first post here may have been posted already if have lock it. By Marc Stein ESPN.com Updated: September 23, 2007 Comment Email Print The natural follow-up to our review of Eastern Conference summer business is assessing who's done the best shopping and tweaking in the Western Conference. The problem? West teams weren't nearly as active, as the migration of those five 20-point scorers to the East would suggest. The Houston Rockets made an aggressive clutch of moves to boost their depth and make the Texas Triangle more daunting than ever, but most of the Westerners went for more of a status quo approach. We nonetheless plug away with our annual team-by-team rankings ... and we repeat: These are assessments of each team's summer dealings, not predicted order of finish for the coming season. 1. Houston Rockets In their ongoing quest to finally reach the second round of the playoffs, Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming will no longer be lacking assistance. They'll have more help than ever this season. Daryl Morey's first summer of exclusive authority in the Rockets' front office has resulted in multiple handy pickups to strengthen the supporting cast around T-Mac and Yao for new coach Rick Adelman, quickly hushing concerns that Morey's limited experience and untraditional background made him a risky hire. The Rockets have three new options at point guard, which is good timing given all the off-court trouble Rafer Alston has encountered lately: First-round pick Aaron Brooks and the reacquired duo of Mike James and Steve Francis. The Rockets have welcomed back a resurrected Bonzi Wells to possibly (finally) emerge as their new No. 3 scoring option. Wells is eager to stick around after thriving under Adelman in Sacramento and, like Francis, will be playing at a bargain-basement price, taking all the risk out of the second chance he'll get now in Houston after never meshing with Jeff Van Gundy. The Rockets have also addressed a real need at power forward with the surprise acquisition of Argentina's Luis Scola, capitalizing on the unusual circumstances that made Scola available and believing that the toughness, smoothness and energy he offered in Las Vegas during the recent Olympic qualifying tournament can trump concerns that he's too undersized to succeed inside in the NBA. It remains to be seen if Yao, even with his passing ability, can transition to Adelman's up-tempo style as easily as Houston projects. But that might be the worst non-Alston-related thing you can say about the Rockets' summer, which is why they top this list.
ya i couldn't wait after seeing the east first. He still doesn't think that the rocks are as good as the spurs, but I am more concerned with the mavs. If I'm not mistaken, the only game we lost to the spurs was the first, in which we blew like a 18 point 3rd quarter lead. I wanna say we went 2 for 26 from the field the rest of the way. It hurt, but we outplayed the spurs 14 and half out of 16 quarters last season.
Of course you can say Boston improved this summer too but who knows that game knows that everuthing in basketball is about team. Ok Boston has Ray Allen, Pierce and KG (perfect trio) but players around them? No bench? Is that really great? I agree that Rockets has the best summer cause right now we are very deep. We have great S5 with Scola now and we have a bench which is really able to score when the startin' 5 will sit on the bench. And that's why I'm really excited
The NBA is a what have you done lately league. Most of our "Tradeable assets" haven't done much lately. The other problem is that we need to make trades of 2 or three players for 1 which is tough because it means we have to take on a large salary which either comes with large tallent(if we are lucky) or we are taking an expiring contract. The expiring contract will likely be an overpaid player that we don't really want.
well obviously im a rockets fan but look at every team in the west, heck in the entire league. NO ONE has done nearly as much as we have this offseason. you might as well consider bonzi an aquisition too since *we hope* he'll actually do something this year.
I was at both games we lost against the spurs. The first one we blew a huge lead and the second one we got our a@# handed to us on a silver platter.
