Chase Budinger is on the front page. I don't know whether they talk about the Rockets but if someone is an ESPN Insider, could you please post it up?
13th PLAYERS 26th MANAGEMENT 2nd MONEY 7th MARKET 10th DRAFT 14th One might be surprised to see the Rockets' ranking almost the same in light of their surprising strong start, but there's a reason this is called the Future Power Rankings. While Houston has indeed seen stellar performances that bode well going forward -- most notably from sixth man Carl Landry -- the talent base still doesn't compare well with that of many other teams. That's especially true if they can't re-sign forward Luis Scola, who has probably been their best player after Landry in the early part of the season. If anything, the cohesive play is another feather in the cap for Houston's management, including GM Daryl Morey and head coach Rick Adelman. But our ratings already showed a very healthy respect for both men: It's hard to move them up much more in that category when they're already second and the one franchise ahead of them wears four rings.
I don;t understand how they could be ranked so low if they are WINNING NOW while they are a young group. I think if they are winning now that means they could only win more in the future. And Scola is not young, what does he have to do with the future?
jesus...nothing about that makes sense. how can you say our players suck and our drafts are average but our management is number 2?
This is a pretty long post, so I'll just copy the Rockets' blurb. And in case you're wondering, these are the top 5 rankings: 1. Orlando Magic | Future Power Rating: 695 2. Los Angeles Lakers | Future Power Rating: 675 3. Oklahoma City Thunder | Future Power Rating: 661 4. Miami Heat | Future Power Rating: 631 5. Utah Jazz | Future Power Rating: 610 The Future Power Rankings are ESPN Insider's projection of the on-court success expected for each team during the 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons. Consider this a convenient way to see in what direction your favorite team is headed. Each of the NBA's 30 teams received an overall Future Power Rating of 0 to 1,000, based on how well we expected each team to perform in the three seasons following this season. To determine the Future Power Rating, we rated each team in five categories (see table below). As you can see, we determined that the most important category was a team's current players and the future potential of those players -- that category accounted for 40 percent of each team's overall Future Power Rating. At the same time, we looked at many other factors, such as management, ownership, coaching, a team's spending habits, its cap situation, the reputation of the city and the franchise, and what kind of draft picks we expected the team to have in the future. To reach our ratings in each category, we talked to teams to get a handle on their future strategies, we looked at their contractual commitments and we carefully broke down each roster to figure out which players would improve, which would decline and which would likely depart. We expect these rankings to evolve as the season moves along, trades are made, injuries occur, strategies shift, and so on. Return from time to time as we update the rankings. How Future Power Rating Is Determined PLAYERS (0 to 400 points): Current players and their potential for the future, factoring in expected departures MANAGEMENT (0 to 200 points): Quality and stability of front office, ownership, coaching MONEY (0 to 200 points): Projected salary-cap situation; ability and willingness to exceed cap and pay luxury tax MARKET (0 to 100 points): Appeal to future acquisitions based on team quality, franchise reputation, city's desirability as a destination, market size, taxes, business and entertainment opportunities, arena quality, fans DRAFT (0 to 100 points): Future draft picks; draft positioning CATEGORY RANKINGS: See how each team ranked in each category 13. Houston Rockets | Future Power Rating: 514 PLAYERS MANAGEMENT MONEY MARKET DRAFT 122 (26th) 156 (2nd) 124 (7th) 61 (10th) 51 (14th) One might be surprised to see the Rockets' ranking almost the same in light of their surprising strong start, but there's a reason this is called the Future Power Rankings. While Houston has indeed seen stellar performances that bode well going forward -- most notably from sixth man Carl Landry -- the talent base still doesn't compare well with that of many other teams. That's especially true if they can't re-sign forward Luis Scola, who has probably been their best player after Landry in the early part of the season. If anything, the cohesive play is another feather in the cap for Houston's management, including GM Daryl Morey and head coach Rick Adelman. But our ratings already showed a very healthy respect for both men: It's hard to move them up much more in that category when they're already second and the one franchise ahead of them wears four rings. (Previous rank: 14)
We had a great draft based on the fact that we had 0 picks going in, but overall (if you didn't know which picks we had) the talent we got out of the draft is just average. I think that might be how they're looking at it. Of course, it's hard to tell without seeing rankings for other teams.
DRAFT RANKING New Jersey Memphis Indiana Utah Minnesota Sacramento Milwaukee Golden State L.A. Clippers Okla. City Philadelphia Chicago Detroit Houston Miami Charlotte New Orleans Washington Toronto Portland New York San Antonio Phoenix Atlanta Cleveland Boston Orlando Denver Dallas L.A. Lakers
Thanks, but I wonder how the heck they have Utah and Miami in the top five? Both of those teams are practically carried on the backs of their respective superstars and their younger players from what I have seen aren't spectacular in anyway. The Lakers, Magic and Thunder, I'll give you because they have their stars locked up for the next few seasons but as much as I agree on Scola being important to our team, do they think that little of Brooks, Ariza, Budinger and even Yao that we get not even an average amount of love?
Hilarious how the Thunder are ranked so high. Its taken them years to start winning as a young team and they still havn't played better than Houston. Am I saying the Thunder won't eventually be a great team? Not at all, I think they will be what Portland was suppose to be in 3 years or so. My point is that people in sports, and this board quite frankly, underestimate the talent the Rockets have. Aaron Brooks is a top quality starting PG, Carl Landry in one year will be an All-Star caliber PF, Trevor is championship piece, Lowry is a top 2-3 backup and could start on some teams, Chase is nails as well. Scola, while lacking any more upside, is still a good power forward. The Rockets are a TALENTED team.
Subjective unquantifiable opinion on various self-chosen bases disguised as objective statistical evaluation
In case y'all are looking for a more detailed breakdown, here is a snapshot of each team's ranks in the respective categories:
Dear heaven it is worst then I thought. How is Houston a weaker market then Phoenix? Have they ever BEEN to Phoenix because it is in no way a better city then Houston, unless you love heat and sand? Our players are ranked lower then... the Clippers, T-Wolves, Hornets, the 76ers and the Nets. So this MUST be made by some idiots right? The sheer amount of failure in the teams I listed alone are enough to make a 8 year fail Pre-K.
