With or without Phil, the Lakers will be the favorites next year to win it again. Which means the Rockets will have to go through them. In my mind, the Rockets need Bosh or someone similar in length to play PF alongside a healthy Yao. You see what the Lakers do, their team crashes the boards with length. The Rockets need to be able at least hold their own against them. Yao can do it, I love Scola and Chuck, but no matter how hard they compete and hustle it's not going to make up the height differential. Can Jordan Hill be that guy? We'll see, I still think with are 1st rounder we should go for a big guy. KEEP BROOKS unless an upgrade comes in. He owns Fisher and let's hope LA is dumb enough to think Fisher still has game left to start him again next year. Of course, LA could deal for someone like Hinrich (who would be perfect for them) and they become unbelievably tough and possibly unbeatable. Speaking of which, imagine if LA trades Bynum for Bosh and trades expirings for Hinrich. In that case, a team of Hinrich/Fisher Kobe Artest/Odom Bosh Gasol is pretty much unstoppable and will win it all regardless of what we do. People who say that just be healthy because we took them to 7 last year, the Lakers were the superior team last year by a fair margin, and the better team wins in a 7 game series. LA took us lightly last year and in game 7 we got blown out. What do y'all think?
Kobe - 1 year older Artest - 1 year older Fisher - 1 year older Odom - 1 extra year married Phil - likely gone or pissed at a smaller salary You don't think about beating the Lakers. You think about how to improve your own team, and you can match them when they fall off a bit.
Don't talk about who is a superior team without Yao playing okay?? I am tired of it! With Yao playing, Lakers big can't do much inside.
How to beat them? Match their length in the front line. How do we do that? .....I think we all know.....
get someone who can post up, draw defenses and score...our SFs, SGs and PFs can't do that...frontline height and length are badly needed.
That is exactly what I said in another thread. They are on the downside...if Yao is healthy this team next year could take them AS IS..... That being said, let's try to get better though. DD
So we do think alike at times. You'll never get me to agree with you on CBud though. Although I do hope to eat some crow on this issue.
worry about that later....it all seems too complicated now because we have no idea what the summer will bring. You build the best rockets team possible and worry about specific teams later. It's pretty evident we'd need a long big to help with LA, but we need him period, not just to beat LA.
Hate to break it to y'all, but there's this guy named Bynum...yeah he's pretty good and a year older means he'll likely be better and probably healthy. It's not going to be as simple as Houston just getting healthy. Plus Bryant will get surgery and that'll help some. Gasol will be on the far end of his prime and will likely get more offense because of an aging Kobe, but that's what should have been done this year anyway. They are better if Gasol get's more touches.
The talent disparity is too much to overcome for us. I hope LeBron goes to Chicago teaming up with Rose/Noah and whips those Faker asses in the finals though.
You need bigs with quickness and can block shots.. Something we have in the area of 0, Zero, Zilch, nada...
Exactly. It's not just about LA. There are other teams in the West too that we have to get by in order to meet up with Lakers and sniff the finals, teams like the Jazz and the Suns that seem to give the Rockets problems. Not only that, the Rockets are a lot worse defensively. If the Rockets don't start focusing on defense, they ain't winning ****.
If we face them in the playoffs, we probably don't beat them. Of course they would also have hc advantage. If Yao is expected to play in the 25ish minute range this upcoming season.....it's just not going to be enough. But oh wait, we are getting Bosh.
DD, we agree that Kobe is on decline... Big time DECLINE! Hopefully this Rocket team continues to improve. Brooks, Martin, Hill, we've got some pieces to do something.
Our team is getting better....while theirs is getting worse...it is only a matter of time that we overtake them....... GO ROCKETS !! DD
