Great post. I'm going to trust that there are systems in place (even though it didn't look like much last night) and believe in this coaches plan for turning this team around. I choose to believe that he can recreate some of that magic he had in Boston where they didn't really become a .500 team until around January or February (first 50 or so games) of that year when it looked like the team and systems started to gel. Not saying the Rockets will be as successful as Boston (because we don't have the same talent) but hopefully we will begin to look more like a cohesive unit that can defend and score.
Any team can blow out any other team in a 1 game sample. And I don't think the Magic are a bad team anymore. I expect them to be around .500 this season.
Nice! Wish the mods would take all the knee jerk threads and combine them into one place. Would be much easier to ignore that way.
We all know it sometimes takes time to adjust to a new coach/system (or any kind of structure/system in this case). Not gonna overreact to a few bad games early in the season, but I do expect things to look better by midway though the season.
Wiz and Blazer also lost their opener. It's one game except, the team that loses are the usual suspects along with this team. Magic for some of us was a toss up, as a maybe, I never penciled Orlando in as a win. Was going to maybe chuck it up as Magic having an extra umph since their celebrating their 30th. Except last night Jazz was celebrating their 50th but lost to the Kings. Losing is whatever, it's the margin. Rockets will be playing many of our in season group teams in next two months, so yes it will be brutal.
Ime’s Celtics lost by 32 to the Raptors in their second game, so I’m definitely not going to let one game dampen my optimism for the season overall. Sengun breaking out of his offensive funk, and going 3/3 in the midrange was the most encouraging thing last night, shows that he is expanding his game. Both Jalen and Fvv were passive in the first half, being overly unselfish and trying to play the team game, in the third quarter Fvv took the reins and stopped deferring which brought us back into the game. The whole team looked confused on offense and it’s going to take time to balance between being aggressive and unselfish, which is what made everyone play hesitant. Ime preaches team ball, so no one wanted to take any bad shots which made the team tentative. Once they get used to each other and Ime’s system the offense will run smoother and they won’t have to overthink, problem is they have to figure this out during such a tough early schedule, trail by fire. With all that going on, Amen was pretty much the sole reason we got blown out. He could not hold the ball or dribble the ball and looked like a deer in headlights, a -34. With Fvv and Sengun on the court we actually played them even. This gives me more confidence that this is just a one off, because Amen is either going to get a lot better or we are going to start running Aaron Holiday. That’s the difference between this year and the last couple of years, we are not going to keep playing a -34 for 20 mpg the whole season with zero repercussion.
They're not gonna go from a 20-22 win team 3 years in a row with a horrible culture to suddenly becoming a .500 ballclub on opening night. This is a work in progress and Year 1 of Phase 2 or whatever the hell they're calling it. If they're still playing as poorly as last season come January, then there's cause for concern.
This was never ever going to be a few months fix. The process takes at least full season before you really make any king of significant jump. And that's only if the guys actually show consistent progression and impacting winning. There's plenty more of last nights game coming. And it was the orlando magic who are in the bottom portion tier of the league
Exactly, at least we will finally find out about our prospects, and decide who to build around. Got to separate the prospects from the suspects. DD
Here is what I think is reasonable (win%) Now through end of the year - (.300-.365) January through the all-star break - (.350-.420) ASB through end of year - (.375-.475)
Now through end of the year - 30 GMs (9-11 wins) January through the all-star break - 24 GMs (8-10) ASB through end of year - 28 Gms (11-13) So, 28-34 wins If we make a trade for a helpful vet along the way, possibly 2-3 more wins. So if everything goes perfectly, 37 wins might get us a play-in. If everything goes badly, bottom 5 lotto team.
