Those are just facts, no disrespect at all. They played out their minds with their endless hustle, with their heart and effort, but they are still a mediocre team because the lack of talent. As you just said,40M sitting in street clothes. I always try to be objective and not get carried away by expectation. Most fans here rate people or team purely base on expectations. I still remember how people voted Jimmy Jackson as the MVP of Rockets one year, how people thought Von Wafer was better than Tmac the other year, etc.
No complaints from me either. But in the same time, I can't rate this team as an elite team and I don't think Dallas, Denver would fall like OP predicted.
So what, there are only 3 catagories for how good teams are? Bad, mediocre and elite? a team cant simply be a GOOD team? And your reasoning is that they are mediocre because they lack talent, which means that talent is effectively your measuring stick for how good a team is. Sorry, but your logic is fail.
Any logic would fail if you don't read it correctly. Talent is one part of the game, as well as effort etc. I never used talent as the only measuring stick, otherwise Rockets should be a bottom feeder. Sure you can have a different rating system, like Rockets being #6 team in this RPI thing, but I don't feel this is a top 6 team in NBA yet. They played well, but not that well if you look at what teams they won, what teams they lost. I have no problem if you claim Rockets is a good team, because they are. But for me, I only have 3 types, elite teams fighting for championship, bad teams fighting for lottery picks, mediocre teams otherwise.
It seems that the schedule every year is very favorable for the Lakers while the Rox early schedule for the past few has been brutal. It is a distinct advantage to start the year with a long home stretch because staying home for long stretches of time enables the team to get in more practices and then be better able to win when it goes on the road.
We a mediocre to good team, if there is something between that, to me a mediocre team is the raptors or bulls and I think we are better then they are but i dont think we are up there with Portland, Dallas or any of those teams. I think we played well though, what's going to get this team into the playoffs is to beat bad teams like we have and steal a few from good teams like we have been so obviously we will have a losing record against elite teams bc we are not an elite team and anyone thinking we are is out of their mind. But if we can consistently beat poorer teams and steal some here and there from playoff teams, we should be in the playoff hunt in march / april..
This point would be stronger if it weren't for the fact that Phoenix is ranked ahead of the Rockets on this list.
Not odd at all -- the league has a vested interest in the reigning champions getting off to a solid start. They're just making things easy on those softies so they don't stumble coming out of the gate.
I think Portland is WAY overrated, even with a healthy Oden. If not for that last-minute shot the other night, they and the Rockets would have identical records -- but the Rox have had the third-toughest schedule in the league so far and the Blazers have had the third-EASIEST.
Considering how difficult the schedule has been, I'd almost be happy with 11-9 even if Yao and McGrady were playing.
Lakers at Houston, Rockets at Atlanta, and Rockets at Portland were all decided by the final shot of the game. If one is inclined to believe in "quality losses," I suppose those games would qualify by any standard. I'm satisfied with the Rockets' performance thus far. They appear to be roughly as good as I expected. I suspect that they'll sneak into the playoffs this year, with McGrady or without. I certainly don't feel the record so far justifies hurrying to insert McGrady.
Some of the "hard" matchups we have faced thus far will become easier games for other teams later in the season due to dead legs, injuries, and disinterest. Polly Anna is not my mother.
That's why you need to look at not only the schedule, but how we played against strong opponents. We are 5-8 against winning teams, I doubt many people would be happy with the results if both Yao and Tmac were in the lineup.
I don't get how people can say this team isn't talented. Aaron Brooks, Trevor, Carl landry, and Luis Scola all have talent. Even Lowry, Budinger, and battier are talented to some extent. The Rockets are FAR more talented than any bottom feeder in this league (which explains why they DONT have a bottom feeder record). We have a good team, people need to realize that.
If you're defining a team as mediocre based on their mediocre record through just a quarter of the season, then you are missing the entire point of this thread. What you're doing is almost like saying someone is mediocre because they got a C+ in astrophysics and then saying someone else is excellent because they got an A in algebra. You're not getting the whole picture unless you take circumstances into account.
Many people didn't agree I called Rockets mediocre at that time. After 41 games, exactly half point of the season, Rockets are 12-1 against teams under 0.500, 11-17 against teams above 0.500. It more and more looks like a mediocre team. They play hard enough to beat bad teams all the time, but not talented enough to beat good teams consistently. Yao's impact on both ends of the floor was underestimated by a lot fans when they thought Yao was no longer needed in this system. Per 100 possessions last season, Rockets scored 5.6 more points while gave up 5.4 fewer points when Yao was on the floor, mostly against opponents starting lineups. Overall, the team is over achieving despite losing 40 mil in the starting lineup.
