort of a loose interpretation of rising star. Right like, right now he is a falling star, and eventually he will rise again like a phoenix out of the ashes when he gets the fuck out of Houston or they sell the team or get rid of stylists or something. But right now he is not a
rising star. Jabari Smith is a falling star. He is averaging twelve seven and one, which is like fine, but he's shooting thirty percent from three thirty nine percent from the field as a whole. This is a guy. If you remember that everyone said largely was the best pure shooter in the league or best peer shooter in the draft.
He has the best jumper in the draft class. So then when amazingly so they asked Steven Silas about all this right for the article, and you would assume that Steven Silas would say positive things about Jabari right, protect this guy, make him feel good, knowing that it's gonna get published. I don't know something, do something Steven like figure it out, know that your your player's confidence is at an all time low, and maybe figure out a way in print for him to boost it. No, no, no, no,
he didn't he said this. Jabari is young in trying to find his way. He has grit and toughness and tries defensively, and he's not given much at all. I don't run any plays for Jabbari Smith. You don't run any place for Jabari Smith, your number three overall pick, the guy that everyone thought was a consensus number one overall pick. You don't run any designed place for him. None. You don't feel like that's maybe something you should reconsider.
I don't know, like you don't think that's maybe something to evaluate about you. No wonder Jabari is upset. He's probably in tears on a regular basis. Honestly, Let's be honest. If I was stuck in Houston, that is a jail sentence in the NBA. All you have to do while you're biding your time before a free agency read books, try to figure out, maybe become like a lawyer like they do in jail. You know, they just figure out
a new craft, a new hobby, a PhD program. Jabari, do something with your time because you're locked up like Akon right now, and there's really no point for you to focus on your relationship with Houston Rockets because they clearly don't focus on the relationship with you. Jabari said this in terms of how his rookie year is gone. Probably you would imagine it's not going well for him. Let's check in on him though. He says, yes, it's been tough, honestly, because I feel like I've been winning
all the way up to this point. So it's just knowing it'll get brighter down the road and just trusting the process and staying with it. It will not get brighter down the road, I hate to say it. Until you get out out of Houston, maybe you end up going to Philadelphia because James Harden wants to end up back in Houston. Maybe strippers and foi gras infused lobster hamburgers that James Harden loves so much. Maybe hookah is your way out. Maybe somehow, some way you can get
a reprieve. But there is no bright days coming for you when you are in Houston. I promise you that all of this is an example that the spot you land is everything. So much of the draft is where you go. And let's face facts, there is no worse spot for a young three point shooting big man to go than the Houston Rockets. You have Jalen Green, you have Kevin Porter Junior, you have Josh Christopher, you have Alpera and Shanngoon, and they all want that ball and
they don't want you to have it. And that is the truth. Even if you're wide open, jumping up and down out of the basket, they are not giving you the ball. We can only imagine what Jabari would be in Okay. See, we could only imagine what Jabari would be in Orlando even but I promise you this is the worst spot for him for his confidence. And he's a nice kid. He's a little too nice for Houston.
If you know what I'm saying. He's the kind of kid that gets sucked into thinking that if you go upstairs to the champagne room, you only have to pay for the one song. You just doesn't know that every new song that she plays you have to pay more money for. And you come out you're like a, oh, twenty seven thousand dollars to Cayenne, right, Like that's Jabbari Smith. One thing is for sure, Jabbari's rookie year has gone far worse than any pundit or any draft expert could
have ever ever predicted. Well he ever become a star. I don't know. Time will tell, but he's gonna need to get out of h Town in order for us to find out. So we talked last episode about the Warriors and how they were upset with my Portland Trailblazers and for not disclosing the seriousness the severity of Gary Payton's injury. The derailed almost a four team trade that sent out Sadeek Bay, James Wiseman, Kevin Knox, and about a gajillion and second round picks. Right, So they're upset
with the Gary Payton trade. Golden State ended up taking on Gary Payton. But to say that they are pissed is an understatement. They've already had the League look into it, they've already launched a formal investigation. But now there's more. Yep, I just looked. I googled it today and I was like, what's up with the Warriors? Are they over it? Have they calmed things down? Are they chill? No, they are
not chill. According to Chris Haynes, the Warriors are now encouraging the league front office to investigate all of Portland's trades over the last few years. Hey, I think they're fucked up in general. I think you guys need to look into some stuff like it kind of looks like they're not just selling dimes and Nichols, they're pushing major weights. I think that they are full fledged shady. Why why
do they want the front office to look into the Blazers. Well, they assert that the Blazers just as a matter of course, keep screwing teams over by hiding injuries. Can't you just leave well enough alone Golden State? No, they cannot. Apparently it's not just the Peyton trade. As Haynes reported, I was told that they've urged the league to look into Portland's dealing with New Orleans last year when it was
the CJ. McCollum Larry Nance trade. They've urged the league to look into that, particularly Larry Nants junior, because they believe that a similar incident happened in that deal, and they feel like the Blazers may have a pattern of doing something where they're either withholding information or presenting misleading information. And so without having all the details, what I do know is the Warriors have made it clear to the league that they need to look into that trade from
last year. Snitch, snitch, snitch. What are the Warriors doing? They had nothing to do with them. The optics are not good at the moment. Right after Nance was traded to New Orleans, he had surgery on his right knee and missed more than ten weeks. Whoopsie. They didn't see that either. He was healthy. He was healthy. Uh. This is how I know that the Warriors are pissed because if Adam Silver finds that they've done shit wrong, they're gonna lose draft picks, they're gonna get fined and the kicker.
There's pretty much nothing at the stage that would actually benefit the Warriors beyond just snitching. They get nothing from this. I don't know. Maybe that's why they couldn't find a buyer for NRK at the deadline because he had his calf injury. I don't know if Portland is guilty at all, but what I do know is the Warriors have it out for Portland and they do have a little bit of history. That's all the time that we have for the heat Check. Check back Monday for an all new episode.
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