Does every NBA fanbase hate its general manager?
Houston Rockets fans largely do. Rafael Stone is the devil incarnate. The root of all evil. The sole reason why the Rockets were not the 2025-26 NBA champions.
This won’t be another full-fledged Stone defense piece. I will quickly note the cognitive dissonance between fans and peers when it comes to Stone. He’s regularly voted among the best GMs in the league – by other GMs. Most Rockets fans wouldn’t let Stone manage a junior high group project.
Who’s
right? Are fans just close enough to the situation, or a bit too close? For my money, the track record is complicated. Green over Mobley was an abject disaster, and an own goal no less. Otherwise, fans tend to underrate how rare it is to land both Alperen Sengun and Tari Eason in the middle of consecutive drafts, and understate luck as a factor. This exact roster with Cade Cunningham is earning him universal praise.
Anyway, there’s one achievement Stone does not have on his resume: A second-round steal. He has not selected a player in the second round of the draft who has contributed meaningfully to the team:
With the 39th pick in this year’s draft, he should change that.
Rockets must maximize opportunity with 39th pick
Why would a valuable player slip to the second round? What is it about these guys that leads to such egregious misscouting?
Well, it’s a case-by-case question, but often, these guys fall into the defense-only camp. They’re raw, tools-y, and wholly incapable of putting the ball in the basket.
Say Ime Udoka in the mirror three times, and one of them appears.
One prospect I’ve found tantalizing for years is Baba Miller. Then again, put any 6’9″ + wing with defensive versatility and a functional handle in front of me, and I turn into the popular girl in an 80s movie getting picked up by the bad boy on the motorcycle with the leather jacket. Plus, cool name bias could be a factor.
At 6’11”, Miller can guard at least three through five, maybe two. He can handle the ball to an extent. Last year, he shot 34.2% on 3.4 three-pointers per game. Pretty good!
This year, that number fell to 19.2%. Not so good.
Perhaps Ugonna Onyeso is a smarter bet. He has at least one bankable skill. Onyeso’s 17.4 Block Percentage led the entire NCAA last year.
The offense is raw. Onyeso hit 27.8% of his 1.0 threes per game this year, which is indicative of floor spacing development, but any Rockets fan knows that a hypothetical shot is strictly hypothetical until it isn’t. Still, as an off-the-bench energy big, there’s some appeal here.
Otherwise, the Rockets could (if you’re reading this, avert your eyes, Mr. Udoka) draft a player with more of an offensive mindset. Richie Saunders looks like the type of 6’5″ shooter you’d be happy to put on the floor for ten minutes in an NBA Finals game. Trevon Brazile is 6’10” and can shoot, but there are concerns about his Udok-atude (effort).
Don’t look at me. I’m no scout. The point is this: Stone needs this feather in his cap. Adding a homegrown second-round pick to your playoff rotation is a hallmark of quality GMing. It’s a way to extract surplus value, and manage your cap. Unless the Rockets plan on moving this pick, they should take it seriously:
Although even if Stone nails it, some people will hate him anyway.
