[CBS Sports] NBA Offseason Report: Houston Rockets

How are the thunder stone cold title contenders? Durant was hurt practically all of last season. Him staying healthy is a pretty big question mark.

 

You're not alone, especially business/politics articles. Where do those commenters come from? Are we from the same gene pool as them?

 

If you think Marcus Thornton won't be in the rotation you really don't know what Marcus Thornton does well. He is the best pure shooter on this team period.

 

Thorton is just one of those players that have always been on bad teams so he's easily forgotten since the most memorable players make their name in the playoffs. Put Thornton on the GSW, Spurs, Cleveland, etc and everyone would know who he is.

 

Chuck Hayes and M Thorton are what M Miller was in Cleveland last year. Veterans who can hardly contribute.

 

IMO Thornton will have a Troy Daniels role like in the Portland series. Run him on a bunch of off ball screens and when he's in he is in to shoot threes and not much else is expected of him.

 

Not specific to you, but it's interesting how Durant's recent injury is used to discount OKC by many around here, while Howard's increasing health issues are swept under the rug when looking at the Rockets' chances next year.

 

I agree, to me only difference is Dwight played big minutes in the playoffs and played very well.

 

This time last year, no one thought the Warriors would be as good as they were.

No one would have believed the defending champions would be eliminated in the first round.

Until the Lebron announcement in July last year, Cleveland was a contender for the 1st round pick again.

No way the Atlanta hawks would be in the conference finals

 

Well said. While many here are ate up with the dumba$$ (fire Morey crowd I'm looking at you) the vast majority are middle of the road somewhat objective and not too rude.

The article was fair enough IMO

 

I don't think it's any coincidence that a healthy Warriors thrived in a season that saw significant injuries to more than half the league's top 25 players. Missing either lots of time in the regular season or critical games in the postseason, the following stars where all out: Westbrook, Durant, Paul George, Blake Griffin, Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh, Derrick Rose, Melo, Kobe, John Wall, Kawai, Wade, Mike Conley, Ibaka, Love, Kyrie, 3 lotto rookies(Embiid, that Lakers PF, and Jabari), etc...and that's not including those key guys who aren't stars but have a real impact on their team's chances like Tony Allen and Kyle Korver.

...so I guess what I'm saying is that the injuries played a huge role in all these unexpected team story lines.

 

And there's no way to predict those injuries now.

Not to give the warriors too much credit but they were still playing strong when the other teams were at full strength. Give them credit for sustaining it throughout the whole season.

 

Well, Dwight's injury proved to respond well to treatment and he came back and looked to be in top form. Durant has now missed almost a whole season and re-injured the same foot (hell, I think the same bone) twice. His situation is starting to look more like Yao Ming than anything that Dwight went through.

 

On Warriors, I thought some people were picking them to win and Rockets fans were saying will the Warriors-love fest ever end.

On Atlanta, they had a good looking roster for the east so getting to the conference finals, while not the likeliest of teams, definitely should not have been a surprise.

 

Big difference is, for health-related reasons, OKC has consistently declined over the last 2 yrs. As in, doing worse and worse.

HOU? We have done better and better over the last 2 yrs, in spite of our health-related reasons.

Life and health is hard to predict, but of course you can take the above info into account when you're deciding how probable X team is going to be better than Y team in an upcoming season, etc. I think it'd be foolish to not do so.

 

OKC is a tier 1 team in the West. However I have some serious questions/concerns about them.

1) New Coach. And new to the NBA.
2) Will KD be healthy and 100% all season?
3) Will Kanter/Waiters take shots AWAY from the more efficient KD?
4) Westbrook & KD playing together. The dynamic has changed some here. Just look how Westbrook grew into more of a team leader last year. He seemed to relish that role. With that mindset in place now, I wonder how his game will co-exist with KD (and Ibaka). It might be fine, but I am still curious to see if the same "mesh" is there.
5) If the Westbrook/KD mesh isn't clean, then when the "KD about to become a UFA" storyline starts to rear it's head, how will the team respond?

 

Whoever picked the Warriors prior to the season is a genius. The team finished 6th in the standings, didn't get past the first round, and had a new first-time coach.

 

Reggie Miller picked GS to win the West although he was not that smart because he picked the rockets at 7. But he was still far better than Barkely.

 

Well, he's the biggest pure shooter on this team anyway.

 

1) Dwight Howard actually played the majority of the season last year. Durant watched the majority of it.

2) Howard's injury is zapping his athletic ability, but it is not career threatening. Durant's injury is a documented career ender. It ended the career of our last All-Star center remember?

3) OKC relies heavily on 2 superstars who have a history of serious injuries. Between the 2 of them, it is not unrealistic to expect them to miss 20+ games a season. In the West, that is the difference.