I was wondering now that we somewhat have most of are pieces in order ..... HOW FAR DO WE GO? & WHERE WOULD WE PLACE IN OUR DIVISION W/ SA AND DALLAS?
my prediction is we finnish behind SA in our division: SA HOU MEM DAL NOH in the west i would say we have a shot at home court. if you take the winner if each new division it might look like: 1.SA 8.DAL 4.HOU 5.LA 2.MIN 7.DEN 3.SAC 6.MEM UTA, PHO, POR coule all be in the mix too, but it looks like if we go by talent we should be in the top 4.
not to bag on you but if you believe that the mavs,grizz and the nuggets are all going to finish behind the lakers you must be smoking something. as good as kobe is and the decent supporting cast player he has, the best i see the lakers finishing is 7th seed. but my not so bold prediction is this: Min Sa Sac Hou Dal Mem utah denver thats right I am gonna go out on a semi-limb and say that portland,phoenix and the lakers will not make the playoffs this year, barring any major injuries to the top 8 teams i've posted above. Granted these three teams will have made the playoffs had they been in the east but thats not the case. second round Min SA Sac Hou wcf SA Hou (ok a tad biased, but we did play minn pretty tough last year) final rep SA just my .02
1. San Antonio 2. Sacramento 3. Minnesota 4. Memphis 5. Houston 6. Denver 7. Dallas 8. LA Lakers SA def. Lakers Sacramento def. Dallas Minnesota def. Denver Houston def. Memphis SA def. Houston Minnesota def. Sacramento SA def. Minnesota Houston- 2nd round bound but that's it...unless we meet Minny instead of SA in the 2nd round.
Well there is a more representative survey poll in nba.com. The survey goes as follows with the voter percentages beside them. When I voted, 52583 viewers had voted. So maybe it is more indicative of how the general basketball fans thought about the chances of Houston Rockets in the new season !! My choice is Conference Final. What's yours ????
1. SA- (great coach best player) 2. Minn- (Garnett factor- team must stay healthy) 3. Sac- (Miller will cover Divacs loss and they bounce back) 4. Rockets- (filled holes nicely depends on chemistry) 5. LA- (Rudy and Kobe surprise) 6. Denver- (Building a solid team) 7. Memphis- (Can Posey stay hot?) 8. Dal- (May fall off the map) actually the 4-7 spots could juggle around several different ways. I am pretty sure SA, Minn, and Sac will be tough if they stay healthy
I say if DEKE, TM, & YAO stays healthy and injury free then ... THE SKY IS THE LIMIT. Our role player is also going to be important also (not saying that DEKE isn't a role player) but if we are to do BIG things this season those player listed has to be healty. YAO = 20+pts. 15+rebounds > best tandem in the league. TMAC = 25+pts. 6+assists JUST MY BOLD PREDICTION. what you say?
I say you're crazy if you think that Yao gets anywhere close to 15 boards a night, but I'd love to be proven wrong. I'd put the Rockets anywhere from the #3 - #6 seed right now. I don't think Dallas has gotten that much worse, definitely a different team so it might take them some time to adjust. The Lakers are clearly worse, I just can't see the Grizzlies having so many things go right for them this year either and I see a decline by Minnesota but they should still be good. I think as a pre-season prediction you have to put the Rockets in the top 4 in the west right now with SA, Minnesota and Sacramento (pending the Peja situation).
Top 4 in the west without a single doubt. I'd say top 2 but this is the first year this team has been together, next year for that. I'd be greatly dissapointed if the Rockets don't make it to the second round this year. I believe they can make it to the Western Conference Finals, and see no reason whatsoever that they couldn't go all the way. The Rockets have the top 2 most dominant players at their respective positions, they can beat any team.
WHOA you really think that houston, denver and dallas will all have better records than minnesota, which had the best record in the west last year? granted sprewell and cassell are a year older, but this year they will have a healthy wally and hudson during the season. c'mon now i dont know if you are a big dallas fan but i dont see dallas finishing higher than 4 at best (most likely 5th imo) realistically. the wolves are returning with a better team than last year because of the injuries that plagued them last year and you expect to finish not just worse, but substantially worse than they did last year???
This is the way I see the West Playing out: 1: Spurs : Regular Season Champs and Getting Better w/ Ginobili and Parker getting older. 2: Sacramento (1st in Pacific) : Webber/Bibby/Peja/Miller will keep this team good regardless of offseason trifles. Injuries could be a problem 3: Rockets : Best Two Man Game in the NBA. Yao and McGrady Period. 4: Minnesota : Sam is a year older and a year slower, as is Spreewell. This is not a team for the regular season, but could be more dangerous with the older veterans in the playoffs. 5: Memphis : Deepest team in the league and Pau & Company are young and getting better. Strategy is great for Regular season, but weak during playoffs. 6: Nuggets : Adding Kenyon Martin and another year for Nene/Anthony etc will give them some firepower and possibly moving past Memphis. 7-10: LA Lakers : Kobe and Who else? A hobbling Malone? And a few role players. They'll be lucky to make the playoffs. 7-10: Portland : Zach Randolph, Shareef and the rest should have enough talent to take this spot but it will be a fight between them 7-10: Phoenix : Stoudamire/Marion/Nash/Johnson/Quentin Richardson should be a talented team, but Stoudamire/Marion/Johnson/Marbury did nothing at all and Nash is getting older and Richardson is overrated. 7-10: Utah : These guys just play so hard that its hard to leave a Jerry Sloan team out of it. Playoffs: 1 SA SA 8 Pho SA 4 Minn Minn 5 Mem Hou (though probably SA!) 2 Sac Sac 7 LA Hou 3 Hou Hou 6 Den
FK Khan, What about Dallas? With Dampier, they now have a tough post defender and rebounder. Cuban himself said that this is the BEST Dallas team in the last several years. They surely will make the playoffs. no?
WHOOPS! Forgot about Dallas! I don't agree with them by the way about dampier. He's he's a rugged post guy but he hasn't done a damn thing except last year when he was getting his contract and the loss of Steve Nash is going to hurt them more than they think. I would have dallas at 6, then the nuggets at 7, then the 8th spot between LA, Portland, Utah and Phoenix.
I dont care how far we get as long as we do better than the season b4 so with that said, I was happy with last year and the playoffs and this year I want the second round..
I don't care about the seeding. Last time I cared about seedig a 6th seed took the championship . Western Conference Finals versus San Antonio. We go down in 6.
I see us finishing 7th or 8th in the conference, because it will take 20 to 30 games to work out the chemistry, and the early losses will cost us later on. So even if we become the third or fourth strongest team in the conference by March -- quite possible -- it will be too late to avoid meeting the Spurs or the Wolves in the first round, and getting knocked out. The early exit won't bother me though, because we'll be tough enough by the end of the regular season to give a heavy workout to whoever we meet in the playoffs. And there will be plenty of wonderfull basketball between now and then!
Without Nash, Dirk Nowitzki is going to be the playmaker. I see problems for their offense since there is no way the offense runs as smoothly with Marquis Daniels and Jason Terry running the show. Of the non-playoff teams of last year, I think the Suns will be better than them unless Nash just goes into the tank adjusting to the Suns' roster.
Based on what I've seen so far, I'll be stunned if Yao ever has a season averaging 15+ a game. I think the sky is the limit on his point production, however, and he can certainly improve on his assists and blocks, and I expect him to. I'm not ready to make a prediction on where we'll end up, however. I want to see how our massive turnover affects the team, first. Maybe after preseason, I'll throw a prediction out there. (mine are usually lousy)
