The Rockets are still projected to be the 2nd best team in the West and better than OKC even after the Melo trade. the over/under from Vegas for your Houston Rockets is at 55.5 wins...that is 2nd in the West and 3rd in the NBA behind GS and Boston (lol) Kevin Pelton's RPM projections have the Rockets as the 2nd best team in the NBA. "Best In The West RPM Projections TEAM | NET RATING | WINS Golden State | 9.3 | 62.2 Houston | 5.9 | 55.2 San Antonio | 4.4 | 52.0 Oklahoma City | 3.9 | 50.5 Minnesota | 3.7 | 49.9 The slight improvement from the Anthony trade is enough to push Oklahoma City ahead of the Minnesota Timberwolves for the fourth-best projection in the West. The Thunder are within striking distance of the San Antonio Spurs, whose projected net rating (offensive rating minus defensive rating) is just 0.5 points per 100 possessions better. But RPM still forecasts the Houston Rockets as the greatest threat to the Warriors, at least during the regular season, far ahead of any other West team save Golden State. Of course, RPM projections are only a starting point. Besides the fact that injuries, midseason moves and unexpected performance will alter teams' outlooks, RPM is an imperfect estimate of player value that doesn't take on-court chemistry into account. So it's certainly possible that the Thunder could emerge as the West's second-best team. At least for the regular season, however, RPM suggests that adding Anthony might not be enough to bring Oklahoma City level with Houston." ESPN's BPI had the Rockets as the 2nd best team in the NBA behind GS before the Melo trade. We were projected to be 5.1 points better than the average team. OKC was 5th at 3.8 points better than the average team before adding Melo, but the Melo addition is not enough to project them to be better than the Rockets. @Snow Villiers told me that the updated BPI rankings that were shown on ESPN this morning still had the Rockets as the 2nd best team in the NBA. The Rockets have 2 top 10 players on their roster, GS is the only other team that can claim that. Harden is a top 5 player, and CP3 in MDA's system is extremely dangerous. Don't be surprised if he has top 5 player impact playing in this offense and next to Harden. Enjoy the season.
so CP3 is projected to add 0.2 wins? while PG and Melo adds wins to the tune of almost 18 times the # of wins CP3 adds?
FWIW, those RPM projections have GS and SA at -4.8 and -9 wins compared to last year, even though they both improved a tad in the offseason. Thing is, it's really hard to win more than 55 games. Once you get past that point, even major roster improvements won't net many wins. The Thunder, on the other hand, were only at 47 last year, so +3.5 isn't as big of a jump, relatively speaking. IMO, PG13 and Melo are big names, but they're both not as good as they were when they earned those big names. I think ~50 wins for the Thunder is actually pretty fair, but yeah, the Rockets should definitely be the better team.
We are the 2nd best team in the world. Deepest roster with 2 of the best player makers in the league. We can score with the warriors and now we have some good defensive guys to help stop and allow us to build bigger leads or battle back in. Tucker is a very under the radar signing, kind of like Reddick was for the Astros.
If anyone is still worried about Anthony just remember.... Was anyone really worried about the Rockets offense this upcoming season? We've upgraded our offense AND defense.
Honestly . . . don't care about the regular season Rockets are at the point that we just wanted to get into the playoffs playing well I think we will do well . .. just want to be hot entering the playoffs and carry us to a championship Rocket River
With so much talent on each roster, it's up to the coaches to maximize the player. I hope MDA is up to the challenge.
i actually thought mchale's commentary was fair enough. it was isaiah who thinks POR or DEN could overtake us lol. f'n moron
