Houston Rockets ADDITIONS: Omer Asik (Chicago), Jon Brockman (Milwaukee), Carlos Delfino (Milwaukee), Toney Douglas (New York), Gary Forbes (Toroto), JaJuan Johnson (Boston), Terrence Jones (Kentucky), Jeremy Lamb (Milwaukee), Jeremy Lin (New York), Shaun Livingston (Milwaukee), Scott Machado (Iona), Donatas Motiejunas (Prokom Gdynia) and Royce White (Iowa State). SUBTRACTIONS: Earl Boykins (Minnesota), Chase Budinger (Minnesota), Marcus Camby (New York), Samuel Dalembert (Milwaukee), Goran Dragic (Phoenix), Courtney Lee (Boston), Kyle Lowry (Toronto), Luis Scola (Phoenix) and Diamon Simpson (Maccabi Ashdod). STRENGTHS: The Rockets are strong at the shooting guard position with scoring machine Kevin Martin and solid NBA veteran Carlos Delfino ... Houston has up-and-coming players like Jeremy Lin, Chandler Parsons and Omer Asik that will be given every chance to succeed ... Asik could develop into one of the best defensive centers in the NBA. WEAKNESSES: Houston replaced proven high-quality players Kyle Lowry and Luis Scola with promising but still unproven Lin and Asik ... They took many leaps of faith last summer and it's not likely to work out in the short term ... The Rockets look more like an accumulation of assets than a team ... With massive roster changes, chemistry is going to be an issue, especially early on ... Can Lin deliver as full-time starter? ... Pressure on him will be big ... Few quality players off the bench ... Too many young guys ... There's no go-to scorer aside from Martin, who's not a top-notch NBA player anyway ... Houston will struggle on the defensive end too ... Not many players able to make stops outside of Asik. PROJECTION: 5th in the Southwest Division / 15th in the Western Conference http://hoopshype.com/previews/houston.htm
The Magic and Bobcats will be worse than us, for sure. Worst in the West will be between us, the Kings, and the Hornets.
Good analysis Sounds about right. The Rockets are going to struggle just to win 30 games this year. The road record will be horrific
I concur - it doesn't appear that this writer watched any preseason games, just more regurgitating of the popular media blather.
kind of a glass half-empty approach. in the sense that there were positives (in the preseason) that he doesn't mention. but that said, he's not wrong at anything. I'd bet on the 14th, but the last in the conference seems plausible.
I definitely don't think they'll be the worst, but I'm always optimistic about the team. Doesn't matter ... with the Comcast deal, I probably won't be able to see them lose anyway.
it's not like Chandler is some kind of super elite Artest in his prime type stopper. he's good, but Asik is at all-defense level. so of course anyone will mention Asik first and foremost. he doesn't say Asik's the only one.
Maybe not Artest in his prme good but defensively Parsons is already one of the very best defensive small forwards in the league.
in depends on what you mean by 'one of the very best', but anyway, my point is that Asik's name is going to come up first for a good reason.
