All three teams were rebuilt over the summer. And Houston may have the better team on paper. We still have 3/4 of a season to go, but I will not be surprised if Rudy-West and Rudy-East finish ahead JVG's squad.
One thing for sure the Lakers and Magic are more exciting to watch than the Rockets.... CD gots to go, Van Gundy too.
I could see a serious argument saying LA has the best team, on paper, out of the three. Bryant being better than McGrady. Odom being better than any of our forwards. Atkins being a better PG than sura, ward, lue, barrett. Butler having the slight edge on JJ. Yao better than Mihm. Then they have Divac who hasn't even played yet. Now, let's look at Orlando. Francis better than our PG's. Mobley better than JJ. McGrady better than Hill (fair amount, but not significant) Howard better than anything we have at PF. Yao better than Battie. I think a case could be made for on paper Orlando being better as well. Just because you have two all stars, doesn't automatically make you the best team on paper. Both LA and ORL have better supporting cast.
Don't forget Miami at 16-7, Washington at 12-7, and Dallas at 15-9. But for us, and us only, it must be the gelling theory. Unlike the rest of those times that had major facelifts, we haven't had enough time together. That must be it! It couldn't possibly be the piss-poor FA signings, the Flower Forwards, or the offensively challenged coach. Evan
Maybe a better team on paper if you are, in fact, rolling up that paper and inhaling cocaine through it.
Two players of that caliber DOES make you better 'on paper'. If you had suggested LA and/or Orlando were better than Houston on this board prior to the season you would've been annihilated. Can you find one analyst that said either of those teams would be better than Houston prior to the season? All of those predictions are based 'on paper'.
Agree with everything except one. No way in hell is Atkins better than Sura. Atkins is quite possibly the worst PG in the conference.
so if we still had rudy and steve/cat/cato we would have the best record of all 3 teams. we already know we are doing bad this year and it has nothing to do with gelling. when you can't rebound you have a tough time winning. when you make it hard on yourself to score you have a tough time winning. we have become the knicks. im not sure how many of you grew up watching them, but its true. we are never safe, we can lose to anyone and beat anyone. we can lose a big lead in the 4th... JVG has to go. almost anyone else would be good.
man.....didn't want to see this thread this morning. hell, for the first time ever I don't feel confident the Rockets will beat the freakin Hawks!
Atkins is good. He could really help borderline playoff teams win games, like he did with the Celtics last year. Mihm IMO sucks.
At the same time, you have to believe those analyst are looking at McGrady and Ming, and nothing outside of that. If you look at the whole picture of all these teams, the Rockets do not look better.
i would probably say orlando has the most overall talent on paper. francis, mobley, hill is an amazingly potent threesome. cato and howard just dominate the glass. and turkoglu and battie are nice off the bench. however, mobley and cato have each missed about half the season i think to injuries so they haven't been full strength in the starting rotation much. and we have to be put above the lakers. i mean, brian cook, tierre brown, and luke walton were playing heavy minutes last night. and getting jumaine jones back from injury was seen as important. i mean, those first 3 are borderline nba/nbdl players. brian cook's only discernible talent seems to be shooting lots of 3's. and i don't mean making them, i just mean shooting them. i doubt i would have even heard of him before this season if he hadn't been on the always on TV lakers last year and he hadn't gotten into a few blowouts. vlade has been out and barely played, medvedenko sucks so much rudy won't even let him off the bench and either brian grant is hurt or he also sucks so much he can't play. based on the first few games, i'm betting on the sucking option (he just has no legs left) but he could also be hurt. they have no frontcourt height or beef. odom does what he can on the boards (11 a night) but he's often alone fighting for them unless kobe gets down from perimeter defense to help out. mihm is playing nicely compared to expectations, but that's not saying a lot. he's not controlling the glass or swatting shots a lot or anything. and he loves getting in foul trouble. he's probably outplaying atkins right now, who's only discernible skill is hitting 3's. he doesn't bring it up, doesn't play much D, and doesn't break a D down. i realize kobe is good and the rockets have some crappy players, too, but the lakers crap is even worse than ours and our top 2 are better than theirs. easy edge houston. and i'm not even sure which post SamFisher was disputing (No Worries or LongTimeFan's) but lmao.
Okay they don't look great but they're not horrible on paper... but they would look a whole lot better without him
