I hate to say it, but.... NO we won't! We have NO superstar(s) on this team! We have just a bunch of role players or overachievers, we are small up front, & teams with good bigs, will kills this team. Sure we can run fast, but we still have to play a half court game! Let us not kid ourselves, cuz (de)NILE is a river in Egypt! I still want this team to play smart & hard, but I'm torn, do we tank to get a good chance at the NBA lotto next year?! Anyway, even if this team does'nt tank, I still think we won't make the play offs! I hope I'm proven wrong! I guess I'm just upset cuz it has been over 14 yrs since our last glory day!
Honestly, it depends on how bad other teams are in the Western conference or who many victories we can steal. Portland, LA, Dallas, San Antonio, Denver and Utah, all seemed locked for the playoffs, plus New Orleans. But I am thinking that if we play at a high enough level, we should still be able to sneak into the playoffs.
Is anyone interested in a poll predicting the number of games the Rockets will win this year? I do not have the permissions to start threads yet, but I did start a thread like this on another board. The poll included the following choices: 55 or more 50-54 45-49 40-44 35-39 30-34 29 or less
i dont think so.i dont think we'd make the playoffs w/out a YAO or TMAC the west is a beast and the east isnt as week as it used to be.So wins arent easy to come by on either coast. we either need a healthy YAO or a TMAC to make it.
I think there is a good chance that comes from fighting for #8 spot with Phoenix: LA Denver SA Portland Utah Dallas NO There goes your 7 - and for #8, you have Rockets, Phoenix, Clips(???). Grizz, Kings, Mini, GS and Oklahoma -- no chance.
On a separate note, I have been watching my taped games from last season for a while(ya, it's the freakin off-season). I now realize how we took the big fella in the middle so given. Man, I can not appreciate more, how fluidly, how easily he scores, he makes the offense looks so easy. And on the defense, just being there in the paint makes the other team to run their offense so difficult. In our second game of last season against Mavs, at one instance, Jason Terry drove into lane, saw Yao and just back paddled so fast - it was so hilarious - like those "Tom and Jerry catroon back-paddling" - very funny. Now that he is out, so many small and big weaknesses of the team will surface. I miss our big man, I will miss his game this season. Get well Yao and come join our team soon.
I don't think Portland is a lock, i put them on the same level as Rox, Pho and the clips rank even lower for me. And it needs to be seen if Denver can mantain last year's level, same as Dallas that is declining more and more every year. On the other side i think we can say that the rox are steadilly improving since Adelman started coaching them, and i can expect them to continue to grow. I believe we can get a 6th seed.
I gotta say that when i started the poll i was expecting a lot more Negativism than 15%. I was also suprised by the ammount of people that see in T-Mac a potential season saviour. It's early and would be a jinx, but i am really tempted to make a poll about how far do we go in the PO if we enter Round One, Game 1, with our complete team in rythm. (Yes, with both Yao -say he comes back 10 games before PO- and Tmac -say he has at least 30 games played by PO time-). I smell that a lot of people here would see us in the Finals if that happens. I won't jinx so don't worry.
lol...keep on dreaming man. Who are gonna be the 1st, 2nd and 3rd teams? IMO, lakers and spurs (if healthy) will be 1 and 2. denver and portland is gonna battle it out for 3 and 4. We are not as good as these two teams. their front court alone is just overwhelming for us. Add in the fact that they have a super star wing to go to (both I feel are better than tmac at this point) plus denver has Chuancy who is on a different level to brooks (although old, but definitely a great pg who can lead the team and score, his contract is his only problem). So our BEST hope is the 5th seed. Even with a Orlando days tmac, I don't think we would get the 4th seed. Our lack of interior size and strength is really gonna come back and haunt us this year. In previous years when tmac was playing alone (during the 22 streak...etc) we had Deke to come in which kind of secured the rebounding and shot blocking (well he was one of the best at it). Now we just don't have that kind of presence no more. Pops, dorsey, hayes, laundry and scola are great. But they are not starting centres. The size and strength of western front courts are incredible. I am not getting my hopes up too high on Andersen who play good against oposing centres.
