 What's up, y'all? Oh, I guess what's the word is the intro for this channel. This is not the ramble today. It might have a ramble feel, but it's not the ramble. I've been seeing a lot of my YouTube, other YouTube friends out there do these daily NBA talk where they basically, they kind of ramble. It's usually unscripted and everything. And they talk about things that are on their mind and I'm like, why can't I do that? And I'm not saying this is daily because I promise you it's not. Y'all know I got this thing with commitment. Ha! That's actually hilarious to say because I know people in my life would probably agree with that statement. I can't guarantee you daily, but as I'm recording this, the Houston Rockets were just eliminated from the playoffs and I want to talk about the Houston Rockets specifically in today's video. I've been having a lot of fun at the expense of Houston Rockets fans lately and I'm sure they don't... Should I sit up? I'll sit like this. I'm sure they don't enjoy that. Being a fan is heartbreaking, especially being a fan of a team that's good but just not good enough. That's probably even more heartbreaking than being a part of a team like mine that just sucks because at least I know every day we're going to be bad. If you're a fan of a good team, you have some aspirations to some extent and to see them not reach that probably hurts. The Houston Rockets are gonna have are in the weirdest position in the NBA? Do I want to say that? Because obviously again, their team is good enough to continue to be the four through six seed, every single year, but it's probably their ceiling, right? And they may have kept out that one year where they were this close from being the Warriors. This off season, they made some significant things happen. They traded Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook, they traded Chris Paul and some picks for Russell Westbrook to try to get a new field to the small ball. Oh no, this is before small ball, to get a new field to the team altogether. Though we can agree James Harden and Chris Paul didn't completely mesh on court, it was way better than what we got with Russell Westbrook and James Harden, right? And then halfway through the season, they realized that. They are more realized that in order for Russell Westbrook to be effective, he can't play in our current system and our current team. So they traded their center away, hand PJ Tugger coming to the offense like, brother, I know you've been primarily a small four, a powerful four your entire career, but now you're a center. And shout out to PJ Tugger for accepting that and being great at it. But they had to change up the whole way they played basketball, not the whole way, because they're still running this five out, but they had to open up space for Russell Westbrook to do Russell Westbrook type things. And for like a two to three month period, Russell Westbrook was doing exactly that. He was averaging 27, 28 points per game for multiple months. And that was right before the trade that line and people were like, man, he don't deserve to be an all-star. And then he hit that and then he got into the all-star game. So shout out to him for that. So it started to look like something cool, right? They were running a small ball and I was rooting for it because I think the evolution of basketball every year, every couple of years, we see something new, right? We see the big starting to shoot threes. We see everybody starting to shoot threes. These small ball lineups, small ball closeout lineups is something we saw with the Warriors, but the Daryl Mori and the Houston Rockets had decided that we don't want to just end the game that way. We want to play the entire game that way. And it was Dre Ma Green actually about a week or so ago when this series started between the Lakers and the Rockets. He tweeted something along the lines of like, every center in the NBA better hope the Lakers win this series because if they don't, then we're back to see some change in the NBA because of the Houston Rockets were successful in their small ball lineup. It's a GG for the Javale McGee's of the world. It's a GG for Rudy Goh Bear who's up for an extension because every team will look at that and be like, okay, we can mimic that. We won't have a PJ Tucker, but we can mimic that with somebody else. And unfortunately, they fell short. They fell short. And now that they did fall short, they got people on Twitter trying to figure out, okay, what is next? Because Russell Westbrook in this series was awful. He had one game where I was like, okay, that's the Russ we know. But overall, he was awful. And I know he's coming off a quad injury and I know he's coming off a COVID-19 thing. And I commend him a lot for even coming to the bubble and playing because those are two significant things. But I still have to