http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/BDL-s-2009-10-NBA-Preview-Houston-Rockets;_ylt=Apy8bpyj1_EDZfYzOgTRiSO8vLYF?urn=nba,195307 Kelly Dwyer's Ball Don't Lie blog on Yahoo! Click the link to read
An extremely good read. The guy does know what he's talking about here. The only area I disagree with is the notion we will have a losing season. I think we will break 500 easily, but making the playoffs is a different story. I think the other area that is suspect is everyone forgets how good Morey is. The roster we have right now is not going to be the roster we finish with. For some reason every analyst looks at the rosters as if they are set in stone. With some teams (Boston, LA, Cleveland) this is true, but teams like Houston, Portland, and even Phoenix could easily make a couple simple moves that turn the team around completely from what they started with. True, Portland looks strong as is, but still, they could be stronger. All in all, as myopic as this piece is, I think it's on the money.
I think he got it mostly right. It was a pretty superficial review of the team and the season. In the 2nd quarter of the season I think we'll see our team struggle somewhat with the defense. Playing the run and gun game, and having to run back to defense is going to tire out a lot of our players. So the part where we struggle to score 80 pts but holding opponents to 70-odd pts, I'm not sure about. Also, abc2007 the point of providing only the link was for the yahoo site to register a fair number of hits, crediting the author for their work . Not a big deal though.
Good read....I agree I truly believe this will be a entertaining year watching this team fight....if Tracy comes back and he's not his old self, then 37 wins seems right. If he's back and healthy (90% + of his old self) Then we will be knocking at the door of another 50 win season. I'm thinking 48 wins....prob not enough to make the playoffs, but an entertaining season. Tracy is the key and it's easy to forget how good he really is because of the injuries and nonsense associated with him, but if he comes back healthy and the team can hang around 500 ball a 1/4 of the season until he returns.....we can have a good year. A lot of if's.....but Tracy is an egomaniac. If he's healthy, he will feel the need to prove people wrong and will punish defenders night after night. Also...contract year. Just my opinion.....but I'm expecting a fun season. I look forward watching this team grow.
a very fair assessment. i think we can play .500 ball all season long, with an 8-10 game winning streak that might put us over the top...
That's a very fair and accurate assessment. If the Rockets break .500 it won't be easily and it will mean that McGrady returned healthy and in 07-08 form. abc2007, why did you post the entire article? The link is in the OP so I don't really see the point of posting the article unless your goal is to try to screw Kelly's article out of hits and thus screw him out of $$.
My hope is the four games he overstated this year are the four games he understated this year. I just really want this team to be a .500 club.
After watching the preseason games I unfortunately must concur. This team is likely to finish just out of the playoffs unless someone makes a tremendous leap in playing ability in the next couple months.
Wait... being a member of the board for 6 years longer than you, not to mention a regular contributor over much of that time, doesn't count as "earning it"? What exactly is your criteria?