Analyzing and assessing our championship aspirations

Thats too much homerism, even for me
Yao won't play 35 minutes his first season back. 55 + wins......
a dream.....

 

So we go from being happy to make the second round to NBA champions due to the return of Yao.

Okay.

 

You nick is so ironic to the statement

Rocket River

 

Our best player in that series shot 38% from the field, 27% from three and 62% from the free throw line? All while being routinely torched on defense?

Silly me, I thought our best player in that series was Aaron Brooks - you know, that guy who scored 18 points per game on 46 percent shooting, 40 percent from behind the arc and 93 percent from the charity stripe. Also known as the guy that put the Rockets on his back in Games 4 and 6 without Yao.

(By the way, Artest shot 27% from the field on a meager 9.5 points per game after Yao went out and the series was truly on the line. Also, in those same four games, Trevor Ariza – who now plays for the Rockets – completely outplayed Artest, scoring 10 points per game on 52% shooting with superior defense.)

 

We were a second round team. How can we improve significantly since then and still be one?

this team is a legit conference finals team. dnt forget the west is actually getting weaker for once, while we get stronger. Suns maybe not even be a good regular season team, definitely won't be a strong playoff team. Utah isnt improving. Portland isn't improving enough. Dallas, like always, improves on paper, only to not improve on the court. Nuggest are still tough, but they too dinnt improve and may lose Karl next season. Spurs are falling off and can't handle our depth. New orleans is falling. Minus Yao we're no better than OKC, but with him and hill i think we can definitely beat them. It pretty much leaves us with the third spot to lose in the west.

 

hmmm... the Rockets are already better on paper than they were at the start of the '09 playoffs. TMac was DNP and Brooks, Lowry, Landry and Scola were all basically second year players. Ariza had a better playoffs than Artest even for the first two rounds. Landry is a big loss, but if Yao is the starting center instead of Scola, than it's not such a big deal. plus they added Patterson. they lost Deke, but gained Jordan Hill. they lost Wafer, but gained Jermaine Taylor. Brooks gave the Lakers absolute fits. now he's MIP and still improving. Lowry certainly hasn't gotten worse, and his shot has improved slightly. Martin is a considerably better starter than Artest in '09 although Artest's defense miraculously improved with the Lakers. no credit is given to CBud who wasn't even on the team more than a year ago, and he's still improving with a potential breakout (MIP) year. yes, on paper the Rockets aren't just a little better. they're at least five wins better than their record '09 season.

the biggest question is will Yao be as good as he was at the start of the playoffs? he was pretty awesome against Portland and at the start against the Lakers. my guess, is unlikely. he'll probably be somewhere between 70-80% of what he was for much of the next season. certainly his playing time will be 70-80% of what is was. around 25 mpg instead of 33+. hopefully, he'll be that much more effective on his limited minutes which makes a solid backup center THE NUMBER ONE, THE NUMBER TWO, AND NUMBER THREE PRIORITY, dammit. not Chris freaking Bosh.

oh yeah, the Rockets still have a full MLE (and if Les was willing to pay major luxury tax dollars for Bosh, than i don't see why he wouldn't be willing to pay minor tax dollars for more pressing needs), and loads of trade bait, unless New York somehow lands Lebron, and miracle man Morey. so IF YAO IS HEALTHY and productive, than the Rockets SHOULD BE championship contenders.

 

If we do things right we could end up winning a Championship before Wade, Lebron, or Bosh ever even get to the Finals again. We have got to do it within these next two years the right way though. Thats as long as Yao has his contract or reups and has trade value, thats about as long as our Knicks picks will be there, thatsthe development period for Hill, Budinger, and Patterson, to have upside value to a nd youth value, Thats the period for Brooks, and M<artin to have their greatest value and scola before he gets to much olde to have value. Now i am not saying everyone should be traded away. i want alot of these guys here but this i sthe window to get a couple of Supertars and reload the wuickest right while we are close to the 4th and 5 th seed type of team. We could easiuly move up to the 1st and 2nd seed with the right moves. Get it done Morey. i dont want to be saying that 2 years from now. That means he waisted those opportunity. i want them done within the next 2 years or would be another disgruntled fan. For now i am happy he put us in this situation.

 

What the heck? They censoring posts? half my post was lost.