look at the results on the court and just analyze it. And my analysis is that he was bad. You know, the LA Lakers looked at game one and was like, okay, we're just gonna not guard him unless he's within five feet of the rim. And it worked to a T with a quad injury and coming off COVID-19 that hits like, I don't know, I'm not a COVID expert, but I know it hit the lungs. I know it hit the blood. Like players that have tested positive for COVID-19, this would actually be a really cool study that somebody could do. Players that tested positive, I would love to see how they play before and after, right? Mamba is a player that tested positive and really couldn't even play in the bubble because he was still rehabbing. I know everybody has read, everybody that has had a case of this has reacted differently, but I would love to see the numbers on before I tested positive for COVID and after because it does impact people differently. And you can tell it impact the Russell Westbrook. I think the reason why people on Twitter are laughing at Russell Westbrook or saying certain things about him is because even in games where they were down by 25, he was barking. And that's just, you know, like why? Like why? Especially when you really realize your impact because he even said it in the post game interview after the one game where he turned the ball over at the end of the game, trying to throw it to him and Eric Gordon and Robert Covington, whatever. He said like, I'm just running around out there. I gotta figure out what I'm doing. So he realizes, he can realize, and that's one of the great things about Russell Westbrook, I guess, is that he could realize when he was not being an impactful player. And yet he was still yapping at the mouth down by 20. And I'm not even just talking about the Rondo thing. I'm talking even before that. Anyway, so with that, you have Russell Westbrook who again, I just mentioned, he has, I don't wanna say anybody has an untradable contract because the world has seen people, we say untradable contracts and it's somehow we get a team that's willing to accept that contract. Russell Westbrook, I'm looking at it here. He is 31 years old. He made $38 million this year. He's guaranteed 41, 43, and then a 46 player option. You think he gonna turn down a 46 player option at the age of 35? No, he will not. You're guaranteeing him all that money. You're also guaranteeing 31-year-old James Harden that money, Eric Gordon just signed an extension where he'll be paid $20 million in the year 2023. They just don't have room to maneuver. And because of that, this small ball lineup that had been unsuccessful this year will probably be back next year. And I was just talking, and listen, if you're watching this video, please understand that my Twitter account for the most part is normally for jokes, especially like you should be able to gauge when I'm joking, like when I put up a tweet that says Westbrook for Blake Griffin, I'm obviously joking. Even though I think that Blake Griffin with a small ball lineup would be interesting, that's not a trait that I would see happening for either side, you know what I'm saying? So I was just shooting in and having some fun. Somebody replied like, Kenny, you sure? And I said, no, I'm just talking. I'm just having fun on Twitter. That's what Twitter is for. So now the Houston Rockets have to figure this out because not only do they have these guaranteed contracts and they're still paying players like, they're paying Jeff Green, right? But they're also paying Jeff Green from a previous time he was in Houston. They're still paying him from that. So you have all of this money. They're sitting at like 13th in the NBA as far as overall payroll. None of the money comes off the books this season except for Tyson Chandler, who will probably retire. It was sad to say. Thabos Evelosio probably retired was sad to say. And then the rest, these are guaranteed contracts across the board for most of these players. So they don't have any wiggle room. So you're gonna bring this team back. Or if there is a GM willing to take on Russell Westbrook, you're not gonna get your value for it. So think about this. And I think it was click production. Shout out to my boy, Click, because he reminded me, I'm gonna go look at his tweet. He reminded me of something that like, I completely, completely, completely forgot about. And it had to do with what this team looked like like two, three years ago. It had to do with this team, what this team looked like just a few years ago. And it was along the lines of like, hold on, here. The tweet was something along the lines that they had Lou Will, Montrez, Harold, blank and blank. They turned it into Chris Paul. And then they turned Chris Paul into Russell Westbrook. Overall progression sounds terrible. Sounds terrible. And Daryl Morey is my guy. Because