Analyzing and assessing our championship aspirations

do you realize you just agreed with a poster who calls one of the best shooters in the game Kbrick?

 

BOOM SHACKA LACKA !!!

Preach on PREACHER !!!

DD

 

Uh...what?

Durant meets Trevor Ariza and Shane Battier. Westbrook meets Kyle Lowry. Unlike most teams we actually have the defenders needed to shut WB and Durant down. I'm pretty sure if you look at out all-time record against the Thunder we come out on top.

Dallas gets another year older, which is true esp. for Jkidd and Dirk. The only reason they won against us was because we lacked height, and that isn't the case next season.

Maybe one thing you aren't factoring is our bench combo of Hill and Patterson. That tandem will dominate other teams' bench frontcourt and give us the scoring presence we need when Scola and Yao sits down. As is I see an 9 man rotation of Yao, Kmart, Brooks, Scola, Ariza with Lowry, Battier, Hill and Patterson off the bench, with sprinkles of C-bud/JT/Jeffries in between.

 

If this team can stay healthy, which is a big if with Martin and Yao, we are as good as any team in the league except probably the Lakers but we have proved that we can play with them. People seem to forget how dominate a healthy Yao is. With a good shooter like Martin that gets us in the penalty early, it is going to be even harder to contain Yao.

PG - Brooks
SG - Martin
SF - Ariza
PF - Scola
C- Yao

I don't see where the weakness is in that lineup unless you think Brooks can't run the offense well with Yao back. With a bench as deep as ours there is no team that we couldn't match up with.

 

Now add in the bench:

PG - Lowry
SG - Budinger/Battier/Taylor
SF - Battier/Budinger
PF - Hill/Patterson/Hayes
C - Hill/Hayes/Andersen/Miller?

Man that is one deep team.

DD

 

Ouch. Yeah, r****ded nickname for a guy who routinely gives you 25 points on 15 shots.

Before I forget, I know we need a lot of luck to fulfill this team's potential but I don't see any other options. As always, this team's success hinges on Yao's health regardless of who comes here. My hope is that Yao is good to go and this team is in a position where they can make a trade at the deadline for a player to put us over the top.

 

Exactly what I think.

DD

 

Besides. The McGrady/Van gundy curse is gone
so . . . Yao will be healthy.
He was healthy the years before those two came here!

Rocket River

 

Honestly, I am very worried about his health, but being that we have NO choice as fans, I am just going to HOPE for the best, because we know that if anyone can come all the way back it is Yao, his work ethic is unquestioned.

DD

 

Good thing all-time records are more important than recent playoff appearances.

 

Lets see...last season, 2-2 against Mavs and 4-0 against OKC. WITHOUT YAO!!!! Please think before posting.

 

Dallas: 55-27
OKC: 50-32
Houston: 42-40

Clearly the team limping in with a barely above .500 record is better than the 50+ game winning playoff teams.

 

Phoenix and Utah are officially out of the picture too. That 42 wins might get us in the playoffs above them today as they lost Boozer and Amare.

Trade deadline we add Martin and Hill lose some games in the process of implementing them in the lineup and also lose Lowry. Lose some games then. Thats a total of almost 15 games effected in the win loss colum. We correct that and have Yao who effected the whole season? Thats a total of a potential for a 15 game swing upward.

Thats assuming Budinger and Hill and Patterson makes absolutely no progress as rookies and second year players coming back also.

 

Still Much Hope

Even though we didn't get Bosh, there is still many good things to see as free agency approaches:
1) Amar'e and Boozer have left their respective teams. Making the Suns and Jazz significantly weaker.
2) The Rockets still have assets to pull off a steal for a solid player.

With these things in mind we can look at how this impacts our playoff chances, the teams in contention last year were:
Lakers
Suns
Jazz
Nuggets
Thunder
Spurs
Mavericks
Blazers
Rockets
Grizzlies

Now let’s see how free Agency has impacted these teams
Lakers(no change)
Suns(negative change)
Jazz(negative)
Nuggets(same)
Thunder(slight positive(acquired Daequan Cook for nothing because of Miami's Salary Dump)
Spurs(same, however some reports speculate a David Lee-Tony Parker deal)
Mavericks(same)
Blazers(same)
Rockets(same)
Grizzlies(same)

Taking the above changes into consideration, it is a safe assumption the Grizzlies will not make the playoffs, and that the Lakers will. It is also very likely that the Nuggets, Mavericks, Thunder, and Blazers will as well.

That leaves the Suns, Jazz, Spurs, and us vying for three playoff spots. Needless to say, one team will not make it. Let's look at the team's records from last year
Houston(42-40)
Suns(54-28)
Jazz(53-29)
Spurs(50-32)

Assuming Yao can still play at half of his former level, we can say the it is highly likely the Rockets wins will increase.
Assuming a David Lee-Tony Parker trade doesn't go done. We can assume the Spurs will have a similar record.
The Jazz and Suns records will both go down because of their FA losses.

Let's pretend that Yao comes back, half of his former self and the Rockets make no major trades. Let's say this gives us 5-10 more wins.

By losing Boozer and Amar'e respectively(and not replacing them with a similar quality player), we can assume the Jazz and Suns will lose anywhere from 5-10 more games.

Okay, now by doing simple math we can see that under these circumstances it is extremely likely the Rockets will at least be the 8th seed in the West next season.

 

Suns and Jazz are gonna take a serious down turn. Amar was not just a big loss because of Amare. He was huge because Nash cant possibly keep playing at the level he does.

Boozer made the Jazz a good team without him? Barely in the playoffs. We move above both teams this year easily and Oklahoma takes their place as new powerhouse with us.

 

Houston is nowhere close to a middle of the pack team in the Western Conference.

Everything hinges on Yao. Even if Houston had gotten Bosh everything would have hinged on Yao.

If Yao comes back in form, Houston is a Western Conference favorite one step below LA. There's only 1 team that has the X factor which should make Kobe nervous in the WC... and that's the Houston Rockets with Yao, its young core of developing players, and Morey at the helm pulling deals

 

Thank you for helping me out here. Morey's strategy will result in perpetual 5-8 seeds, getting us bounced early in the playoffs and never drafting high enough to get out of 50 win hell.

 

Part of Morey's strategy is to try to trade up for a top draft pick, and the Rockets have aggressively pursued this the last two drafts. If think that the Rockets shouldn't bother trying to trade for a high lottery pick and they should just tank, then just say so.

 

If everybody are healthy, the only weakness is the coach. Coach RA is a great coach but he's not a coach who can win champs. bring back JVG.

 

Depends on how we define 'healthy' for Yao. Can he even get to the point where he can be our featured player once again? My thinking is that the Rockets will play him sparingly at the start of the year. It will be like the playoffs version of Andrew Bynum on crack.

I don't think that he'll ever get to the point where he can dominate games consistently. If that is the case, then we need another star to carry the load at times during the playoffs. Our role players are top notch, no doubt about that. We just need another star who can destroy playoff defenses when we're stalling. Do we need someone with 2004 T-Mac capabilities? Not the way our team is constructed, but I do feel like we need someone similar. I would have liked Joe Johnson for this team because he can create off the dribble and then make the pass over defenses. Brooks has the speed and the moves to beat defenses, but not the height to consistently make the passes out of the scrambling defenses.

Here's to hoping for another great move from Morey.