Enough with the pessimism, we WILL make the playoffs!

Those teams are the same because they don't have good people in the front office. We have Morey. You don't have to get a franchise player the first time you go to the lottery either. It's called building through the draft. A top 5 pick will help too. There are Westbrooks, Aldridges in drafts also.

 

i think morey anticipates those things too. i'm sure morey knows we have ZERO chance of gettin a top 5 pick. like i said, even if mcgrady doesn't play, at worst, we'll be 8-10 games below .500 and that's not that bad of a record to warrant a top 5-7 pick. we'll be on the border of the playoffs and the 12/13th pick at worst. so why not just make the damn playoffs and hope for teh best? other stars might see how these group of role players play without tmac/yao and hey, i wanna join in

 

I know what should happen is likely not going to because Les is at the helm. I was just letting out steam right now. I know it'll be another year like the other 13. Slow progress if at all.

 

...I think your analysis is lacking a good dose of reality like some have mentioned(for instance, chances are Utah isn't as injury plagued this year). I think it's too optimistic to say we are a playoff team because of our "transition game" combined with our defense when I can only remember a handful of transition buckets all last year. Yes, Yao is gone, but the impact in how much more uptempo we will be doesn't make up for the defensive loss of losing Yao....plus, this is an unproven team in terms of transition. What if we get out and run and our team turnovers go through the roof? And let's not even talk about Anderson as a decoy when the guy hasn't set foot on an NBA court yet.

Also, let's not compare how well we did against LA with Yao and Tracy out. Basketball is a game of matchups and we happened to have a favorable matchup at the PG spot which helped offset some of our other deficiencies in that series. Besides, it's not like any of those Yao/Tmac-less games where close - each had 20+ point leads at some point. I think it's VERY shaky to try and project a season based on 4 games against one team in the playoffs(in a series we won). By your own logic, we are a better team without Yao because we were 1-2 against LA with him and 2-2 without him - certainly you can see how ridiculous that line of logic can be.

I also don't think there is anything wrong with expecting this team NOT to make the playoffs this year - especially given the circumstances that it might make us a better team in the long run. I think it's fair to say this is a team that will overachieve again and be better than expected, but better than expected puts us in the 30 win category. The non-homer world of NBA analysts don't expect the Rockets to even crack 30.

If there is anything good about the original post it's that some charity will benefit from your optimism.

 

Edited for wrong pronoun.

 

exactly. your scenario is not going to work until we let yao go.

 

That's not why it doesn't work. KG went to the lottery with Minnesotta ... so a player earning a large sum of the payroll is not a hinderance to start the process. Minnesotta had a bad front office so they didn't do much with the lottery ... they had Brandon Roy. For our part, it doesn't work because there has to be a willingness to rebuild, get younger ... be bad to be good later.

It also doesn't help that the deals offered for McGrady just haven't been very good. Later this season if McGrady gets back to "elite status" then Morey may choose to take a proposition that takes the team into another direction. Later down the line when Yao is expiring Morey will have the same possibilities if he wants to take it there too.

Like I said, I was just blowing off steam ... I got impatient. I trust in Morey.

 

<BR>
One HUGE factor that everyone on this board seems to be overlooking:

Rick Adelman teams almost never miss the playoffs.

Let me repeat that for the hard of head:

Rick Adelman teams almost never miss the playoffs.

Only TWO of the 18 teams he's coached in the NBA have missed the playoffs. That's roughly 11%. In other words, he's taken almost 90% of his teams to the playoffs, including a few that were much worse than this year's Rockets (even without T-Mac and/or Yao).

All of you who are hoping for a lottery pick next year so we can win the ping-pong ball drawing and get a shot at the next Kwame Brown are going to be sorely disappointed.
<BR><BR>

 

Great point.

 

yeah, it is risky. Rick took that team to 22 win streak and passed 2nd round.


Adelman needs a long vacation.

 

Play hard, play scrappy, make the playoffs.

Keep Yao and Tracy on a trajectory of recovery targeting late-season or playoffs.

If Yao and/or Tracy are contributing by end of season, no team will want a piece of the Rockets in the playoffs.

8th seed to the title.

BELIEVE

 

^ This.

Adelman's offense will find us ways to put points on the board even without the reputed elite scorers. This and quick/forceful transition offense will contribute to our total ppg much more heavily than previous years

 

I like Adelman as a coach, but he did have 36 and 30 win seasons back to back with Golden State, which had similar if not better talent than the Rockets minus Yao and Tmac. Coaches can only do so much..

