Crisper- Pulling together thoughts from two threads....stragiht out of jack ramsey's mouth, who generally is at least a little knowledgeable concerning basketball (hey, hes much better than Peter Gammons IMO) The Rockets' biggest factor is for Kelvin Cato to step up and be a defensive asset in the middle and score enough to keep other teams honest.....Cato will be the key, as well as anything they can get from their big forwards.
I think ESPN is a little confused. They ranked us #9 in their pre-season rankings, but then say that we will have trouble making the playoffs in our team preview? A little consistency would be greatly appreciated. Idiots!
Dont forget who we are........Any Rox team we have had thrives on being the underdog...the come "from nowhere" team, that sweeps the Magic in the finals........I like it this way there is no pressure on them. GO OUT THERE AND DO YOUR BEST THATS ALL WE FANS ASK!!!!
Dr. Jack is a kindly old man, but he's half-way senile, and has this far off look in his eye. I take what he says with a grain of salt, but not the same way as Aldridge or Vescey. Vescey and Aldridge are ill-informed and worthless. Dr Jack's problem is he'll ramble something out, and obviously forget what he said 2 minutes later. Dude is literally living off a championship he won over 20 years ago. He's knowledgeable, but then again if you can't remember 90% of the things you say what good is that knowledge? I love it when he calls the NBA on ESPN radio though. Whenever a player throws it down he screams out "One hand slamma!" or "Two hand slamma jamma!" Hilarious!
The #9 ranking is before we lost marc jackson. Now it will be different. I swear u guys are so whiny. Is it that important to you that espn gives us more respect. If we start winning more the respect will come, its just a matter of time.
Obviously that is a flawed evaluation without Walt included in the rotation and/or not even mentioned. Maybe they know something we don't? Williams/Langhi for a draft pick?
<b>btw guys, Ramsey only did the blurb to the right in the table. Marc Stein did the article.</b> Jay, There's the pundit. LOL. you're right. I like Dr Ramsey. But you know these guys have 29 teams to cover. How specific can they be? I am almost going to say this is a semantic argument. But, on second thought, screw that....the Doc (as brilliant as he was inventing the 1-3-1 zone preceding Don Chaney's match-up zone) does not follow the Rockets as much as we do here. Cato is not the key. That's my opinion....I guess. If Cato is a "key," the key is simply him not getting injured or placed in the doghouse. That is not really improvement in my book such that his scoring has to "keep other teams honest." Man, who here believes Cato's scoring is the key? Who here thinks Cato's scoring is going to contribute to keeping guys off of Francis and Mobley? It is the other way around: The success of Rice fitting with SF/CM and all three of them beating the new rules is going to allow Cato to score more. Cato is *not* going to keep defenses honest more than allowing Francis to exploit Cato's athleticism with dishes if the man will just stay awake for 78 games. As for defense, he'll keep players honest just by being on the court. Getting injured, getting in early foul trouble, or going to the doghouse is all he needs to improve. If he accomplishes that, the numbers will come to him. So, is that a "key?" The key to Cato is 78 games played being active. No real physical improvement is necessary. That's it. The key to the Rockets is Rice meshing well with SF and CM, and all of them improving our perimeter game, reducing turnovers and improving fastbreak. If that happens, Cato just needs to show up to play to improve our team defense. If that doesn't happen, Cato will have to play out of his mind and learn a turnaround jumper to get us to the playoffs. bottomline: as Fran Blinebury said in the infamous article, "It is masochistic to place our success on Cato's shoulders." He is correct on that one. We truly are masochists to believe that. And Rudy should be fired for approaching the season with that attitude, and Francis should be traded for someone more cocky if he believes that. btw: here are his other keys: <ul> <li>Spurs: Need to get tougher to beat Kobe and Shaq. ummmm Robinson isn't getting tougher, and they do have a top tier defense to begin with <li>Utah: Need other good players around Stockton and Malone. Isn't that always the case. <li>Dallas: Need to improve their defense. no ****. Doc?....Doctor Defense?....can't you be a little bit more specific? You think just maybe you could say that they need to exploit Bradley in the new zone rules? <li>Grizzlies: here he starts talking about teams he doesn't know like the Rockets. So he takes the easy route and says the keys are Jason Williams and Bryant Reeves improving the past ways. Again, that is pretty masochistic. <li>Lakers: "they need Derek Fisher back from injury." No they don't. sheesh. <li>Suns: "But a lot will depend on Penny Hardaway and whether he can play with his knee condition. Also, another question is how much Jake Tsakalidis will improve. " One thinks he could have said this about Cato rather than calling him "the key."</ul> Anyhow, you get the point. Pundits often do their summaries by assuming the stars and leaders will perform as advertised, so they often make the role players and "intangibles" out to be "the keys." Witness what he says about Boston, "The critical areas are at center and point guard. The other spots are solid." He is more summarizing question marks than anything else. Why is Cato a "key" and the Lakers "need Derek Fisher back" when Tsakalidis is just "another question?"
Obviously that is a flawed evaluation without Walt included in the rotation and/or not even mentioned. Maybe they know something we don't? Williams/Langhi for a draft pick? I agree with you, somethings just don't add up. I was thinking of the roster of 15 and playing time. Maybe their is going a trade some where. I would like to get a #5 with Walt and Langhi, otherwise you need to add Walt in the evaluation.
