they clearly havent been performing great, although their last match against dallas was somewhat close.
what do they need to change? players? coach? gm?
it's time for something at least, imo.
I would say def needs to start at the top by switching out the gm. Not making changes when the team isn't performing lands on Flame, so he needs to go first off.
Other than that, I would say bring in a GM and let them evaluate to see who they think is worth keeping, although it would not surprise me one bit if the answer was to start from scratch. At this point the coaching and players would all be expendable. If you wanted to keep a core of the existing team I would say Muma, Danteh, and Linkzr could be a good core.
As dark mentioned, Flame's inability to be open to roster changes is something that has been hurting the team since last season. Houston is also a weird team where the team as a whole is better than the talent in the lineup. They've just been playing with each other so long that they are able to make things work and that's why they are able to put up fights against some of the better teams.
That being said, If I were GM of Houston I'd make the following changes:
Another thing that Monte has gone in depth with is Houston hasn't developed their own style of play that suits them best. Or at least, they haven't become very good at it. Stage 1 Season 1 Outlaws is what I'm referring to. Running linkzr on widow and jake on junkrat (2 heroes both of them are very comfortable and good on) is something that separated them from their competition.
Recently however, having danteh play dva and spree on full time zarya kind of makes things awkward for Houston when teams are properly scouting against what houston is going to play. Danteh obviously isn't a dva player by trade and spree is known for having a good zarya but hasn't made a big name for himself on dva. The times he did play dva was okay, but clearly not as good as his zarya.
One thing to consider is if flame even has the ability to make changes. Has the movement freeze been lifted? Do we know how much space he's given? Might want to have answers to those questions before asking for someone's head.
This goes for the Contenders spot as well, the OK needs to be given for all the changes listed, because if we can think about those really simple changes, why wouldn't they already have?
Is not just about nepotism or Flame not being good at his joba, is more like that there were issues about Optic Gaming getting sold so the couldn't really pickup anyone new.
Haven't honestly followed much, but yes that's probably the main practical reason, and mind you I'm really not a fan of Flame, but I doubt he's the core issue right now.
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