You know if he is right then we will have had a bad season. I think he will be wrong and we end up the 4th again as long as our starters stay reasonably healthy. People outside the area don't watch every minute of Rockets play like we do here so all they are seeing is player movement. Guess we could say that Barkley is ignorant.
Who cares, Dallas and Memphis took their opponents to game sevens in the last playoffs, we got the fifth seed and didn't even win the first two home games. Seeding in the Western Conference is overrated, as long we're in the playoffs come 2015, I'd happily take it.
Home court is a bit overrated . I would much rather have a fully healthy and peaking team going into the playoffs than be run down and have home court. As long as harden and Howard are fully healthy we have a shot in any series especially if they improve this year .
I think the Rockets have a lot of question marks in terms of depth and their starting PF spot, so it's not totally crazy for people to think the Rockets got a little worse. I'm not saying I agree with those people though, I'm cautiously optimistic, but from an outsiders perspective I can see the question marks.
I'm not talking about that type of depth. That's unique to a few team. When Harden or Dwight is out, we look lost and very average to below average. I would even said if Bev or TJones miss any significant time, we are in some trouble (against elite team). The Rocket system was already overly reliant on two superstar. Add an extremely weak bench on top of that... Other playoff level teams can withstand injury to starters. I don't think we can.
I don't care about seeding in the regular season. Why is clutchfans always lying to themselves where we will end up? The only reason that could be important is so we play a weaker team.....but we know what happened when we did. That is what Charles is basing that off of. When the rockets do more then second round then they will be taken seriously.
Seeding to avoid a certain team is more important than seeding for home court, though I'm note sure the Rockets could have beaten any of the other 7 teams in the WC playoffs last season.
lol Houston could have gotten out of the 1st round very probably by playing a different team. No way to predict otherwise except if we had been matched up with a team that had a weak 4 or 5 we would have stomped them. There is a reason we matched up well with SA but not Portland. If we would have had a bench at all last year we could have matched OKC but we can always wish this stuff. Since we were weak in 2 areas it made it easy to exploit us. Playoffs are all about seeding and matchups.
Barkley of course doesn't consider that Morey will probably make a deal for a good to great player at some point during the season. Asik is the only huge loss of the off-season. Ariza > Parsons. Lin is a joke. If we can deal for a good backup big and that elusive above average PG then the Rockets will be in the mix for a trip to the Finals. Do not underestimate the heart of Daryl Morey.
The addition by subtraction theory is the dumbest theory i have ever heard. I am grateful Ariza is working out for us but we are still very shallow off the bench. Too much unproven talent and troy daniels is starting to look like a bust. I hope a trade goes down where we can pick up a guy like Rondo or Dragic or I truly do feel like we are first round exits again.
lol No upgrade at PF then no deep playoff run with a PG upgrade or not. TJ is not going to get us there and he is the best we have.
With a good start like Portland had last year and a good finish, with OKC having problems, I could see us getting to 3rd and 2nd seed at best. Barring injuries of course
According to our roster and "expected" output from our players, he's right. We are a 7th seed team. We have no bench, and we need a major upgrade at the 4 spot (even though tjones is holding his own so far). We just have absolutely no depth this season which is our biggest weakness. I think our starting 5 can get by just fine. But compared to last year having asik and lin off the bench (more so asik) along with garcia, AB, we just aren't as stacked as we were. If we could play our starters all 48 minutes per game, then we would without a doubt be contenders. But the way the game works, you need a bench. and we don't have one. If we would have landed bosh, we would have instantly been contenders. Pushing Tjones off the bench, with Jterry and some other players, we would have been a real force.
