Kid says teams like the Clips and Lakers were put together in an attempt to beat the Rockets......Jesus Christ
.....weren't the #1 seed last year, most of the teams got better, we got older = #1 seed next year. Own the Nuggets? What, are we playing them 75 times next year, the **** does that matter?
Most of the teams got better? Clippers got better, Lakers got better, Utah got better. Warriors got substantially worse, OKC will be too. This year we are not starting the year playing Melo, MCW, and Ennis significant minutes. Instead, we will using largely the same team that won at 60-win pace in the second half of the season.
Well ya they have Harden, Chris Freaking Paul , Capela, and Eric Gordon on the same team lol , All are averaging 16+ ppg a game man. Im not a kid btw. James Harden is averaging 36.1ppg insane like doing stuff Micheal Jordan cant do. Rockets are legit man.
I think people tend to overrate other teams and underrate the Rockets a lot. Its fine I think the Rockets are more tested and ready than the other teams listed on here and last year it was really injuries that stopped them from having potentially the best record in the west even after their slow start. but if I were to break it down: 1- Clippers - Kawhi is always going to have his load management and George will not even be ready at the start of the season after his shoulder surgeries. They definitely have a balanced and loaded team but its going to be really different how they are going to play. A lot of their identity was the underdog scrappy team that other teams overlooked and that will not be the case at all next season. How will they gel? What sort of system will they run? Doc is going to have to start from square one for this. The Kawhi/PG looks great on paper but how exactly will it work out between them? There were a ton of questions about how Harden/CP3 were going to mesh and it worked out fine because of the way MDA played them, but there are hardly any if at all questions regarding the same thing about PG and Kawhi. 2 - Lakers - LeBron is a year older coming off an injury. AD is going to be in pressure situations and under a spotlight he has not been under before with the Pelicans. They did a decent job rounding the team out but a lot of these guys are on 1 year deals or 2 years with player option deals that will want them to go out and fight for their next contract immediately. Sometimes that is good and sometimes that can be a disaster. They will NOT be a good defensive team at all. Now add in a brand new coach in Vogel and an assistant with a penchant for usurping head coaches in Kidd this can easily be a disaster as much as a success. What happens when LeBron doesn't really like what Vogel is doing? Another mutiny again? 3 - Jazz --- they got a lot better I am not going to lie here - Conley, Bojan and Ed Davis are all really solid pick ups for them, but I felt they overpayed for Bojan. But the Jazz will go as Mitchell goes and if he doesn't take the next step (he didn't IMO last season) then they will stay that '50 win team that no one wants to play' in the playoffs but will not be winning it all. Are they better than the Rockets right now? IMO no they are not but they are closer to them Rockets than they have been the last two seasons. They have to go out and prove it now. 4. Nuggets had a great season but how will this team perform now that there are expectations on them? Murray got his large extension is he going to be just as hungry? Grant was a nice acquisition to replace Milsap eventually but their big improvement was to be from MPJ this season who ended up not even playing in summer league again due to injuries. The Nuggets still are a very flawed team that the Rockets match up with extremely well. I think teams have scouted them a lot better this year and they will not be sneaking up on them at all. 5. I think the Blazers got worse, probably a lot worse. They lost Turner, Kanter, Harkless, Leonard, Aminu and added Bazemore and Whiteside. Harkless and Aminu were two starters and if they have to play whiteside until Nurkic is back then its going to be a disaster. Simons has looked really promising so that should help offset some of that loss but I do not think its enough to overcome two starters and two key bench players (Turner/Kanter) See its just as easy to poke holes in all of these other teams as to why they will not do well and prop up the Rockets as to why they will. I think its fine to be critical about the moves the Rockets have and have not made but people are acting like this team is going to be in the lottery next season when they are still looking like to be a 55+ win team (provided that they have good health) I am way happier with the situation the Rockets are in right now than they were 5 years ago. Than they were 15 years ago. I would say 10 years ago but that 2009 Rockets team was probably the best team they've had in terms of talent and depth if it wasn't for injuries. Know what moves the Rockets can do and base your judgements off of that. These other teams are chasing the Rockets not the other way around.
The winning hand was dismantled when KD left. We aren’t better than Clippers but the Nuggets and Blazers aren’t scary. The Lakers aren’t scary, especially if Lebron is saving himself. Utah maybe our equals now or better, will need to see how that plays out.
Oh jeez....I didnt know the Jazz signed Bojan.....man, they are gonna be really good next year. That is a team im very concerned about.
All the jazz sweating makes me laugh. We are 8-2 against them in the playoffs. Are you worried they'll take us to a game 6? The difference between Rubio/Favors and Bogdan/Conley is not that big. Sorry.
