Quite frankly there wasn't much of a difference between Silas offense and Ime offense. Similar rankings, similar output etc. Ime instilled a defensive culture that increases the baseline of the team much higher to where they were competitive most nights rather than getting blown out every other night under Islas due to zero defensive accountability. But the offense still sucked. Whether it was Green's fault(on/off impact suggests it wasn't) or just a poor offensive system of a slow pace, the offense still sucked. And Ime admitted to keeping the offensive system basic for the first year because he had to worry about so many other things to get to a competent level before installing anything complex or laying at a faster pace.
Yes this will be a telling year on Ime’s offensive coaching ability. We have the opportunity to be the best transition basketball team in the NBA if he plays the right rotations. My guess is we see a lot of the same in the half court when FVV is in the game. Hopefully, he’ll at least insist that we bring the ball up fast and get into the plays more quickly. Stone could save him from falling back into more comfortable routines by trading Brooks before the season starts. FVV should definitively be playing no more than 30 mins a game.
Moving Brooks would make the team play differently for sure. It would also increase the playing time of our prospects.
I don't normal bet with real money unless I'm in Vegas. But let's imagine I wanted to put some real money, real bacon, on these boys. What kind of money would Draft Kings give away if these boys won the over? Let's say I put $100 clean dollars on dem Rockets. What kind of cheddar am I gonna get from those suckers? Asking for a friend
In the Game of Zones, Rafael and Ime do have freshly hatched dragon babies while other teams have full grown dragons.
Yes. But aren't OKC an example of how far you can go with dragon babies and one newly grown dragon? I think our dragon babies are potentially bigger when they get grown. If one or two get grown we are good in the hood. The urbanized TC.
Yep, I thought about a new concept of a super potion that let them grow faster and give them one extra skill or two.
Kevin Pelton’s projections My annual projections combine box score numbers from my SCHOENE projection system, adjusted plus-minus data and my guesses at rotations for every team based on current injuries. After a dismal year for the projections, which correctly predicted just nine of 30 teams relative to their over/under win totals last season, I spent much of this summer revisiting the model. The big change was weighting the luck-adjusted RAPM portion of player projections, based on data from Krishna Narsu, using minutes played over the previous three seasons. This adjustment, and other smaller ones, produced better out-of-sample results in testing. One key change is the wins projections are no longer so compressed toward .500. As we are looking at mean wins, they still tend toward average because of the possibility that teams could dramatically under or over perform based on injuries and breakout seasons, but four teams are projected to win at least 50 games on average after only the eventual champion Boston Celtics were last season. Eastern Conference 1. Boston Celtics | Average wins: 52.4 2. Cleveland Cavaliers | Average wins: 50.6 3. Milwaukee Bucks | Average wins: 46.7 4. Indiana Pacers | Average wins: 46.7 5. Philadelphia 76ers | Average wins: 45.2 6. New York Knicks | Average wins: 44.9 7. Miami Heat | Average wins: 44.9 8. Orlando Magic | Average wins: 43.5 9. Brooklyn Nets | Average wins: 36.9 10. Toronto Raptors | Average wins: 33.9 11. Atlanta Hawks | Average wins: 31.9 12. Chicago Bulls | Average wins: 31.8 13. Charlotte Hornets | Average wins: 29.4 14. Detroit Pistons | Average wins: 28.8 15. Washington Wizards | Average wins: 24.1 Western Conference 1. Oklahoma City Thunder | Average wins: 53.7 2. Memphis Grizzlies | Average wins: 51.1 3. Dallas Mavericks | Average wins: 49.7 4. Sacramento Kings | Average wins: 49.4 5. Denver Nuggets | Average wins: 47.4 6. Phoenix Suns | Average wins: 45.4 7. Golden State Warriors | Average wins: 44.8 8. Minnesota Timberwolves | Average wins: 42.5 9. New Orleans Pelicans | Average wins: 41.6 10. Los Angeles Lakers | Average wins: 40.7 11. Houston Rockets | Average wins: 40.4 Like the Magic, Houston's projection is held back by multiyear stats for the team's young prospects, who developed quickly during the 2023-24 season as the Rockets reached .500. Where Houston finishes in the crowded West standings this season shouldn't have much impact on the franchise's bright outlook for the future. 12. LA Clippers | Average wins: 36.3 13. San Antonio Spurs | Average wins: 33.5 14. Portland Trail Blazers | Average wins: 32.8 15. Utah Jazz | Average wins: 29.2
I'm surprised that he has Portland above, well, anyone in the West. I think it's feasible that San Antonio, Portland and Utah all win 5-10 games less than their projections, but I don't think that difference would affect our win total too much. An extra 15-30 wins to be had translates into .5 to 1 extra win per team. I could see the bottom four teams in the East winning less games too, but again, I don't think that difference will translate dramatically to our win total. It's tough to be a really solid but not spectacular team this season. We need expansion. There is just too much talent for 30 teams. I honestly wouldn't mind if they expanded the league by as many as 4 teams.
