Ben DuBose

They lost this game in the minutes that Shingun played with the bench when you didn't have KD.

And so, yeah, in theory, if you were bringing in Reid with that unit,

then, you know, Reed isn't going to be quite the creator that KD is, but he can mitigate that a little bit.

So that's an argument in favor of, you know, as Paolo laid out, you know, making Reed your Manu Ginobili, if you will.

The flip side, maybe in the long run, Reed needs to get better at

at figuring out when to, you know, put his fingerprints on a game, when to shoot, when to pull back.

Because for a lot of this year, his role's been simplified as a sixth man in that, you know, he's got the permanent green light.

And I think for a young player, year two, 21 years old,

That's good in a lot of ways.

But in the grand scheme, if you want to get him to, you know, potentially like that offensive engine level that I think fans see him as, and I believe the Rockets internally see him as that as well, it's just going to take a little bit of time.

There's still a lot of development still to go.

Then maybe it benefits you to sort of put him with the starters now.

So I'm just sort of curious your thoughts on that blend, Dave.

And it doesn't have to be like one extreme or the other.

It could be bringing him off the bench, but also letting him close.

So that, you know, he has exposure in both of these configurations.

But how do you blend, I guess, needing to provide a stimulus for those bench units without KD with also the idea that, hey, there's a big picture and eventually you want to get Reed more confident to where, you know, he's more comfortable operating with KD and Alpy and high leverage possessions.

And Paolo, let me bring you in on this.

So Dave and I have talked a little bit about Imei in recent shows.

I don't think, Paolo, that we've had a pod since it feels like a lot of Rockets Twitter has turned on Imei Udoka.