95-96 Warriors Roster:

Latrell Sprewell 18.9 ppg 4.9 reb
Joe Smith 15.3 ppg 8.8 reb
Tim Hardaway 14.1 ppg 6.9 ast
Chris Mullin 13.3 ppg 3.5 ast
B.J. Armstrong 12.3 ppg 4.9 ast
Rony Seikaly 12.1 ppg 7.8 reb
Kevin Willis 11.3 ppg 7.7 reb
Chris Gatling 9.1 ppg 5.2 reb
Bimbo Coles 7.9 ppg 4.3 ast
Jerome Kersey 6.7 ppg 4.8 reb
Donyell Marshall 5.5 ppg 3.4 reb
Jon Barry 3.8 ppg 1.3 ast
Andrew DeClercq 2.7 ppg 1.8 reb
Clifford Rozier 3.1 ppg 2.9 reb
Robert Churchwell 1.5 ppg .8 reb
Geert Hammink 1.3 ppg .3 reb
David Wood 1 ppg .8 reb

vs what the current healthy rockets who were in the NBA last year did:

Luis Scola 12.7 ppg 8.8 reb
Aaron Brooks 11.2 ppg 3 ast
Carl Landry 9.2 ppg 5 reb
Trevor Ariza 8.9 ppg 4.3 reb
Kyle Lowry 7.6 ppg 3.4 ast
Shane Battier 7.3 ppg 4.8 reb
Brent Barry 3.7 ppg 1.7 reb
James White 1.8 ppg .3 ast
Brian Cook 1.3 ppg .6 reb
Chuck Hayes 1.3 ppg 3.5 reb
Joey Dorsey .7 ppg .3 reb



I'll be cheering the team on, and if we can make a big trade or get Tmac back healthier than he has been in several years then things could improve drastically. We may even have a shot of pushing for the 8th seed regardless if we get bigger contributions than expected from some of the new players, or if Brooks and Scola make a big jump, but I wouldn't bet money on it at this point. For now I will go in expecting the worst and be pleasantly surprised if they over perform. After all we have lost 5 of our top 7 scorers from last year, and it remains to be seen how that gap will be filled.

 

I honestly see us ending up in the 9 or 10 slot in the West, behind LA, SA, Portland, Dallas, Denver, Utah, PHX, NO, and possibly OKC.

We'll be strong defensively on the perimeter, but teams are going to punish us inside.

It'll be interesting to see how Adelman decides to handle LA's frontcourt of Gasol, Bynum, and Odom? We'll counter with Hayes, Andersen, Scola, possibly Landry on Lamar? Big size mismatch for LA.

If you thought the team this year was scrappy and tough, the '09-'10 Rockets are going to fight like junkyard dogs. Scola's going to be the face of the team.

 

Luis Scola averaged 12.7 points last year, more than anyone else on the current roster bar Yao and Tmac. Of the 29 other NBA teams:

- 2 teams (MIL and SAC) have exactly 1 player who averaged more points than Scola.
- 2 teams (MIN and NJN) have 2.
- 9 teams (BOS, CHA, CHI, CLE, LAC, MEM, MIA, NYK, OKC) have 3.
- 12 teams (DAL, DEN, GSW, IND, LAL, NOH, ORL, PHI, PHO, POR, SAS, WAS) have 4.
- 4 teams (ATL, DET, TOR, UTA) have 5.

More than half the teams in the NBA have 4 guys who outscored our highest scorer. Jesus.

 

we will make the playoff, you can quote me.

 

I'll be rooting for them to make it and think they have a pretty decent chance.



But mostly I want to express my suprise that the following has not yet been posted in this thread yet:






<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/p3-eavMSBnk&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/p3-eavMSBnk&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

 

If they start Chuck Hayes, they will make the playoffs. If they start that weak Euroleague guy, I promise you they will resemble The Atlanta Hawks 3-4 years ago with Zaza Pachulia and Al Harrington.

Basketball is about chemistry and you will see a lot of guys like Scola and Ariza just putting up numbers in losses if you don't have the right mix.

The best possible and most balanced starting lineup Adelman can put on the floor is:

Hayes
Scola
Ariza
Battier
Brooks

Having Anderson and Scola in the game at the same time would be one of the most terrible front lines in recent memory of any team I can think of. Teams would have a field day inside on them.

Though Rick Adelman has proven in the past to be like Mr. Magoo when it comes to coaching, so I expect him to ride David Anderson and Luis Scola right into the lottery.

 

I would project the scoring averages for that line up to be around:

Hayes 5 ppg
Scola 16 ppg
Ariza 10 ppg
Battier 8 ppg
Brooks 16 ppg

That assumes every one of them makes a jump in their scoring averages from last year, which is fairly reasonable considering they will get more shot attempts and playing time, but at the same time they won't have Yao to draw consistent double teams for wide open shots either. Brooks showed some scoring ability in the playoffs, but his decision making was often lacking and he was extremely up and down. Hopefully he can improve in both areas. Scola is solid, but we will have to see if he can be the go to guy on an NBA team. It's hard for me to look at that line up and think they won't stuggle to score points on a regular basis.