So Minny will win 42 wins after a 56 Win season because they lost Kyle Anderson? Pelton is pessimistic as ever predicting the best team of the league is only winning 53 or 52.
“No projection is more surprising than the Timberwolves being barely better than .500 a year after finishing second in the West with 56 wins -- albeit also two years after going 42-40 in Rudy Gobert's first season with the team. ESPN's Tim Bontemps has highlighted an interesting point reflected here: As much attention as the Nuggets have gotten for betting on recent draft picks, former Denver lead executive Tim Connelly is doing something similar in Minnesota. The Timberwolves have a league-low eight players on the roster who played at least 500 minutes last season: their five starters, Sixth Man Award winner Naz Reid, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and newcomer Joe Ingles. Add in the likelihood Minnesota will deal with more injuries than last season, when only one Wolves rotation player (Karl-Anthony Towns) missed more than 10 games, and that's a lot to put on first-round picks Rob Dillingham and Terrence Shannon Jr. as rookies. Neither projects better than replacement level, a reason to expect the Wolves to take a step back during the regular season.”
I would put us in the 43-46 win range so I take the over as well - firmly a play in team. Our depth will make us particularly well suited to scoop up wins while other more top heavy teams(like Sota and Denver mentioned above) are going to be more negatively impacted by those types of realities. Houston's ability to score some wins at the expense of others' misfortunes likely is up to the schedule gods. I think the one thing we aren't talking about enough is how the league has effectively put in place a hard cap given the punitive rules punishing tax repeaters with very real competitive disadvantages. This has fundamentally changed the balance historically in the NBA of the "haves and have nots" creating more parity around the league - except of course Phoenix who is "all in" - tax rules be damned! What we are seeing today is more talent spread out evenly across the league. There is no longer that gaping loophole in roster construction where a former all star can negotiate a buyout and go play for one of the most expensive rosters for pennies on the dollar. They are deliberately trying to discourage that now. I would imagine that's the nuance that is going to start breaking long standing statistical models like the one Pelton referenced. Teams are already becoming more fiscally responsible...again, excluding Phoenix which is why Houston's move to exchange the Brooklyn picks with these was a smarter long term bet.
