INSIDER: NBA season forecast: W-L record for all 30 teams

It is a long article. But here is the Rockets section. They are 5th in the West just ahead of OKC and behind the Clippers. They have the Jazz 3rd.

Houston Rockets
Proj. wins: 45.8
Last season: 41-41

Player spotlight: James Harden
The problem, of course, is defense. Harden's offensive output wasn't much worse than 2014-15, when he was a narrow runner-up to Stephen Curry for MVP (and won the inaugural players' choice award). But after improving his defensive effort, he fell into bad habits after a preseason injury affected his conditioning. Worse yet, Harden's defensive indifference seemed to infect his teammates, and Houston fell from sixth in defensive rating to 21st. If the Rockets are to improve, Harden will need to set the tone -- particularly after agreeing to a contract renegotiation and extension that locks him up through at least 2018-19. Playing fewer minutes might help. Harden played a league-high 38.1 minutes per game last season and shouldn't have to carry such a heavy load with more scoring on the roster.

 

Insert Rockets into ESPN forecast algorithm -> Harden's Defense

 

Ok, why are the Jazz the "IT" team this year (and past years, tbh)

Every year, NBA analyst all go above and beyond to mention that the Jazz are going to be really good this year, but at the end of the year, they are not even in the playoffs, much less being a team that really matters.

Adding Joe Johnson, George Hill and Boris Diaw are solid moves but I don't think they raise the bar for the Jazz that much. Gobert is great defensively but he is horrid on offense past catching a lob or cleaning glass. Hayward is a very good player but he is not a #1 option on a serious team. On a championship team, he might not even be a 2nd option. Hood is good, as is Favors. I do hope Exum can come back from injury and show his potential but its going to take time.

I have the Jazz as a 6-9 team. This is a team that could have been in the playoffs if they just beat the lowly Lakers, and instead let old Kobe dominate them. They may surprise but putting them 3rd is setting them up for failure.

1. Warriors - 65/17
2. Spurs - 61/21
3. Clippers - 58/24
4. Grizzlies - 52/30
5. Rockets - 51/31
6. Jazz - 48/34
7. Blazers - 46/36
8. Thunder - 44/38

9. Mavericks - 42/40
10. Wolves - 40/42
11. Doesn't matter anymore

 

Well, I do believe that the Jazz will be around 48 wins this season so you got that right. Problem with your standings is that if they finish with 48 wins and more wins than both the Blazers and Thunder then that makes them a 4th seed in the west because of division leaders.

Last season they had a good chance of being in the playoffs, but honestly their fate was decided long before those last couple of games. They finished 4 games behind the Blazers who were the 5th seed. The difference between seeding wasn't that great. Here's the interesting thing. The best players for the Jazz missed significant amount of time. Hayward was their Harden in a sense, but Alec Burks, Derrick Favors, Dante Exum and Rudy Gobert all missed significant time. To relate that to the Rockets it would be as if Patrick Beverley, Trevor Ariza, Clint Capela and Dwight Howard were all out last season season. Imagine if Clint(Exum) was out for an entire season. Dwight(Gobert) missed 21 games. Trevor Ariza(Favors) missed 20 games. Patrick Beverley(Burks) missed an entire 51 games. Would you really expect James Harden to be able to lead a Rockets team with all those guys missing to 40+ wins? Much less Gordon Hayward doing that? The fact that they were just couple shots going in for them and out for us just shows how horrid Houston was last season, and it's an embarrassment that we almost missed the playoffs to a team that wasn't close to being 100 percent.

The Jazz were 4 to 5 games out from being the 5th seed. In the perfect world they would have likely been the 7th seed behind the Grizzlies and Rockets, but a ton of western teams were met with misery last season and the Jazz were one of them.

All the Jazz need to do is have a better record than the Blazers and the Thunder for them to be the 4th seed. I think with a healthy roster and the additions of Joe Johnson, Boris Diaw, and George Hill they are very capable of doing it, but it all honestly depends on Westbrook and if he can have a season like Harden had in '14-'15 where he somehow manages to lead horse **** to 54+ wins.

Hill-Mack-Exum
Hood-Burks
Hayward-Johnson
Favors-Lyles
Gobert-Diaw

is a solid, deep, defensive team. They finished last season as the 8th best defensive team. The season before that near the end of the season they ended up becoming a top 5 best defensive team IIRC. In February '15 they were the 2nd top defensive team. March '15 they were the very top defensive team. In April '15 they dropped to 9th best defensive team but where still allowing less than 100 ppg. I see no reason why Utah can't return to being a top defensive team in the league this upcoming season and it just shows that Gobert's importance is so much more than being able to catch a lob. His defensive presence is massive and it over comes any offensive struggles he may have. As for Hayward needing to be a #1 option; he doesn't need to be. He's a very capable closer, but he doesn't need to average more than 23 points per game much like Derozan, Butler, or even Paul George before last season. Obviously I'm not saying Gordon is better or as good as those guys, but Hayward does have legit scoring options next to him such as Derrick Favors who is an efficient scorer and Rodney Hood who is also a solid complimentary scorer.