For all you who think we are going to be a 4 or 5 seed

Baseball and Basketball are nothing a like. They cant be compared.

No other team sport more than Basketball is effected by an indivdual more greatly than in Basketball. There are 5 guys on a court and if you have a dominant one, it makes a difference, period!

 

I agree with rhester. There seems to be unbridled enthusiasm for this trade, and the prospects of watching Yao and Tracy play together.

I for one, was one of the few, who was very excited to see the core of YOUNG players who MADE the playoffs last year, IMPROVE this year. Houston gave up alot to get McGrady. Seeing how some of the other teams in the West have improved their teams, we may have given up too much.

 

Wait a minute, we just BARELY squeezed by Denver and Utah for the 7th seed. Look at Denver and Utah last year compared to this coming season. MUCH TOUGHER.

Portland isn't completely out either, the Clips will be better after a year with Dunleavy, and now we've gotta compete with New Orleans too.

If we didn't trade for TMac, odds are this season would have been harder than last.

 

its even better when you've got 2!

 

Lighten up. Rhester is only providing a different perspective. There are aspects to baseball and aspects to basketball. He's only saying that robbing peter to pay paul doesn't always provide complete results.

You can have all the talent in the world on your team, but it doesn't mean that you'll have good chemistry. Only the season can tell us that.

 

I personally expect no better than a #5 seed. Not because we aren't a very good (on the way to great) team, but because the West is blanketed with very good teams.

Top three spots go to division winners. Unless we rip up the Spurs and Mavs, that puts our high spot at #4.

I personally expect the Northwest, the Wolves, Jazz, and Nugs in particular, to make a great intradivisional race for the crown. All 3 could hit the 55-win mark. I would suspect the #4 seed will be from their division. That puts us at #5, assuming we finish second in the Southwest and that the Pacific will be as mediocore as they look right now.

Evan

 

Spurs = top seed. Anyone differ on this?
RoxMavsKingsWolvesLakesJazzNugsGrizzSuns battle for #s 2 - 8.
BlazersClipsHornetsSonics, all competitive all battle for 8th.

A lot of competitive balance.

 

Comparing baseball and basketball is like comparing chess and 100 meter dash. They are totally different ball games. No matter how great a pitcher you are, you only get to pitch around 20% of the games. Astros played 92 games so far, while Clemens pitched only 19 games. No matter how great a hitter you are, you will only be one of the 9 people hitting. And you can't pass ball from one hitter to the next

On the other hand, a basketball star gets to play every game, as one of the 5 players on the court. A superstar that gets double teamed makes his team mates better. Two superstars that both demands double teaming will be very unstoppable! In last 5 years, Lakers have no talent besides Shaq and Kobe, but they won 5 rings, got to final once, and got to playoff second round once. It would never happen for baseball team with just two super stars.

 

Sounds like you're changing your tune. You started off with 4 or 5, now you're saying we're not top 3.

Clearly, if we fill our backup 5 and get a decent PG, we're going to improve. Sacramento, LA, and Dallas will all drop a tiny bit.

You said our problems were perimeter shooting, a go-to guy, turnovers and interior defense. I think that's a horriffic assesment.

Fist of all, we didn't need better shooting. We had TWO guys hitting 40% of their 3pters, and both these guys played 40 minutes a game. I never heard a single complaint abotu our perimeter shooting. You can never have enough perimeter shooting to go along witha big man, but we were very good in that department last year. Pike is unlikely to repeat his anomaly of a season as well. As for this year, JJ is still here, Boki will play more, and T-Mac is as good as Mobley. Look at Mobley's numbers pre-Yao and post-Yao. T-Mac will improve from beyond the arc, and if he doesn't, ANYONE will be better than Francis 29% from the beyond the arc.

Secondly, we didn't need tougher interior defense. Yao and Cato was more than adequate, and we were amongthe best defensive teams in the league. We shut down drives to the basket, and made teams shoot from outside. A perfect example is our playoff series. Shaq's numbers weer DOWN, and Kobe's percentages were DOWN from having to shoot from outside a lot more.

You already mentioned that we got a go-to scorer, so we solved that.

The final thing you mentioned is TO's. Steve Francis, always among the league leaders in TO's, is gone. Mobley, who's asst/to ratio was less than enviable, is gone. Basically, we traded the two guys who were the most likely to create TO's for our team. We still don't know how our new backcourt will impact our old frontcourt, but it seems to me that we've gotten rid of the source of TO's. I'd like to see you try and argue that we didn't get rid of the TO problem, because I dont' know HOW else we could've gotten rid of it.

Additionally, other teams have made their improvements through signings. We still haven't made our signings, nor have we used our TE. Chances are we'll only do one, but assuming either one brings in a PG and a backup C, then all your points are invalid. Even if we don't, most of them are anyway.

 

P.S. We also got Juwan Howard in that deal, and he's not a bad player at all.

 

People are seriously sleeping on the impact of Tracy McGrady.

I can't remember the website, but out of any non playoff team, and even a lot of playoff teams, McGrady's on court/ off court differential was one of the highest in the league. When he wasn't on the court, the Magic had a huge (-) effect.

I'm not saying that this means anything...but from watching a lot of Magic games from last season, the main problem was that they played without arguement the worst team defense in the league...and that's what hurt them the most. As long as Johnny Davis is the Magic coach, It's hard to bet against them as being the worst defensive team in the league.

Another thing...

McGrady - IMHO - is the best SG in this league because of his ability to be so efficient on the offensive end. In the season of 2003...you would think that a guy like Kobe Bryant playing with the dominant presense of Shaquille O'neal would shoot a higher percentage than McGrady (who had no other All-Star on his team)...but that's not the case.