[Hollinger] How the bottom of the Western Conference will play out in 2024-25 …Here is my forecast on how the bottom (non-playoff teams) of the West will shake out with my projected records and why (we’ll dissect the rest of the league later this week): 15. Portland Trail Blazers (20-62) 14. Utah Jazz (26-56) 13. LA Clippers (36-46) 12. San Antonio Spurs (37-45) 11. Memphis Grizzlies (40-42) 10. Houston Rockets (43-39) The Rockets are 10th in my projected standings but No. 1 with an asterisk on the NBA League Pass rankings. If I can give you one piece of advice this season, it’s this: Watch Houston. I’m not sure any team has had this many good young players at the same time since Oklahoma City drafted three future MVPs nearly two decades ago. But Houston is probably still a year away from blowing up on the league, just because so many of these players are still in their formative stages. The Rockets also have to navigate a search process, figuring out who can do what and how they play with one another. Inevitably, that will involve some failed experiments. None of their talented youngsters is a certified star yet, and we can’t guarantee one will be a top-10 player in the league in two years. On the other hand, they have a lot of irons in the future-star fire. Several players here could be All-Stars by the time they’re 25, and the overall athleticism up and down the roster is terrifying. While the arrivals of Fred VanVleet and the aforementioned Brooks last season brought some grown-up discipline and massively improved the defense (with a nudge from head coach Ime Udoka), Houston’s big story is the seven players aged 23 or younger who have established a solid chance of being at least a long-term starter, if not more. Big man Alperen Şengün is the furthest along at the moment after he was among the league’s most-improved players last season. He also represents an interesting decision point for the future. It seems likely the Rockets won’t extend his deal and preserve a below-market $16.2 million cap hold that could allow them to be players in free agency before re-signing him next summer. (Side note: Too much is being made of Houston going on an 11-game late-season win streak last season without Şengün for nine of them. Six of the other nine wins were against teams that had white-flagged the season, and the Rockets lost five straight immediately after that streak. Move along.) Şengün’s fit with Houston’s other non-shooters — especially second-year phenom Amen Thompson — is another issue to monitor. Thompson can’t space the floor at all but is an elite athlete with ball skills and energy. He looked tremendous at the tail end of last season and has breakout potential. Can he be more than an athletic slasher long term? And if not, can he be so good in that role — think circa-2019 Ben Simmons — that he’s a star anyway? Hard decisions await on which of these guys to feature and, more importantly, which ones to pay. In addition to Şengün, Jalen Green is a restricted free agent after the season after averaging 19.6 points at age 22. But his erratic shooting and meh efficiency inside the paint make you wonder if committing big money to him will tie Houston’s hands for other, more profitable moves. Would the Rockets dare to trade him? There’s more. Rookie Reed Sheppard looked fantastic in summer league and at worst gives the Rockets reliable support for VanVleet in the backcourt. Cam Whitmore missed much of his first season due to injury but is a high-flier who can shoot and defend on the ball. Another athletic combo forward, Tari Eason, should be back from injury and may team with Whitmore to form an electric, up-tempo second-unit forward combo. And did I mention Jabari Smith Jr. is only 21 and began to carve out a niche as a stretch five late last season? And yet … Houston has other cards to play besides the kids. The Rockets are sitting on a trove of future cap space and own multiple future unprotected firsts from Phoenix that are likely to pay off in high picks. They have enough expiring money to get in on any deal in-season if the right player comes available without cutting into their top nine: Jeff Green, Jock Landale, Jae’Sean Tate and Adams can match $45 million in incoming salary. Given that the Rockets went 41-41 with a plus-1.1 point differential a season ago, it may seem I’m short-changing them by barely improving their record. It’s possible the young talent erupts and takes the league by storm Oklahoma City-style. More probably, this is a season of consolidation and learning, where Udoka figures out how all this talent fits and the lack of easy wins in the West slows their roll. However, the Rockets are coming, and they’re going to be fun as hell to watch. 9. Sacramento Kings (44-38)
The Clippers are a 38-40 Win team to me, JVG makes it hard to imagine otherwise. Memphis should be at least 45....anything less is disappointing given their roster and Edey looking like Yao Ming and Marc Gasol. Spurs should be the mystery squad, could still end up with 28 Wins or 38 Wins.
If this is the season to figure out how all the talent fits, what the hell was last season for? We brought back the entire team, it shouldn’t be rocket science
I'm going over because I'm a homer. I think we won't have a hot start like last year but we will finish better in the second half of the season than last year. Truth be told, I won't put my money on over like last year because I'm not as certain like last year. There are too many variables, especially during the trade deadline.