 

Exactly my thoughts. Alot of the people in this thread who still consider the Rockets 2nd round dropouts are forgetting:

2011 2009
AB (MIP) > AB
Jordan Hill > Chuck
Chase Budinger >>> Brent Barry (?)
KEVIN MARTIN >>>> Von Wafer (McLady, DNP)
Patrick Patterson <= Carl Landry

 

These are under the catergory REMAINS TO BE SEEN

Rocket River

 

I think we are actually pretty close here. BTW, I meant to say Hill instead of Martin. I think Budinger and Hill's growth is the difference between 50ish wins and three or four more wins.

I think if we make no further moves other than signing B. Miller AND Yao returns to 100% or very close by Christmas AND doesn't get injured again AND Hill and Budinger improve AND Martin gives us 70+ games then the Rockets are 54-55 win team that still can't beat LA. I think we can give them a run but we won't beat them. Not without a go-to slasher/scorer, beast-mentality type of player.

If Yao returns healthy I fully expect this team to tease us and give us nights where they look unstoppable. Yao, Scola, Ariza, Martin, AB is just a sick, sick starting lineup but I still think all our go-to weapons are prone to disappearing (unless AB makes another leap but there I go with that "if" word again). In a seven game series against a stacked team with a real go-to player I just don't see this team prevailing. But I can't wait to watch them try and will be perfectly happy to roll with what we've got and let these guys prove me wrong.

 

That beast you're talking about is Aaron Brooks, the fakers have no answer for him.

 

The one other thing the Rockets need to do if they hope to make a deep run in the playoffs is move Kyle Lowry to the starting point guard position, bringing Aaron Brooks in off of the bench for 20+ minutes a game.

Aaron Brooks is a great shooter, but with Yao, Martin, Scola and Ariza as the rest of the starting lineup, this team is not going to be looking for 25+ points a game from the point guard anymore. Also, aside from Brooks scoring ability, Lowry is a better true point guard than Brooks is.

On top of all that, Aaron Brooks is a defensive liability. If the Rockets start Brooks and Martin together, their combined defensive weakness will be the Achilles heel of the Rockets next year. With Lowry starting, the Rockets will have no such vulnerability.

Aaron Brooks is a great shooter, but the Rockets need a solid true point guard. Not to diminish Brooks or his past contributions to the Houston Rockets team, but Lowry needs to start, and Brooks needs to play major minutes coming off of the bench.

 

Uhm, it sounds nice to say that Ron Artest was our best player during that series, but it wasn't really the case.

Arguably the best Rocket for each game during that series:

Game 1: Yao with 28 points and 10 boards
Game 2: Artest with 25/3/5 or Landry with 21/10/0
Game 3: Artest with 25/6/1 or Yao with 19/14/2 to go with 2 BS and 1 ST
Game 4: Brooks with 34/3/4 easily
Game 5: Brooks with 14/1/2 or Scola with 12/13/4
Game 6: Brooks with 26/3/4 or Scola with 24/12/2
Game 7: If we had one, it was Chuck Hayes with 8/5/1 to go with 5 steals

What did Ron Ron average during this series in which you claim that he was our best player? 15.6 points on 0.381 shooting

I would say Yao and Artest were arguably the best rockets in the first 3 games of that series, but that Brooks was the best rocket in the last 4 games, in which Artest just crumbled away, averaging 9.5 points without Yao.

 

Neither of these will happen. The last three seasons, Kbrick has played 61, 51, and 46 games. And Yao at 100%....rofl.

 

No we are not.

 

edit:double post

 

Exactly. Even with an insane amount of luck this team isn't a contender but it's close. In the real world (and I'm still being optimistic), Yao plays 70 games and is 90% of what he was pre-injury by Christmas and Martin plays 60 games while nobody else of importance misses more than 6-8 games.

 

I do think some of you underrate the team that ended the season last year. They're better than their record indicated with the late season trade and flurry of injuries. I think the young guys improve, Yao comes back and is productive, and K-Mart plays better even though he played pretty dang well as it was.

I think this team without Yao is a solid 47-49 win team. Add in Yao and I see us in the 52-55 range.

Contenders without another move? I don't know about that, but I think we're close.

 

Most of this is fair, but come on, Yao will not be 90% by Christmas. If I had to choose between placing money on him averaging 20mpg for the season or getting injured, I'd pick getting injured by a mile. We will be lucky if he is even 80% by the end of the season. I will be surprised if he ever has another 20ppg year in his entire career.