I, Daryl Morey is my guy. I think he's a genius. He may have just struck out on this one. And that's part of the job of being a GM. There's no perfect GM. As much as we love Sam Presti, he gave James Harden to Daryl Morey. You know what I'm saying? So there's no perfect GM out there. And I appreciate him for experimenting. Because, again, he could have evolutionized the game of basketball again, just by testing things out. But here's Clicks tweet. If they go from, it was Pat Bae of Montrez, Harold and Lou Will. I imagine all three of those players right here, right now on the Houston Rockets. To Chris Paul, to Russell Westbrook and then in this hypothetical situation. Again, I was just throwing out the tray, Blake for Russell Westbrook. And he said, if they go from Westbrook to Blake, that would be incredible. And it would have been incredible in the negative aspect of it. But it's just such a weird situation, because Mike Dantoni was on the last year of his deal. And they're early in the season. They basically have said they weren't going to bring him back. And then just recently, they were like, you know what? We might bring him back. And I just don't, I can't imagine another coach coming into this team with what they have now and making it better or doing anything with it. And that's the today we saw, or not just today, but this entire series, we saw the problem with going all in on one scheme. Because once that scheme is broken up like the Lakers had with Russell Westbrook and the Houston Rockets, then you have no place to go. Once you throw the double team and you let Russell, where do you go? They don't have anything else. The great teams are able to read and react, right? Like the greatest teams of all time. Oh, you're going to take this away? Okay, now this opens up. And maybe that's Dan Tony. Maybe that's just a roster they constructed. But when you're doubling James Harden, he can't create for himself or anybody else. And then you let Russell Westbrook just do nothing on the court. Who do you rely on? Eric Gordon is cool. But I'm okay with letting Eric Gordon do his thing. Nobody else in this team is like creators. And that's a problem. And that's a problem. They have players, man. And I've been having a lot of fun reading the tweets and going on to Reddit just to see what the Houston Rockets fans have to say. Daryl Morey ended up tweeting. And boy, his mitch has got blew up. He tweeted saying like, thank you to everybody. Congrats to the Lakers. Thank you, Disney and the NBA employees who work long hours to make the bubble possible. Which is yeah, shout out to them because the fact that we've had zero cases is still kind of wild to me. Shout out to all the people that's working in the bubble. And then the replies came. The replies came. Get rid of Dan Tony and Wes Brick now is one reply. Trade for Al Horford, I'm begging you. The small ball experiment has to stop. Trade everyone except for Harden and Coveton. Literally trade everybody. Coaches staff has to go too. Yeah, yeah, and that's just the way it goes. And then I think it just goes on. Trade Harden, he's predictably bad when it matters the most. He has proven year after year what he is when it's time to win. He is not a winner. He's a stat, sheets filler, nothing more. Fans are hot and if somebody replied to it, we'll take him on the Chicago Bulls right now. He said he's the best player that Houston Rockets ever had. Okay, all right, Mr. Guy. We're gonna have to relax. You not know the name Hakeem Elizawan. Let's relax. You're making those Bulls fans look bad here. But yeah, I mean, it's a very interesting thing. I'm sure we're gonna see a lot of players pop up in a trade finder. Actually, the Al Horford thing is something I've seen in a trade finder for a couple weeks now so people are gonna start throwing that out even more because obviously what we have on the court right now just isn't working out. So that was cool. That's what I have to say about the Houston Rockets. It is a ramble shout out to the Lakers for making it to the Conference Finals for the first time in a long time. It's cool to see that. Shout out to LeBron for still looking as great as he does. Is there any silver lining to the Houston Rockets experiment or anything? I mean, like if we were to solve somebody blossom, there would be a silver lining. I mean, I still believe that the Robert Covet to trade was a huge W. He definitely plays his role very, very well. Other than that, there's not really that many great things to say about the Rockets right now. I'm very interested to see if they're able to do anything this off season. If anybody is, it's gonna be Dara Mori. So I'm interested in that. And that's it. This is kind of, it was kind of a ramble. I wasn't scripted or anything. So leave a like. Let me know if you want more of these. I'm going. Peace.