On paper, what rank would you give this Rockets team?

1. Miami

2. OKC - A healthy Westbrook and Durant will be fun to watch against this team

3. LAC - I think we would beat them head to head in a playoff series, but on paper they appear to be pretty dang good.

We can beat the rest. SA has to age at some point right?

 

1. Miami
2. SA
3. OKC
4. Chicago
5. Indiana
6. Brooklyn
7. Houston

Our weakness at the 4 and JLin is probably what keeps us from being higher.

 

Miami
Oklahoma
Houston
San Antonio
Indiana
LA Clippers
Brooklyn Nets
Chicago
Memphis
Golden State
New york

Those are the top eleven teams that have title aspirations. solid and complete teams. Cohesiveness will be the tipping point for these teams. but without a doubt the top 3 teams are miami oklahoma and houston. Based on talent and nba prime time age.

 

Heat
Nets
OKC
SAS
Clippers/Howard

 

Ru guys overrating houston seriously? Pls name the houston bench anybody? It aint even as deep as the la clippers... And they crashed first round

 

So you equate regular season wins to being a better team? Each one of those teams made it further in the playoffs and achieved significant playoff success except Brooklyn who probably upgraded their team the very most this year. The Rockets bowed out of the playoffs to a team without their second best player.

There are some question still about this rockets team.

Id put them at 4th in the west. If Memphis would get its head out of its ass and pick up a 3 point shooting/Defensive minded wing then the Rockets would probably finish behind them also.

If Dwight as a player adds 11 wins to our team (which would be freaking outstanding from a one player addition) our team would still be behind 5 teams in the west last year. Yep we would be the 6th seed.

 

Bulls, Heat, Pacers and the New-look Nets (on paper). Yes.

 

1. Rockets
2. Dirt
3. That hobo
4. My old phone
5. The rest of the nba

 

Heat
Spurs
Thunder
Clippers
Pacers
Rockets
Nets
Grizz

 

That's what I was going to say. Not that we can't beat the Spurs and the Thunder, but as you said, we have to prove we're better than they are. I think we just might do that this season.

 

No hope then, because Howard is 'A' Post Up Player and we should not try to change his natural game. The coach will have to adapt the team to included Howard playing at his best-- the natural way! Y
It will take half of the season for the team to truly jell!!! Y
I expect Our Rockets to be at least 4th in the West!

 

Miami, Rockets and San An tied...i think clippers could be the two spot, but griffin needs to start producing a lot more like most expected him to.

 

1. Heat
2. OKC
3. SA
4. Rockets
5. Indiana
6. LAC
7. Chicago
8. Golden State
9. Memphis
10. ATL
11. Brooklyn
12. NYK

 

On paper the Clippers are still the Clippers. They will have a good regular season record but significantly underperform in the playoffs. The last two seasons are a good indication of what will happen to them. Chris Paul is great but he's got a bad case of TMac disease. If I had to bet for or against him ever making a conference finals, i'd bet against.

In the playoffs...

1. Miami
2. OKC
3. Spurs
4. Rockets

And the Heat are the only series I would be very pessemistic about. I could see an argument for the Pacers but I think a big part of their success is simply that they match up very well against the Heat.

 

Thunder take off your list. Maybe they "place" higher but in a 7gm series, they'll lose to us.

Clippers may place higher too, but as long as Chris Paul is your "leader", you'll bail in the playoffs. And Doc's an awfully overrated coach. When you have puppets, and you aren't the smartest guy in the room. You will fail.

It's Spurs and Heat. I'd say against us in particular, it's Indiana & Memphis that'll give us fits.

 

Seriously? A Pacers team that won 4 more games last year than us, didn't really improve, is now going to be still better than us after we add Howard?

 

well they took the champs to 7 in the confrence finals

 

Lol....

 

Individual team matchup is almost irrelevant in regular season win total. It only accounts for 4 games the most. I'm certain that Pacers will NOT have a better record than Rockets next season.

Pacers' Point Differential(PD) was +4.0. By Morey's Pythagorean Wins projection, Pacers were a 52-win team. Rockets were a 50-win team with +3.5 PD. For whatever the reason, Pacers and Rockets both underperformed in win total for the season.

Pacers haven't really improved via FA's, lost Hansbough but added CJ Watcson and Copeland. Rockets might still lose the H2H matchup with Pacers next season, but with addition of Dwight, you can bet we will be at least 4 games better than last year.

Dwight's RAPM value was +5.5/200 possessions.
His season total = 10,730 possessions.
Divide that by 82 games and his average possessions/game = 130
Dwight meant +3.59 points to the Lakers each game.

On Paper, I just don't see that Copeland + CJ Watson and a healthy Granger will make them +3 points better...

 

I do agree with this. The Heat is a very well coached team that plays their system without shortcomings. Their talent is not too old although Wade's knees are just about at the limit. Oklahoma is a great team as well, but in my opinion in decline due to cap limitations. They have had to unload a lot of talent due to tax considerations and they have not been able to bring in KD and Westbrook level of rookies that was their signature growth method.

Houston is a very exciting team in terms of talent, youth and team mentality. In the end it is teams that win championships and the Rockets is one of the tightest teams in the league. San Antonio is such a team too, but they are just about hitting the age wall in performance.