[ESPN] Kevin Pelton Win Projections for 2025-26 Season

I forgot where the Mavs landed but I think Flagg would turn heads........don't know if him and AD are enough though...

• I would not be perplexed if all Texan teams do relatively well and the Rockets top out.
• I don't think Memphis is that bad, Play In caliber.
• Zion can only surprise.

 

We should definitely be in the 50's

We had excellent health luck last year , but we are a younger team so that's not without some cause


Fvv is a loss yes , but we have depth with Holliday and Tate and Sheppard at least picking up the defensive slack

Going from green to KD should massively improve some of our offensive outcomes .

Sengun , amen , and Jabari should be better

Assuming average health luck we should definitely be in the 50's

Maybe we caught teams by surprise last year and they might be more wise to us this year . I think there was a bit of taking us lightly at the beginning of the year . Udokas calling card has been his defense and it's hard to bring effort for 82 year after year .

We should still be hungry tho .

As long as we play Tate more we should be fine

 

Let's also remember that Durant is upgrade on Green as a playmaker (as well as defensively and offensively) - FVV will be missed, but intrigued to see what it does for Alpy with the extra opportunities

Also saw Reed running the high PnR with Alpy. If they can nail that, game over!

 

Losing Fred for the season is a blow, but I think the depth of the Rockets is being underestimated. If the rest of the team can remain reasonably healthy, I see us being in the mid-50's at the end of the regular season, with home court in the first round. Sure, the returns are very early, but Alpi, Amen, and Jabari all look like they've taken a step forward during the off-season. I'm a bit surprised at how big a step each of them appear to have taken.

As long as they manage not to trip over their own feet, we have reason to be very optimistic, especially considering the additions to the team Stone managed to make, in my opinion. They rest of the league has to be more than a bit worried about the Rockets. What a nice change, and long may it last!

 

People are really underestimating the team impact FVV had on the team last year. If you just use last year as a template, dropping 4 wins because of FVV makes sense. The only point of dispute is how well one believes Amen and Reed's growth can offset that. That is where projection models of any kind would be relatively conservative compared to fan expectations. Fans are much more likely to expect big jump in production from young players. Whereas historically that's not really the case.

In the end given that Amen currently look like he's still best utilized as a big wing, it's basically all on Reed Sheppard's shoulders. If he doesn't cut it and the Rockets don't make a big splash at the deadline, high 40s win total is very much in play.

 

Impressed. Nice feel in addition to size and athleticism.

 

He actually looks for once like a player who might actually match some of his hype in the draft. Outside of Wemby doing actual alien things most of the big hyped names the last few years have looked fairly pedestrian out of the box (obviously some have grown into the players they were hyped as after the fact.) Flagg actually looks very good already, annoying that he's gone to the Mavs really.

 

true, its a huge loss.

However,

• I felt like Fred had bigger impact in the year before that; last year was a bit subpar for him and we still ended up 2nd
• My gut feeling is that people underestimate how toxic the Jalen Green presence was on this team. He led the team in usage and minutes, and all of this featuring was at subpar efficiency, and drained positive energy from the team.
• If Tari is back to the level from before the injury last year, that's another bonus relative to last season. People tend to forget how insanely well he started the year.
• Adams wasnt a big factor for most of the year last year. Having him in shape from the get-go will be yet another bonus.

So overall, it's not just KD. We have DFS, we have Capella, we have addition-by-subtraction with Jalen Green, we have potential boost from Eason/Adams being healthy. There are some reasons to be a bit optimistic, despite the FVV loss.