The Rockets have the youngest, least experienced group of players among contenders

I disagree. First of all, I think hardens ISOS are SO OVERBLOWN. I saw a ton of Lillard ISOS I see a ton of Durant ISOS, Paul George ISOS but they've figured out the magic of the ISO but harden hasn't? I don't buy it. People only remember when they don't work.


And you don't think experience will help harden determine when to ISO and when to not?

 

Rudy T Disagrees.

 

We arnt contenders, more like pretenders.

 

Let me cast an experience spell.....hold on...there we go

 

To be honest, I expected the gap between our age and experience level and the other contenders to be even larger than it is. Of course, Dwight raised our age and experience level a lot this year.

 

That Sam Cassell and Robert Hoooooorry sure had lots of experiences when the Rockets won two championships. Vernon Maxwell had the maturity of a 5 year old. Two starters and your number 1 backup. Experience at non Star positions if over rated. Defense is the issue with these guys and we know Dwight and Parson aren't the issue.

I think a decent playoff run and the realization that defense matters by Harden will be the difference next year. Fun team to watch so sit back and enjoy. The whole cardiac kids thing is a little bit of a pain in the ass. I can use more blow outs like they did to the Blazers. Blazers and Clippers will get smoked in the playoffs this year, by the way.

 

NOD from me

 

harden has missed 6 games
lin has missed 10 games
chandler has missed 5 games
beverley has missed 17 games
omer has missed 26 games
Tj even has missed a couple
^this is 6 of our top 7 players

Plus we have the youngest team right now to be contending....and people are seriously still b****ing about our 28-15 record. Lower your damn expectations for a team that has had this little of experience and are still in their first year together. We have only played a couple of games with a full healthy roster....CF's are they type of people who are 4's and expect to be banging 10's every night......get a little realistic about our team it wont kill you i promise.

 

Excellent post, bruh. We need more of this in the GARM.

Repped.

 

thats why experience was counted as a big part.

the top 3 players there Durant, Westbrook and Ibaka have played multiple seasons together, went through many playoff battles and deep playoffs runs together.

That alone brings a lot of chemistry and experience.

Parsons and Greg Smith are the only two guys on the current team that were on the Rockets two seasons ago. You dont just throw people together and expect to win. Not to mention all the other guys around Ibaka, Durant and Westbook - you have guys like Perkins, Thabo, Fisher, Collison -- guys with more experience helping them along. (The Heat did it but they brought together possibly 3 of the top 10 players including the best player by a mile together and even then they didn't win in their first year)

The Rockets most experienced player right now is Dwight Howard who just joined the team - and its not like Howard is a minor cog --- he is a huge piece - the 2nd star. All that goes a long long way.

The Thunder went through a LOT of growing pains

Durant's first year - 20 wins
Second year (w/ westbrook) - 23
third year - (add harden and Ibaka) 50 wins -- first round loss
fourth year - 55 -- wcf loss
fifth year - 47 (lockout) -- finals loss
sixth year - 60 wins -- second round (no westbrook)


If you want too look at the most "successful year" of Durant and Westbrook it was when they had played 4 seasons together and went to the finals - but even after that in their 5 year together they had 60 wins.

Our main two guys? Harden and Howard its their FIRST year together -- Howard, Harden and Parsons? well at best their second year together which you could say it similar to how OKC was when Harden was a rookie when OKC won 50 games and right now the Rockets are pacing to beat that (despite all the injuries).

So this whole "no excuses" is complete bull **** to me if you are going to use OKC - sure they are young but their stars have been together longer than the average experience of any player on our team. That goes a huge way in terms of team chemistry and success.

This season if the Rockets make it past the first round I would call it a successful season -- next year would be more of the: "they need to make it to the WCF or Finals" type season. Almost every team has to go through that fire of playoff loses and build on that to rise up

The Lakers first 3 peat there were several of bad playoff beats
The Spurs had a bunch at the lakers
the pistons went to how many ECFs in a row but only made 2 finals?
Miami lost to the pistons in the ECF before their first title
Dallas had so many playoffs beats before beating the Heat
The lakers again lost in the finals before winning
even miami lost to dallas before winning again.

 

You doesn't need to explain to him anything, he is a troll , put him on your Ignore list ... very good post as always.

 

Really this is a first year of development of a complete team. Last year this team didn't have Howard. Give him a year to acclimated. And this team isn't complete either. Give Morey a year to do that.

But you are right, Howard isn't getting any better. But he's not going to get terribly worse either. I think Harden/Parsons/Bev/Jones/Dmo and even Lin will improve - and that collective improvement will easily offset any decline in Howard by orders of magnitude.

You add one more scorer to this team - either a prolific sixth man - and this team is complete in my opinion.

The defense will improve. The offense will as well - and that's scary. For all the flaws this team has, a lot of them are fixable.

My biggest concern is that we don't have physical scorers who can handle brutal defenders. Harden is bothers by physical players. So is Howard. Parsons seems to be the best at dealing with those kinds of guys which makes him so valuable. Having another guy who can shoot over a defender is key in my mind to making this team a stronger crunch-time team.

Harden doesn't really elevate over guys like Kobe and Durant can - that's his one weakness as an offensive threat. Solve that (and Parsons partially does that) - but solve that at either guard position and we are set in my opinion.

With the emergence of Jones and Dmo, we just need Howard to stay healthy. The rest will come with experience and that one other guy who can elevate above a defender to hit a shot.

 

As I have pointed out in multiple previous threads - that teams had a guy named Hakeem Olajuwon on it. He wasn't just the best player, he was the leader and had over 10 years in the league. And guys like Mario Elie, Kenny Smith, and many others provided veteran leadership to the younger players.

People forget that it's not just age but that many of these guys are new to the NBA.

Parson is in his 2nd year as a starter.
Lin is in his 2nd year as a major minutes guy
Bev is in his 1st year as a starter
Harden is in his 2nd year as a starter
Jones is in his 1st year as a starter
Dmo has just cracked the rotation
Asik is awol.

So your only experienced started is Howard is who basically learning to play the post for the first time in his life.

C'mon man - what other team is in our situation?

If two years ago you put this team together no one in their right mind would think we had a shot at being a contender. No one would think a team with Bev/Lin/Jones/Harden/Parsons/Dmo and Howard would go anywhere but the LOTTERY!

So please stop it with evaluating these guys as underperforming. IT TAKES TIME. Judge progress month by month, not game by game. This team looks a lot better than it did back in Nov, that's for sure.

 

Thanks for the analysis meh, but the take away from this is not to simply resign yourself to being a young inconsistent team. Morey should stop looking fro a starting caliber 4 or a better defensive wing, and instead focus on the true hole in this team that your data relates -- namely, veteran players with playoff experience.

We need grizzled vets if we are going to become a consistent team that can compete for an NBA title. It doesn't matter if the player is in the front court, on the wing or a point guard, we need someone who has battled in the playoffs and can give veteran leadership to this young inconsistent team.

 

The team is in clear need of more veteran experience like Indiana got in David West, Luis Scola, etc. This is why Morey must consider trading Terrence while Jones is high.

 

Logic and reason!? In my GARM!?

 

With all due respect, that's a very arbitrary list you've selected, and really doesn't take into account the guys who log major minutes for OKC (ie, the guys who OKC regard as their 'best' players)

Any list without Collison and Sefolosha is missing the point quite severely.

And while Durant and Westbrook are young, they are both quite experienced NBA players.