Even with Shaq, GP, and Karl Malone for most of the season...and even while only scoring under 24 ppg last season, Kobe couldn't even shoot over 44% from the field.

McGrady almost shot 42% from the field last season while taking nearly 8 three point attempts per game.

If people look deep into this guy's game, there is no question that IMHO he's the best shooting guard in the league. You add a presense like Yao for him to play with, a coach that demands high percentage shots, and I can see him shooting 50%+ from the field.

Then his T.O. count - considering the amount the time he has the ball in his hands and the double and triple teams - is just sick.

 

I won't get into who I think the best teams are, because I'm sure we'll disagree. But keep in mind that all the teams you mentioned have made their FA signings and re-signings, while we have yet to do so. CD has made it clear that we're going after a PG, we're talking to everyone. So expect us to add 1, probably 2, players.

Perimeter shooting - Francis was never our best option to take a 3. He was better, but Francis was never a perimeter threat. Look at his 3pt %, he's no 3-pt specialist. Show me which team boasted 2 players hitting 40%? Chances are, JJ will stay the same, T-Mac will match Cuttino, and Pike should bounce back. Neither of San Antonio or Miami have a better bunch of threats from the outside. T-mac, JJ, Pike, Boki are all good shooters, and whoever plays PG for us will hit mroe than 29%. Perimeter shooting - we're either as good as last year or better.

Interior defense - you're changing your tune again. First you said it's an area thatw e needed improvement in, which indicates that you think our interior defense wasn't good. However, if you're saying that we are not as good with our interior defense THIS year, then I agree. However, this change may be easily offset by the addition in offense - Howard can score, Cato couldn't. oward won't take up Cato's 2 blocks, but could Cato ever match Howard's 17 points? I, personally, would rather have Cato. But overall, it's a minimal drop off in productivity.

Even if our talent level is the same as last year, this team will have better chemistry and thus will produce mroe wins. Add to that the fact that JVG is in his second year for the Rockets (See what Hubie's second season did for Grizzlies) and that Yao will enter his second season being the center of the offense, and we're looking at a good 3 or 4 games, which puts us at 48 or 49 wins - and that's ASSUMING no increase in talent level.

 

Well, staying pat......I dunno know if that would been the wisest thing for the Rockets.

Now you have to make a decision who to double, which is a BIG FREAKIN deal (see Shaq and Kobe). These (YAO-MCGRADY) are two players that have a very lopsided advantage on offense on almost every game. Last year we didn't have that. Double Yao and make Cato shoot a 15 footer Also Francis shoot for the most part was not there.

Most teams don't have that advantage, at least not this lopsided. 4th or 5th is not totally out of the question if you ask me, but the West is tough, so we'll see. As I've said all along, the key is the point guard. Our PF's (exclude Spoon) can consistantly hit the open jumper, and Jax can too. I don't know about Lue, but if we just found a PG that can stick the open j, then we're in good shape.

 

Lighten up? WTF? I was just saying that basketball and baseball really cant be compared because the magnitude of what the player brings to the team is different. I was just providing my perspective. Am I allowed to have one?

Good chemistry is important. I am not discounting that. I am just saying that while in Baseball getting a bunch of stars does not necessarily equal success, in basketball more often than not it does. Not always, just more often than not. And not just stars mind you, but superstars.

I just dont find what happened to the Astros this year relevant to the Rockets. My perspective.

 

Anyone who thinks we are better off today than we were before the trade is kidding themselves. While we were better off in the days following the trade (being mentioned as 1st or 2nd favorite in the west) right now i haven't seen or heard anyone mention us in the top 6. If it was as easy as having 2 stars, the Lakers would be champs right now and most of our conversations would be pointless as Lakers/Rockets would be the pecking order. But to win, you need a bench and you need the ability to stop someone. Right now, we have neither. Nobody will ever confuse JH as a defensive stopper at the 4. Posting up Lue is as much a challenge as posting up my little sister. The only proven defensive commodities in our starting lineup is JJ and Yao's length. TMAC's defensive prowess remains to be seen but the potential is there. This leads us to our bench. Who comes off it to stop the West's 4's and points because our starters can't. MT and Spoon at the 4. MT turns the game into an "anything you can do I can do better" show between him and the other 4 and Spoon strikes little fear into any opposing defense and gives an upgrade in strength, but lacks the height to have any real effect on defense. At the point we have Gaines as the backup and frankly none of us know what he can do on either end but he is blessed with size. Everyone else on our bench has done nothing consistently to warrant us being a title contender. Right now, we are a playoff contender and nothing more. All of our hype in the beginning of the off season was predicated on us filling in the holes around our big 2 and we have done nothing to do so. While i agree with everyone about not diving into the crazy end of this free agent market, if we were serious, we would have been sitting at someone like Etan Thomas' front door at midnight with an offer sheet to fill in our need at the 4. A young person to develope with our stars who we could have got for our MLE (providing Wiz didn't match). This would have given us 2 scorers and a good defensive player at the 4 and given us the ability to trade one of the 2 scores for the point guard spot. Lue would still make a great change of pace point of the bench behind someone like Daniels, or James, or even Jones.

If it were all about having 2 great scorers, the Magic would have been in the finals vs the Lakers. Number 1 in the NBA last year for scoring tandems, Kobe/Shaq. Number 2, TMAC/Howard for the Magic. They couldn't stop anyone so they only won 21 games. 3/5ths of that defense is now ours. The one good thing we have is everyday Yao wakes up, he is 7'5" and it looks like barring a trade, we will see how many wins he can improve the Magic Rockets.