LOS ANGELES – Lakers coach Frank Vogel may have rehearsed his pre-game speech with his team. But when he described the Rockets ahead of the first of two meetings on Sunday this week, he said to look beyond the youngsters and said they were “super talented.”
âThey are young, obviously,â Vogel said. âBut (Kevin) Porter (Jr.) and (Jalen) Green can score 30 points on any given night. Christian Wood has proven himself, he knows how to play pick-and-roll and pop. He’s a great player. “
With that, he went further to challenge the idea that the Rockets are rebuilding themselves.
âThese guys, I think they’re going to have a good season,â said Vogel. âEveryone says it’s a reconstruction team. They don’t mention guys like Eric Gordon. (Daniel) Theis is a good player (Alperen) Sengun was good on the bench. Everyone is sort of talking about them as a rebuilding team. We’ll have to play well to win.
Semantics aside, the Rockets, 1-4 heading into Sunday’s game, could be rebuilding and talented at the same time.
âBoth things can be true,â Rockets coach Stephen Silas said. âI see it as we try to do things in a winning way all the time. We’re not going to shorten it at all. But we have veteran players on our team. We have Eric Gordon, we have Danuel House, we have Christian Wood, who is trying to lead, is trying to do whatever he can to help us win.
âWe also have five 19-year-olds and a 21-year-old point guard (Porter). We are somewhere in between. We are trying to compete. We try to do everything to win. If that puts us somewhere between rebuilding and talent, it’s us.