Now I don't want to mislead anyone in the title because I'm all for the melo, Lowry and love thing, but on that note I think we can still be a championship like team just with some role player upgrades. I thought our bench was very weak last season. We didn't have anybody besides *lin* who was up and down and a late emerging asik in playoffs. I think adding players like deng and etc can make us title contenders. This was technically just the first year for harden and Dwight but by all means with Miami heat trying to restack I'm All for adding melo or love, I just think harden can be like a Kobe or MJ type of player and I think Howard can improve with Hakeem along with the chemistry with harden and Dwight along with parsons hopefully.
Two stars enter, one star leaves! Two stars enter, one star leaves! <iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/dq4aOaDXIfY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> I'm kidding, for what it's worth.
Maybe, maybe not. Nobody can really say until it happens. If Rockets is going to win a championship with upgrade on role players only, we at least need an excellent... no, great coach. One that knows how to attack the weaknesses of the opponent and maximize what is in his arsenal.
Rockets won 54 games last year. They could've won 5 more games if not for the idiotic Twin Towers experiment early in the season by the Great Coach McHale causing unnecessary losses and extra wear and tear on Harden and others. Also, Howard missed 11 games. This team just needs better depth, which they couldn't have last year because they used up their cap space. Also, TJones will be better and hopefully DMo won't hit a late season wall again next year.
Lowry instead of an injured Bev (bless his heart), and Millsap instead of Jones would have made a world of difference, don't you think? I get what the OP is saying, but if we strike out on these superstar players, Morey absolutely needs to shore up his bench or it will be another year wasted for Dwight Howard.
Exactly. I agree 100%. What this team needs are the necessary role players that would help fill the team necesities and will do whatever it takes to win. We are a few defensive minded players away from really making some noise in the playoffs in a very difficult conference. And like you said, we had 54 wins with this core itself, We dont necesarily need a drastic roster change. Having a full load of superstars on a team may actually hurt us, especially with McHale coaching.
No superstar, no NBA! To get more superstars is not only to win, it's also to get bigger market and to earn more money! The team boss needs more superstars; The team managers need more suoerstar; The team coaches need more superstar; Of course, the fans need more superstars.
superstars first, roll players second. i think thats the order of operations. to finish prematurely on the superstars and then continually fall short in, lets say, the finals. that would be kinda disappointing, no?
So everyone wants 3 superstars? How many teams have 3 superstars? Miami doesn't. Wade's knees are shot and Bosh has been an average PF the last 2 years. You could say SA and I can't really argue with that. Who else? I actually think Miami would have been better if instead of signing Bosh, they split his 20 mill between a guy like Dragic and Asik.
It's generally agreed upon that stars make your championship odds a lot higher relative to their price tag. But I do agree that missing out on all the stars this year doesn't destroy our hopes. Morey has a lot of tools still at his disposal. Asik's TE, MLE, Lin's expiring(may fetch a bad contract), etc. that can get us more depth. An example of what I would consider a successful offseason that doesn't include stars would be something like this. TE+Lin for Ilyasova, Zaza, Delfino. Then use MLE on PJ Tucker or Llul or Papas. Would give us depth at every position and significant upgrade at PF position.
I agree with OP. I think we can better assess after a 2nd yr together with the same core. But like everyone else, I would like a 3rd star to increase our chances.
I disagree with you if you are considering a guy like Lowry a "3rd star" but sure with a guy like him and another like Milsaps, while retaining everyone else, sans Lin, we would be a true contender, but that will be almost impossible to put together at this point.
I agree that we don't need another star. I thought last year we were just a couple of good role players/better coaching away from being true contenders last season. Despite what many think, we were very close. BUT, if we have an opportunity to get a 3rd star, you gotta take it.
I think it would be excellent to have a star player that fills in with star capability a weakness of the team, which at the moment is shooting. However, having three stars is worthless if they can't work together; you can't make an awesome meal solely by throwing a lot of luxurious ingredients into it. When you look at the past season, the things that killed us are all things that everyone can and must work on. 1) Defense. The Rockets simply can't consistently make stops and hold them when they need to. Also, while a single dominant offensive player can take a game over by himself, it takes FIVE strong, energetic defenders on the court to shut the other team down. 2) Free throws. The team average is humilating, and I've seen dozens of games in the past two years since I started getting back into basketball, where the Rockets would have won if they'd even just shot 75% from the line. The Thunder can keep themselves in games with us even on their off nights just because they are an excellent FT shooting team. Please, Morey, hire Calvin to go beat (literally, if necessary) some sense into all of them in this area. 3) Turnovers. I accept no excuses that it's okay to consistently lead the league in turnovers simply because we run such a high-volume and fast offense that the extra number of points generated offsets those lost on turnovers. These are mostly preventable. They come from either lazy or highlight-seeking passes that are easily picked off. They come from not securing loose balls, because there's such a rush to get the ball down court for a fast break that the ball is stolen right back. It all seems to me like they could still be an incredibly fast team, but cut their turnovers by half if they'd think for a split second longer in these situations. 4) Offensive rebounding. Might as well be called a semi-turnover. Dwight and Asik are fine (though Asik won't be here next year), but the rest of team needs to study video and pay attention to where balls consistently land when certain shots are missed. How often have we seen one of our threes bounce right out to the free throw line where there's an opponent waiting and not a Rocket in sight? 5) Consistent hard play through four quarters. Holy crap. I've never seen a team that can go into the locker room and perform such a perfect Jekyll and Hyde transformation like the Rockets. It's not just tiredness; it's actual strategic mistakes. Chandler may be lighting it up in the first half, and then he'll simply stop attempting to score in the second half. Opponent defensive changes can only account for so much, because he's got the best Swiss Army knife of skills on the team to just keep on trucking in any situation. It's a matter of motivation, and in his case, I think he's just too damn nice and UNselfish. If you score 20 points in the first half with a good FG%, no one's going to be upset if you end up with 40 by the end. And I only single out Chandler, because he has so much potential, he'd be unstoppable if he'd use it fully. The others also need to go out there blazing and keep blazing through the 48th minute. 6) Related to my above point, not delivering the killing blow to the other team, only to have them come back and make you pay for it. It's watching a fictional trope play out in real life. The Spurs do NOT cotton to that, and it shows in the lopsided scores of their finals victories. At this point I feel like I'm simply parroting Calvin after every loss. Still, my point is that my conclusion is the same as yours. The team has amazing offensive potential NOW as we've seen (needs a little more bench depth), but they kill themselves on all the other aspects of the game. Another star coming in to that situation will probably find themselves frustrated. You can see how annoyed Lebron gets when Miami goes into do-everything-for-us mode, and I don't blame him. They could start slaughtering teams left and right next season (not simply winning, but slaughtering), and all they'd need is to seriously up their own individual games to where they should be. Now, with so many young, immature guys, they simply may not have the coaching to drive them to that point. I'd be fine with bringing in another awesome player, but it's not going to put a ring on everyone's finger if the team's foundation is shaky. It doesn't matter whether it's a basketball team or not; ANY business is going to squander expensive talent it brings in if the business itself is majorly flawed (huge personal experience there). I have faith in Morey's procurement skills, but after watching how the Spurs played in the finals, I knew clearly our total team as it stands now would be inferior to theirs when playoff time comes. But that's mostly due to factors we have control over, in my opinion, not the lack of another superstar.