Officially, they said 5-7 months of recuperation after the surgery before he can play. Klay's pretty young and seems like the kind of guy who would take rehab seriously, so he could be back by January. Maybe even by Christmas. That's why it's important that the Rockets get the highest possible seed with the regular season play. That home court advantage will be critical since the best WC teams seem to be pretty even.
it blows my mind the way this forum acts like the warriors are done and an afterthought. did you all miss the part where they still have 4 all-stars ? solidified the center position by keeping looney, and signing cauley-stein ? they are STILL title contenders, as they were before KD showed up. him leaving does not make them a lottery team jesus christ its laughable to think the rockets are better when we couldnt beat them last year with only 3 all-stars and have made ZERO moves to improve the team. all we have done is fire the coaching staff of the head coach.... yea, im sure that'll make things better around here. SMH
1. Clippers - They have the best chance against us in the playoffs. Three defensive specialists in PG, Kawhi, and Beverley will be tough to handle. On offense, however, it's a complete black box how Doc Rivers will orchestrate things. PG and Kawhi have extremely redundant play styles in that neither one really gets to the rack. They both have an outside-in game that is predicated on post moves, long twos, and threes. Montrezl and Lou are an effective bench pairing but are complete zeros on defense as far as I am concerned. I predict that their games will be a grindfest to start out the year, but then as things go on George and Kawhi will both rack up their customary injuries which force them to sit out 20-30 games. It's happened most years in the past five for them already, and they're only getting older. This is more a team to worry about come playoff time, than in the regular season. We should easily surpass them in reg season wins. 2. Lakers - Take the criticism above and repeat it for Lebron and AD. How many games will they both be playing, healthy and together in December, January, and February? Their rotation so far has Kuzma, Danny Green, Rondo, KCP, Cousins, McGee, and Caruso. They're not going to be very competitive if one of Lebron or AD is out, and in the frontcourt they are downright depleted. Let's project 50-53 wins for them just out of a post-ASB push from Lebron, but a season ending injury is just as likely for the Lakers' Big Two as a trip to the WCF. 3. Jazz - Conley over Rubio is an upgrade, and Bojan pretty much replaces what Jingles gave them two years ago (are we really sure Jingles is ever going to be as good as he was 2yrs ago, ever again? I don't think so). O'Neal and Exum are good defenders against Harden and Paul, respectively. The single matchup, however, that has decided the series the past two years has been Capela vs Gobert. As much of a menace Gobert is against 99% of the league, he just cannot handle our Harden Capela pick n roll game. On the other end, Gobert's offense is soundly contained by Capela's underrated D. Utah is one of the main reasons we need to KEEP Capela, because he really gives us a leg up here, being able to neutralize Gobert's typical advantage against the other team's bigs and then some. Mitchell might keep making gains, but he will have to wait until Harden gets old and fat before he can claim dominance over him. Is next year Harden's year to decline precipitously, at age 30? I tend to think not. 4. Denver - This is the second Western Conference matchup that justifies us hanging onto Clint Capela. Jokic against the rest of the NBA is an MVP candidate. Against our pick n roll offense he is a huge liability. Capela also defends Jokic well. They might all be young and improving, but for the next year at least they'll always be hampered when running up against us. 5. Blazers - Please. Paper Tiger R Us. Lillard and McCollum play no D. They were gnats to us even when Nurkic was healthy, and now that he's looking at a year plus in recovery, they are even more so a team that we will only have to worry about losing to in the regular season, when they treat it like their championship while to us it's just another game. 6. GSW - Everyone is overlooking this team, but with Curry and Draymond, plus D'Angelo Russell in the beginning and Klay back by the end this remains a formidable team and easy top four seed contender. In my book it will be them or the Lakers fighting for that fourth seed behind us, LAC, and Utah. 7. Houston - Harden has gotten better every year, and his game is less predicated on athleticism than any other superstar. Chris Paul was demonstrably worse last year, but even then he had a 19.7 PER and 6.6 win shares, the lowest ever in his career. He had a .172 WS/48 which was also the worst in his career. Compare this to Westbrook who idiots want to trade Paul for straight up: 6.8 win share last year with 15 more games played, .124 WS/48. Call him whatever you want, but Chris Paul his entire career is a huge contributor to winning. That's regular season and postseason. I guarantee you his percentages will improve next year, with regression back to the mean for his 3pt% and FT%. Finally, with Gordon Capela PJ House and Rivers all locked in, we've got something that the Lakers and Clippers don't: continuity. It's hugely underrated, and we should be able to get to a good start right off the bat. Last year was a disaster mostly because performance for our first 20 games in the season caused us to play catch-up the rest of the way. Harden might have carried us almost to the 2 seed while running this team at a 60-win pace along the way, but we paid the price in the playoffs, once again tiring out prematurely. I'm not saying the Rockets will win the West this year. But I am saying that Clutchfans' cries to rebel against the owner and GM are completely unfounded. We are still the Rockets of 2017-2019. Without Golden State at full strength, we are the ones who knock.
Uhmm, so did you notice KD left? And Klay won’t be back/right all year? Yikes, this take, its really really bad. And for that matter the lost Cousins as well too. And Livingston. And cook. I mean, if we are counting.
