2022-23 Houston Rockets -- will they be over/under 24.5 wins?

Head 2 head matchups from last year.

# Teams we won the series.
Wizards (2-0)
Thunder (3-1)

#Teams we split the series.
Hawks (1-1)
Nets (1-1)
Bulls (1-1)
Hornets (1-1)
Cavs (1-1) # Probably not a split now that Donovan is there.
Pistons (1-1) # Despite getting Ivey, Cade and Pistons still has major spacing issue, we've a good chance here.
Magic (1-1)
Blazers (2-2) # the two Rockets won, Blazers tanked with rec league players.

# On the wins over Hornets/Bulls/Hawks - rockets got super hot, outscored them. Hornets one was an overtime. Team had to claw to get those wins. Those seem like the teams that Silas' system can win against. Hope is our defense becomes somewhat respectable. And 5-out offense becomes better than 26th...​

# Teams we got one game on.
Jazz (1-3)
Grizz (1-3)
Lakers (1-3)
Pelicans (1-3)
Spurs (1-3)
Kings (1-3)

# Jazz and Spurs has gotten worse; we'll see...​

# Teams that swept us
Celtics (0-2)
Mavs (0-4) # Wood's upcoming revenge game is indeed a thing.
Nuggets (0-3)
Warriors (0-3)
Clippers (0-3)
Heat (0-2)
Bucks (0-2)
Knicks (0-2)
Pacers (0-2)
76sers (0-2)
TWolves (0-3)
Suns (0-4)
Raptors (0-2)

 

Agreed. I think it's unrealistic they will be bad enough to get good odds for a top 5 pick though.

 

I want another top 3 pick but if we get 7-10 and Green, Jabari, Sengun, KPJ, Eason, Christopher, Tate, and TyTy start resembling a core with Green and Jabari leading the way it would be a huge step in the right direction

I say 28-32 wins is realistic, defense and 3 point shoot will be better this year

 

Over for sure

 

i'd go over...
i dont think they're gonna saddle the kids with purposefully tanking...
i'm thinking 30ish...

 

If nobody’s injured and Rockets don’t win that much, it would a failure for this Rockets team. Silas should be replaced then. Jalen should be able to at least engineer a couple of wins by himself…

 

I feel over but not by much.

 

We've gotten younger and I expect them to trade Gordon at some point. Under. I expect after this season they will begin the process of assessing how to bolster the roster they have and win games in earnest. I expect a big leap next season, but this year I think we'll still be gunning for the worst record in the league.

 

Moving up from 7-10 to 3-5 if there is a specific player/position they want to should not be too difficult if they truly wanted to.

 

30 wins. Vast improvement, top 8 pick. "Win-win" situation.

 

If we are talking about team talent wise easily over 25 wise. If we are talking about team + SILAS its possible under.

 

For a team that got 20 wins total last season, I think 24 wins feels about right and we can still see a lot of improvement in that - I'll take the under. Wood got the 2nd most minutes(over 2k) on the team last year - replace him with a talented but completely unproven rookie who will likely be worse than Wood next year. Gordon and Kenyon Martin got 6th and 7th most minutes(around 1600) and both are likely to not even finish the season with us....and otherwise we spent another 1500 minutes last year playing vets Theis, Augustin, and Schroder. We have no such veteran presence this year for better or worse...this is really going to be about turning the volume up on letting the young guys make mistakes and learn in real time. I think in reality although there will be some small steps taken by our young guys, the team will overall be worse because players in their first few years are notorious for making mistakes and mistakes cost teams wins in otherwise winnable games. Vets make a lot less mistakes - even low ceiling guys like the ones we had. Let's just lean into it, hope for a top 7 pick next year and by draft time next year let's come prepared to start making some decisions about who is/isn't worth building around on this team and approach the draft with somewhat of a team identity in mind(unless we happen to draft high enough to get a real ceiling raiser). That means our goal at the end of this year is have some idea of the ceiling for KPJ especially, but also Sengun & Green, and to a lesser extent Smith.

 

NBA Southwest Division futures:

Memphis Grizzlies +105
Dallas Mavericks +145
New Orleans Pelicans +350
Houston Rockets +24000
San Antonio Spurs +24000

https://www.yardbarker.com/nba/arti...933726?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=sportspyder

+24000

 

I will stay with my 27 win prediction, but I think it could go higher still.

DD

 

My problem is I keep saying to myself that if Greene does this, Jabari does that and so on, we will be REALLY good.
And when I am having this imagining, its hard for me to believe they could be below .500 as a team, much less bottom 4.

But then I snap out of it and think 24-28 wins is reasonable.

 

Definitely think we CAN win over 25. It’s just a matter of how Silas coaches and approaches this season. Jabari might be able to be immediately effective like Mobley was in CLE. KPJ and Green both take a moderate jump and we play to win with Ego getting key minutes, I think we certainly can compete for that play in spot.

 

Houston Rockets Depth Chart
Depth Chart

STARTER............... 2ND........................ 3RD
6'4" Kevin Porter Jr. 6'4" Theo Maledon 6'3" TyTy Washington Jr.
6'4"Jalen Green 6'5"Josh Christopher 6'5"Garrison Mathews
6'3"Eric Gordon 6'4"Jae'Sean Tate 6'8" Tari Eason
6'10"Jabari Smith Jr. 6'4" Jae'Sean Tate 6'8" Tari Eason
6'9"Alperen Sengun 6'9"Derrick Favors 6'8"Usman Garuba

https://www.espn.com/nba/team/depth/_/name/hou/houston-rockets

I couldn't find (easily) a chart with depth and player height, so I fashioned this one after ESPN's.

Whether you agree or not with ESPN opinion really isn't my point, its that this is still a very small team.
Most glaringly at the 3. Until Gordon is somewhere else, most nights you wont see anyone above 6'5" at the 1, 2 or 3.

 

Nix is snubbed. He is 6'5'.
Green is 6'6 with hair.
Both Smith and Sengun are 7' with shoes.
Boban alone would raise the average height by 6 inches.

 

You are looking at the players' height without shoes, with shoes majority of them are above 6'5 with EG and JC (JC is 6'3 without shoes) only being the shorties.

6'5 KPJ at pg is actually pretty big, a lot of pgs are barely 6'3 with shoes on. The other guys are all 6'4/6'5 in shoes so they are also on the taller side of PGs.
6'6 Green at sg is also big for a shooting guard since majority of SG are 6'4 with shoes on
6'4 Eric Gordon at sf is the only short guy but we eventually see 6'8 Tari Eason as the long term starter anyway. Regardless EG has been clutch at SF so I wouldn't worry about him.
6'10 Jabari is tall for a PF as most PFs tend to be 6'8/6'9 in shoes
6'9 Sengun is another shorty but you are hoping his offense and skills make up for his lack of height similar to EG. 6'9 Derrick Favors has like 7'4 wingspan so nah he isn't undersized. Same with Bruno Fernando who is 6'10 with shoes and has a 7'3 wingspan. 6'10 big men with over 7 ft wingspan are the ideal height for centers now just look at guys like Al Horford, Timelord, Bam Adebayo, Kevon Looney etc

Usman Garuba is undersized at both 4 and 5 and IMO should be lumped with Garrison Mathews and KJ Martin as a third tier in the rotation.

 

Eric Gordon just has to go ..... sooner than later. It just makes distributing minutes so much easier.