A good accomplishment. Keep in mind we have passed the season's longest road trip ALREADY! 9-7 vs 8-8 http://bbs.clutchcity.net/php3/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66927
Feigan was dead on last season. Looks like he's going to be on target again. No way 44 wins gets a playoff spot in the West...
Everytime i look at the records of Minnesota, San Antonio, and Phoenix i feel slightly better. Utah and Denver are bound to run out of luck soon. We're only 1.5 games behind Dallas Also, I believe we've played more road games than anyone in the west. So I would't worrry just yet.
One thing to consider in all this is that the West is beating up practically everyone. The good teams - San Antonio, LA, Dallas and Sacramento (IMO) - will ultimately separate themselves from the pack, but from 5-9, it is a total crapshoot: Houston, Minnesota, Portland, Phoenix, Seattle, Memphis, Utah, Denver. Personally, I think Memphis, Denver and Utah will all start to fade as the season wears on. I also think that Seattle will have its struggles and Portland could dump Sheed and Wells before the trading deadline - nevermind Stoudamire's troubles and now Randolf's DUI. When you look around the west, you realize that ONLY MINNESOTA AND SEATTLE have winning records on the road at 5-4 and 4-2 respectively. Our winning percentage on the road is fourth behind those two and Memphis (5-5). Dallas is 2-6 on the road. Utah is 1-5. Portland is 0-5. San Antonio is 2-7. Phoenix is 1-4. And only Memphis has played more games on the road than the Rockets have. That doesn't mean the Rockets can't improve. The definitely can. But, it's easy to forget that we aren't the only one's struggling early this season.
Memphis is a team at .500 who can really jump in the standings when they start playing some of the weaker teams in the league. Memphis has played some very strong opponents early in the season. This season will be tougher than last season in terms of making the playoffs.
I believe that Memphis will stick around, but that Portland, Seattle, Denver, and Utah are my choices as fade/lotto probables. Re: Rox. It's the deja vu all over again which has my blood curdling. I want to see the fire that burns that turns 4th quarters into wins, and I haven't see that.
It's part brains, too, and our starting backcourt shows little of that. Lots of fire and no brains explains a lot.
Nice rational thinking Jeff... thank you. I think you are correct that some of the overachieving teams will fade down the stretch and I don't think that the Rockets will be one of them. JVG's temporary influence doesn't really seem to be enough to win games we would have lost last year, but I expect that to change. The things we have going in our favor this year, which should strengthen the team as the season progresses and give us an advantage over the other 5-9 position teams: -players make better decisions as JVG's teaching affects them -stronger bench in Jackson and Piatkowski, possibly Boki -lower minutes for the starters than last year -JVG's insistence on playing with effort
True, but to keep things in perspective, the Rockets have played 6 of their 16 games against the Leastern Conference.
