Way under expectations. How many teams have lost twice to the Kings, but have won twice against the Spurs, this season? I mean, come on.
If you wanted the real answer to this question, it wasn't a good idea to make this poll right after a loss.
1st year together with a center who's first time getting actual low post coaching instead of a coach that tells him t just play defense & rebound.
As of this morning, we are in the 6th place in the Western Conference. Will be in 7th place by Tomorrow! Way below expectation with our talent!
I have to say they have underperformed .... mainly because they have lost so many games to teams that are clearly inferior. I don't expect them to post W's in a very large majority of games Vs. the top teams but I do expect them to handle the bottom dwellers. Here's the list of L's against sub .500 teams: La Lakers Philly Utah Sacramento twice. Take away those five losses to sub .500 teams and they are ~27-8 and fighting for the #1 seed instead of being the #6. Then you have two losses against a Dallas team who is clearly the inferior team and who you had double digit leads on in both games yet found a way to lose them. If they show up every night and pad the W column the inferior teams , they are the #1 seed 29-6 instead of 22-13. That's the difference between this years Rockets & the perennial top teams in the conference , those teams seldom lose to inferior teams and pad the W column for playoff seeding.
The best predictor of future is the past and historically no team with Asian rotation player has ever done anything relevant so it was hard to have high expectation anyway.
So we are just going to pretend that half a game separates the 4,5,6 and 7 seeds and that the 8th seed is only 2 games below that? What about constant nagging injures to every important player on the team not named Dwight Howard that is really killing our rotation? What about the team still trying to adjust to play with each other? What about getting offered up a pretty brutal schedule early on? What about being super young and that young teams take time to grow? What about a little patience and a little less knee-jerking?
I have no problem with the above excuses. But losing to sub .500 teams is a shame! It shows that we will make the playoff and exit on the first round!
All this shows is people had unrealistic expectations coming into the first half of the season. I know it is used often but a recent example is just look at the Heat's start when they formed the big 3.
Underperformed. Aside from beating the Spurs in San Antonio twice, there's very little this team has done that's impressive so far. And no, dominating Eastern Conference teams doesn't count. Who isn't doing that this season? And please, folks, stop with the Heat comparisons. They had the best player in the world and another great player who'd carried his team to a title a few years earlier. Everyone knew those guys were eventually going to click as a tandem and dominate the league. The same cannot be said of Howard and Harden.
If someone said we would of had all these injuries, even had coach mchale sit out of a road trip due to personal reasons, then I proberbly would of guess this record. However the teams we won and lost to would of been far different if I had to guess.
Get back to me at the end of February and we will see where this team is and a lot of the over-performing teams right now like Dallas and Phx.
I think perhaps I was a bit delusional when Howard was signed over the summer. I expected the twin towers to work I expected the Rockets to be making all kinds of headlines - best records, longest winning streak, undefeated at home, etc. Yeah so I am a tad bit disappointed but trying to think positive every single game
They haven't lived up to my preseason expectations considering where we left off in the playoffs, having a full offseason, and who we've added. But, if you told me how many games Asik, Lin, Beverley, Harden and Parsons would have missed during this stretch then this is about what I would expect record-wise. However, we're not losing a ton of games because of injuries, we're letting games slip away. We're sloppy. Didn't see that coming.
Just compare last season to this season in the same time frame. After that if you still think it's not under performing then there is nothing I can do to convince you otherwise.
Just think, if it wasn't for that losing streak at the end of last season when McHale had the offense transition over to Harden Iso-rama, we would have ended up in 6th place in the west as well. The only reason we were 8th last year was b/c of that end-of-the-year losing streak.
