too soon to tell for sure, but as of right now i say we are not talented enough. we have talented rookies, but they are just that, ROOKIES. you have to think about how well we can play when the opposing team gets spend every moment preparing to stop us, when we are giving rookies major minutes. we thought we were good last year with luther head raining all those 3s in the regular season, got to the playoffs and gave us NOTHING. i am optimistic though but we NEED rafer to keep his play up most of all. when he has it going it opens up things so much more for everyone else, maybe even more than when t-mac has it going.
to be fair, Head wasn't a rookie. and JVG who never plays rookies had some vets on the bench he could have used but didn't.
my gf is a mavs fan and her whole family openly says they suck. they hear the same loser talk we do with t-mac but they totally believe it in their basketball souls. dirk might never be the same after last season.
I'm glad this thread was brought back into play. I had a thread a few weeks ago stating why I didn't like this team. If you're a observer of hoops and watch as many games as I do, this is fools gold. Like I said, I'm not going to say the sky is falling, but the rox are a little more talented than last yr. The problem is the other powers are more talented also. The absence of a guy that can get his own shot not named tracy is huge.It doesn't even take a pro hoops coach to tell you how teams will play houston late in games. Tilt toward tracy,pressure and front yao, force someone else to beat u. The only way the rox will win 4 of 7 is if yao and tracy dominate the entire series. Are they capable? yes. Are they likely? No. The 3rd guy concept is what will doom the rox. Not only that getting another undersized old gunner in jackson for the only other guy that can get a shot, bonzi, didn't add up. I mean the lakers have 3 guys that can get 15 on their own. The suns,spurs,mavs, and warriors do also. The rox have 2. The other have to be aided in getting 15. My problem is picking a lane and staying in it. Either ur competing or rebuildng. Either u take Gay and build for the future or Battier and try to win now. Of course a 10 games streak in any profession is great, but I'm talking big picture. Winning a ring, not just a 1st rd series. I never thought I would see the day Les would turn into drayton jr. This team was Artest away from being great, now we here the gm talking about next yr. U think the cavs are thinking next yr? What about every western power house above the rox? just find it almost non believable.
F that. I still think we have the potential to do it. We have to fire on all cylinders, but I think there is a chance
besides, most of them we have play 4 times already when we are building our chemistry, and now we do not need to face them and still have a 34-20 record
Artest wasn't going to make us a powerhouse. If anything that would just be a panic move made to keep up with all the trades going on. And to be real honest with you, only the Lakers and the Spurs (the teams with the best management and a disgusting 6 championships between them this decade) have become better as a result of their trades. Next year will be a better year to make a move, with all our expirings.
Great post. Said all I want to say... except... Too many people compare the perceived skills of individual players when comparing teams. Even after our awesome championship teams proved the point, they still focus on brand names over 'team'. I recall an expensive all-star Portland team that won the championship before the season started, then didn't even come close at the end... great names, no 'team'. I'm not saying we have proven anything yet, but w/ teamwork that is starting to show, this team has a shot. 1+1 can equal 3.
LCII- The thing is that getting Artest wouldn't have been just a knee jerk move, it was a needed move. Kupchak came on full court press and said he feared that the Lakers could fall out of contention without Bynum. Now I'm not saying that Kupchak is the greatest gm in the league, but when u have the best player in the game and a good cast, but u lose a guy that was changing ur team into a contender, what does that tell u? Once upon a time u could do it with one guy. Then a lot of people tried to mimic the kobe/shaq 2 man deal. In the west right now u need at least 3. The rox are the only team that doesn't posses that and it shows when they play really good teams. It will be even more evident when u have to play a really good team for 7 games. I hope I'm wrong but I don't like wasting yrs when my 2 best players are in their prime. Not to mention the guy they could have acquired was in his prime also. That was part of the deal with matching Scola up with yao and tracy.
You have to look at this one a bit more objectively. Despite struggling earlier in the season, the Rockets have pretty much held their own against every other contender except for Dallas. And after their latest trade, it looks like the days of that matchup mismatch may finally be coming to an end as well. We'll have to wait till the end of March before revisiting this thread to see if the Rockets have truly improved against top competition.
If we're talking about WC playoff teams, then I believe it is 0-0 (1-0 if you count GSW). Tomorrow will be a great test.
Wins in the regular season don't necessarily translate into playoff wins, any team can get hot and go all the way(Cavs last year, Heat the year before) I tend to think we have much better talent than last year. Regular season is just that, as long as we make the dance there's a chance.
JVG was the perfect coach for a team of robots. If you want to play with fire and energy, you have to free the team and set your players up to do what they do best. That's Adleman
i'm eager to see how we do against the hornets, especially, if we lead by 10+ points, and they make a run. i'd like to see how our D stacks up agains a legit team and if we have enough offensive firepower to match a run.
