Seems like a legitimate question with the current point this team is at. How many more wins would this team have right now with Yao? Right now we are 4 games above .500 if you add Yao into the equation how high does that number go up to ? 8-10 games above .500 maybe even more ? Although I understand with Yao we are a better team I don't think we are more than 4-6 wins better than what we are right now. Might as well add to the T-Mac Drama while were at it. When Yao went out and we only played with Mcgrady the team continued it's surge without Yao onto the 22 game winstreak but ended with a hard fought battle with the Jazz in the playoffs. Had that been Mcgrady going out for the season could Yao and the rest of the team accomplished a 22 game win streak ? Would the series with the Jazz have gone six games? Both are great players, but who helped the team more on the court ? Was it Yaos post presence or Mcgradys abilities on the wing?
Interesting that some people chose we would have 10 more wins than we currently do right now. That would put us at the 3rd best record in all of the NBA and only one win behind the Lakers. Might be a stretch.
Your poll results will be skewed since you wrote the poll question and thread title around Yao then snuck in "let's include McGrady while were at it". Most posters won't read all the way through your argument before they are struck with laziness and just answer the poll based on Yao. Now whether including Tracy would increase the teams win total, you'll have plenty of people lining up to debate that one. I'm fairly certain he'd have some kind of positive on the win total - if healthy
I say 5-7 wins and it would have changed history quite a bit... Resigned Artest on a short term deal and obviously not signed Ariza long term while probably have been shopping TMAC for a complementary player instead of an impact player/young player. I still say shopping TMAC because I think Adelman and Morey would have taken more of their time with his rehab and even less receptive to the whole TMAC experiment.
That's not how it works. Forget the Lakers what the **** do they have to do with anything? Like in your mind, wins in the league are prorated by how the Lakers do? Anyone voting should go through the schedule, and think about the games and see how many of those Houston might have won. IMO they would have beat LA at home (which they lost by 1), won at sacramento, @ atlanta, won at least 1 more on Dallas and Phoenix, beat Orlando every time, wouldn't have dropped that Toronto game or Bobcat game, and would have at least another couple wins on that losing streak the last couple of weeks. If all that puts Houston 2nd in the West, that's about right considering that with a healthy Yao, Houston would have beat LA last year. Also with Yao on the court, it's possible that Tmac would have accepted a reduced role and still be playing with this team.
I was relating it to the Lakers because they are currently the best team in the West without a doubt. With 10+ that would put us right behind them...thats why I compared the two. I simply compared how are standings would be...putting us as the #2 seed which is very high. And whats wrong with me comparing us to the defending world champions ?
I thought that the most reliable number would be 7-9, so having Yao would've definitely made us a 50 win team, I believe that it would've been due to his offensive production alone.
I think they'd be a little better on offense and a lot better on defense. I'd guess somewhere around 3 or 4 more wins. Edit: I can't believe 40+% of people think the Rockets would have 36 wins at this stage with a healthy Yao. You guys really think we could be on a 60 win pace next year just by adding Yao and making no other changes? Really?
We'd win at leat half of the games against 0.500 + teams instead of going 12-21. That's 5 games right there.
I voted ten, but that was off the top of my head, and under the assumption that we'd win every game we have already won, and the close ones we've lost (which is at least about 5-6). Obviously, looking at the standings and thinking a bit more about it, I would think 5-7 more is an accurate picture. I really believe that, even if that means we are tied for 2nd.
More like a 31-34 win team,on the same level as Dallas/Denver. Although Ariza is not Artest, but Landry/Lowry/Brooks all improved and Budinger played well as a rookie, could have played better because his game fits Yao's nicely.
5-7 is more reasonable due to we've lost so many close games without a go to presence inside the paint that we could feed the ball to exploit the opposing defense in the paint. At least when our offense became stagnant, pass the ball to Yao and let him draw the double team and pass out to the wide open shooter, that'll be a lot easier for us to pile up wins.
The Rockets have actually won a number of close games this year, they just happened earlier in the season. One could argue that their record is better than it should be right now. I think the Rockets, without Yao, are around a 43 or 44 win team. They have actually overachieved to be 3 games over .500 at this point in the season.With a fully healthy Yao for an entire season, I would expect, optimistically, 52 wins. So for these 48 games, with a fairly difficult early schedule, 29 or 30 wins seems reasonable.
