With a healthy Love and improved Rubio, I think they could take the last spot: 1. Clippers 2. Thunder 3. Spurs 4. Rockets 5. Warriors 6. Grizzlies 7. Mavericks 8. Wolves
I'll say no to the playoffs for Minnesota. Adelman is a career overachiever and will probably make things interesting, but there's simply too many injury-prone players and questionable fits on that squad. I also question the upside of a lot of their younger guys.
Of the 8 Playoff teams from last year, I really only expect the Lakers and Nuggets to struggle to get back to their prior spot. George Karl maxed out that team, and it was a total shame to see him get axed for doing such a remarkable job. That leaves the 7th and 8th seeds. I really think the Lakers tank off... Dallas, Minny, Pelicans, and the Blazers compete for those spots. I think Dallas gets in because of Dirk and Minny gets in because Adelman is a master magician with marginal rosters. Imagine what he could do once his team is healthy for the season. Baring any trades...However, an injury or trade can alter these standings dramatically 1. OKC - Without Durant, they would be really bad 2. Spurs - Without Parker, they wont win the division 3. Clippers - Without CP3, they would be a lottery team 4. Rockets - Without Harden, we would be a lottery team(could weather the storm if Dwight was hurt) 5. GSW - Without Steph Curry, they are a really garbage team 6. Memphis - Conley really is the most valuable player 7. Minnesota - A healthy Kevin Love or no playoffs 8. Dallas - Without Dirk, they would be the worst team in our Division/Conference Lottery: 9. Denver - Lost a HOF coach, and a top defensive player in Iggy; I expect a tail off in performance 10. Portland - Liliard is now more valuable than LA... 11. New Orleans - I still think Davis is a bit overrated 12. Lakers - They lost Kobe and Dwight(plus ron thru amnesty) that is a significant portion of offense that they will be missing...they would need a 30 pt per game Kobe to carry them again to the playoffs...but this time with a surgically corrected tendon 13. Utah - How do loose Al Jefferson and Milsap for nothing?? smdh.. 14. Kings - A team without direction 15. Suns - Have a ton of draft picks coming up, in a talent rich 2014, 2015...they are in good shape for the future...
The backcourt is pretty set, though a little tilted to the offensive side. The frontcourt, though, is thin after Love and Pekovic. Any little injury to either and they may be in danger of missing the playoffs again.
they'll be like us in 2010, one of the best defenses and fighting for that last spot. But unlike us, they won't get out rebounded, so they might pull of a couple of more wins.
Bold Prediction: The rockets won't make the playoffs this year. reason #1, the rockets have little to no point guard talent or experience. Lin is terrible and Beverly only real claim to fame is knocking westbrook out of the playoffs. reason #2, the rockets traded all of their depth for thomas robinson who eventually was traded to make room for dwight. reason #3 the west is really good this year and no teams are absolutely pushovers. Much better than last year and despite what rockets fans want to believe, the rockets are not better than: okc, spurs, gsw, grizzlies, clippers, who have all proved themselves by getting to at least the 2nd round of the playoffs within the last 2 years. That means that the rockets will be vying for the last 3 spots in the playoffs where they have to contend with the likes of: twolves, portland, (a better dallas team with monta), an underrated Hornets team, and a motivated denver team who was the 3rd seeded team last year and still has a solid core. reason #4 Lin, Dwight and Harden are all injury prone, and with no significant backups behind Harden and Lin, 1 injury for even 10 days could cost the rockets a playoff spot. reason #5, the rockets and dwight aren't a good fit style-wise. The rockets, harden and co., are built to be an up and down team who tries to outscore their opponets when dwight starts demanding the ball down low the rockets offense is going to take a hit and the fact is that without a high scoring offense the rockets swiss cheese defense won't get it done. I have might doubts that dwight can rally the pices around him to play any good kind of defense to overcome the hit on offense the team will take with dwight on the team.
I think they will be this years surprise team granted they're healthy. They have the talent and coach. It's time they put it all together. If they don't get the 7th seed at least it would be a big disappointment. It's their time.
the rockets are at least a year away from doing anything. The year after next, once Lin has a big expiring contract, and morey can go to work building a solid bench behind the starters and hopefully get a solid pg, this team could work. Also, hopefully DonMon will provide a return on investment and can be part of a trade chip to get a solid pg on the team. Eric Bledsoe would be perfect for this team, but it isn't likely to happen since his free agency will be next year. Asik, Parsons, Harden, Dwight are solid players but beyond that your team is thin and the lack of a real pg is going to be too much.
Lin played well enough in the last months, second half of the season. Beverley is solid and took out Westbrook. Brooks and Canaan are good shooters.
Huh? Howard has missed a grand total of 25 games over the last 9 years and at least 3 of those were due to suspensions. Harden has missed only 14 games over 4 years. Lin played in all 82 regular season games last season. How do you figure that they are injury prone?
Your logic doesn't make sense. Yes the Rockets ran like crazy last year but that was out of necessity...we just weren't nearly as good in the half court. So why can't the Rockets still run this year? If the fast break is there then they'll run same as last season. What will be different is that when the break isn't there we won't struggle to try and get a decent shot in the half court. It's similar to the old Showtime Lakers team. They were probably the greatest fast breaking team ever but they had an aging Kareem in the middle. They ran at every opportunity and when they couldn't get an easy basket then they waited for Kareem to post up. That's really the best of both worlds as your not dependent on only fast breaks or post ups. I think we've all seen how badly the Rockets offense struggles last season when we were unable to run. Now we actually have the ability to also score in the half court. Oh, and by the way, the defense will be much improved with Dwight Howard patrolling the paint.
Lin hurt his pec in SHOOTAROUND. Okay by running into Thabo(likely). The dude is fragile when it counts, Harden's foot injury nearly cost the rockets the 8th seed last year. What you fail to mention about howard's back surgery which was in the last 2 years. Nobody questions dwight's commitment to play in his first 7 years.
You have Beverley and Brooks who are playoff proven. I guess Lin had injuries when it counted but that is just a coincidence.
Reason #2 is also weak. The Rockets traded Patrick Patterson, Cole Aldrich and Tony Douglas for Robinson, Francisco Garcia and Tyler Honeycutt. Aldrich and Douglas wouldn't be in our rotation this season. Garcia will the first wing player off the bench. So the net effect is Patterson is out and Garcia is in. How is that trading away all of our depth? One of the reasons that we traded Patterson (and also Morris) is to open up time for D-Mo and Patterson. We traded off two guys from a position that we were overloaded for a player at a position where we were thin. How do you think the OKC series would have gone if we hadn't had Garcia? Don't forget that we also turned Robinson into two Euro players and a pair of second round picks.