While I disagree with a lot of what Stein says here, I must give him this much: he is the first non-Houston columnist I have read who openly said that losing Hakeem might not necessarily be a bad thing, let alone a devestating thing. He is right. While no Rockets's spokesperson would ever say it publicly, losing Dream is not all bad, and had many good side effects. The injury to Mo is tragic, but we will get along fine without Dream.
Cato being the key is semantics. Crispee's X-factor is similar to Ramsey's definition of key. I would say Cato is the key to drastic improvement in the rockets game as he could conceivably add a consistent defensive and rebounding precense the rocket's lacked last year. This assumes the continued improvement of the rocket's backcourt. The strict definition of the key would be the rockets backcourt being able to school any other backcourt. With this key, the frontcourt only has to be competitive. Does anyone remember the Phoenix game a while back when Francis, Mobley, Shannon, and Moochie dropped 82 points on them? That's why the rockets backcourt is KEY. Improvements in Cato's play would allow the rockets to play three guard more effectively (in my opinion) and you get the chicken or the egg argument.
I have a hard time understanding how they can predict that we might only win around 35 games when won 34 games in 99-00. That team started most of the games with: PG - Francis (rookie) SG - Shandon Anderson (never quite fit on this team) SF - Walt Williams (Could not find his shot until the last quarter of the season) PF - KT (rookie) C - Cato (had some flashes in the middle of the season but compleatly faded down the stretch) Bench Mobley - biggest supprise that year even started some of the games in the middle of the year because Rudy T had to move Shandon over to the 3 because Walt couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat for most of the year. Dream - injured most of the year and compleatly missing the last 3rd of the season because of asthma. CB4 - Missed most of the season because of an injury in Philly. Thomas (two sandwiches) Hamilton - nothing like smoking a little pot and and hitting every buffet in town before the game...eh Thomas? Carlos Rodgers - Played well when he wasn't injured. Pig Miller - Still can't find a team to play for. Bryce Drew - Do I need to go into detail? This team rarely played with the same line up. It's two best players spent almost the intire year on I.R. and it's two rising stars had 1 year of experiance between them. How this team even won 34 games is a testiment to Rudy T. Now on to the team that is supose to win 35 games by some that are suppose to be knowledgable: The Starters PG - Francis, in his 3rd year and maybe the best point guard in the west. Upgrade from 99 - 00 SG - Mobley, one of the better 2 guards in the league and should compete for a spot on the all star team. Upgrade from 99 - 00 SF - Glen Rice, one of the best pure shooters in the history of the game...a better version of Walt. Upgrade from 99 - 00 PF - Kenny Thomas, in his 3rd year and looking much better than he did in his rookie year. Upgrade from 99 - 00. C - Cato, finally starting to look comfortable with the team and showing a lot of effert. Upgrade from 99 - 00? only time will tell. The Bench - Huge upgrade Moochie, He's the reason Bryce was shipped out of town. Willis, Proven vetern producer that will help solidify the front court with out demanding minutes from the youngsters. Walt Williams, no longer needed to start and can concentrate on hitting the open 3's. Eddie Griffin, Rebounding, shotblocking specialist with some offensive punch. Could turn out to be the best player in this years draft. Terrance Morris, should turn into SF of the future. Very tallented. Makes the game look effortless. Oscar Tores, another rookie that great potential and should shore up the 2 spot. Collier, another big body that will be called on for situational duty. While this group of players has two rookies that may be just as vital as Francis and Thomas were in 99 to the long term success of the Rockets, neither will be called upon to start or have the pressure of having to lead this team. They can spend time learning on the bench and playing when they are ready. This bench is superior to the bench in 99-00. So please someone tell me how this team is only one win better than the 99 - 00 team.
Kelvin Cato is averaging only 4.8 rpg in 22 mpg. Kenny T, The Wiz, Griffin, Francis, and Mobley are all averaging higher than him.
LOL! This is from ESPN, what did you guys expect? These idiots were the same ones that never gave the Rockets any respect back when we were winning back-to-back championships. Personally, I like the fact that so many of the so-called experts don't think we are going to be any good. That will make it all the more enjoyable when we make the playoffs and they have egg on their face. A couple of things: 1) IMO, the Suns and T-Wolves didn't really do anything that made them a better team than us, in my mind, so I find it laughable that they would be that better than us. Also, both the Jazz and Blazers have to be 2 of the riskiest teams out there to bet on in going to the playoffs because of age and chemistry. 2) If Kelvin Cato averaged a double-double for the season, I guarantee you that we are not going to win "just 40" games. Did anyone else catch that? Hell, if Cato can do that, we should be in good shape to maybe even get home court advantage for the first round of the playoffs.
4.8 rpg isn't bad for 22 minutes especially if everyone else is rebounding and you're challenging shots.
This is called denial. They invented delusions to help them cope with the reality that last year the Rockets were almost good enough to be in the playoffs. When they look at the Rocks' record for last year, they must think that it is a typo, since no way were the Rocks that good. The starting point for guessing the number of Rocket wins this year should be 45. The real key players (SF/CM) are all back and all a year wiser and more experienced.
