House, Rivers and Faried.... worth 15 wins? If this is reality we won’t be able to afford to keep any of them. Also, read the newsletter. #alsorans
Paul’s efficiency is down. FG% 46.0 —> 41.7 3PT% 38.0 —> 34.7 His FTs are even down 90% to 85. His assists ratio is down almost a full assist. He’s still good in this area, but worse than last season. His defense isn’t as good as last year. Are you trying to steer us toward a particular reason ??
i put all blame on melo. he screwed up our chemistry early in the season and lead to our bad record..
Simple. We're not the same team from last year and neither will we be the year after this and the year after next. This sh** really isn't Rocket science.
DM was able to pluck Rivers, Faried and House out of nowhere in like a 1 month period, but the negative view is that if they walk it's a 45 win team? C'mon... depth is obviously very important... but the negative view is CP3 is injured half the year, EG continues to decline, be in and out with injuries, and Harden can't keep up this ridiculous pace. As for the drop-off this year, that's due to, in NO particular order, (i) last year hangover, (ii) horrible offseason moves by DM, (iii) improvements throughout the league and in the West (the 12th place team in the West currently has 32 wins... last year the 12th place team finished with 27; every team in the West already has 30 wins except Phoenix... last year 4 teams finished under 30, etc.), (iv) those improvements coming with continued change in style to what the Rockets already run (and therefor somewhat removing that pure math advantage they had), (v) regression of key players (CP3 until lately, Gordon except sporadically, Tucker, Nene), (vi) Melo ... probably others things on the edges. Everything that could possibly go to worsen the record did.... ... EXCEPT James Harden, then combined with DM quickly fixing his mistakes.
We did better than I predicted. I predicted 48 wins. The roster we built to start the season was a real turkey.
I wish people would think before creating a new thread. This thread is a perfect example of people not understanding stats and using them incorrectly. A few things: You realize only two teams (both in the East) have a chance of getting to 60 wins this season and only one of those 2 teams have a realistic chance right? The West as a whole got tougher. This team is significantly different from last season's. Hell, this roster currently is significantly different than the start of the season's. Point is, different teams, different projected wins. Decline and injuries absolutely do factor into projected wins. It doesn't matter how many games each starter played. What matters is when an injury happens and what type of injury it is. Finally, we overachieved last season. This season, for a variety of reasons (some of our own making) we underachieved. This is why statistics are used to support, not dictate.
Since the 11-14 start the Rockets have been playing at a 61 win pace. Last year we had a bit of luck, remember the philly and phoenix buzzer beaters, whereas this year we seem to have the opposite, the Doncic comeback and the Brooklyn comeback come to mind. Outside of that I think that this years team is basically on par with last years team. So really the question you should be asking here is "why did we start 11-14." Those are the only games that really need inspection, not the entirety of this season.
The defense earlier this season was really bad, but it was fixable. I put most of the blame on cp3 declining and Gordon to a lesser extent. Chris Paul just hasn’t been the same player he was last year. I think harden has had to average 41 ppg because of his decline. I think if harden averaged only 30 ppg, the rockets would have ten or more fewer wins.
One thing no one has brought up is this: Last year the Rockets went after the best record because they thought that home court could be the edge they needed to beat the Warriors. This year getting home court was not a priority. They can play with the Dubs no matter what and the home court thing last season didn't work out anyway.
Ban this fool from starting threads. This not worthy of further discussion, especially TODAY. If you want to talk about this you BumF#ck, go to the many threads that were started at the beginning of the year and continue the conversation there. I suspect the reaction would be similar (I.E. “why the bump NOW?” “This has been discussed enough”)
Because most other teams got a lot better? Look at our record after all star break. I think those are the numbers that are important.
Yeah. That team even over-performed a little bit and played a near perfect season. And we can't just analyze the Rockets in a vacuum to understand a change in record, you also have to look at what the other teams have done. The top 3 teams in the East are better and the West has flattened a little bit but is deeper. Other teams are also adapting to the threes-and-layups scheme and the Rockets advantage in shot selection declines each year as other teams catch up. Strength of schedule and rhythm of the season has been significantly different Lots of personnel changes Many more small injuries and lineup changes than last year Lack of killer instinct letting teams back in games in 2nd halves Just focusing on "all of the Rockets individually suck and are declining and Tilman is cheap" isn't the full story.
Because... Spoiler Tilman is cheap Morey is a horrible GM & is fat Harden is fat Chris Paul grew old Clint Capela dyed a piss spot on his head PJ Tucker became more interested in his shoe collection Eric Gordon stopped having fun and started complaining more Mike D'Antoni didn't call enough timeouts and last but not least, lost superstars Trevor Ariza, Luc Mbah a Moute, De'Anthony Melton & Ryan Anderson.
That tweet needs to get more exposure. It proves Harden was still carrying at the start of the season..... he just wasn't getting the help. If we started with the same team we had now and didn't have the many injuries we have had, we'd be sitting around 55 wins or so. Not to mention, Paul, Gordon and Capela started the season off slowly.
Jeff Bzdelik returned to full time work on 11/23/18. If we give him a few days to get settled in, then we are looking at 40-17 since 11/27/18 with the second best record in the league behind The Bucks. Our defense was horrible to start the year, and we were still trying to develop team chemistry with subpar role players.
Morey said before the season started that the team we start the season with would not be the same team we start the playoffs with. Since the all-star break the Rockets are 16-4.
