I needed another option: "It all depends on Paul, which means it all depends on Harden, the coaching, and management." I want Chris Paul to be the undisputed player-leader of this team. I want him to hold his fellow teammates to account when they don't put in 100%. It's a role he'll naturally fall into, and it will be good for the other players to have someone on the court with them that's not putting up with any crap. That will allow Chris Paul to effectively run an offense, which is exactly why you hire Chris Paul. Harden asked for Paul. He got him. Harden is not a leader. That's okay. It's now up to Harden to defer to Paul and work with him and the coaches to figure out how he can still be as deadly as ever being back at the 2. And actually being a real 2, since we absolutely have a real 1 now. It will be difficult; his ego and emotions and whatever else ails him have got to go. There are two superstar guards now. Harden's more sprightly and explosive; Paul is more experienced and savvy. It's in James' hands to make this combo work. It's in Morey's hands to get the rest of pieces on the chessboard. I like this deal, because it really does force Harden, D'Antoni, and Morey to make everything work as best as possible, because if it doesn't, Paul will be gone in a year. The Rockets consistently wear the mantle of unpredictability, so there's no way to know how optimistic to be. One can only hope that things go well. We'll have to wait and see.
Spurs have Kawhi and Mills. Pretty much everyone else is guaranteed a regression next year including Aldridge and Gasol. Manu and Parker are done. Houston is above them until further roster moves by the Spurs.
And the spurs being a year older and worse... Parker, manu, gasol are on the way down. If anyone wants to say cp3 is on the way down also thats fine but parker is injured abd manu might retire and pau is 4 years older than cp3 Kawhi is a top 5 player but thats it. no one even knows how the LMA cancer scenario will play out
With what we have at the moment we will not beat GSW, but I think we're arguably close to SAS and were within momentum strike of them last year, it just didnt end up going our way and game 6 we were destroyed because of how G5 turned out. We would need time and chemistry to even come close, no matter what we get. Its like having a sword and a shield and taking down a dragon. A few other things have to be in place for it to be a possibility, and I won't say until I can see it take shape. I still think we're in the top 3-5 (closer to 3!) teams in the league though, which is fine to me.
We don't need a superstar, just the right role players that fit the team. ... speaking of, would Cleveland take a Tristan for Anderson trade straight up?
2017-2018 standings (according to me, subject to change because we're barely even into free-agency...): 1. Warriors 2. Thunder 3. Rockets 4. Spurs 5. Timberwolves 6. Grizzlies 7. Nuggets 8. Clippers -------- 9. Trailblazers 10. Pelicans 11. Mavericks 12. Jazz 13. Suns 14. Lakers 15. Kings
I dun know about championship but getting to the WCF isn't that easy in the West........teams are getting better and better.
Everytime somebody predicts something, it could go wrong. All the real fabulous seasons start happening, when we were having low expectations...... It won't change for me.
For us to have a throw it up coin toss series against the warriors: Capela/NeNe Bosh/Anderson Melo/Tucker Harden/Ariza Paul/Gordon
I don't know. They still have Popovich. It wasn't really the players that beat us, it was our dumb system. They just left the midrange stuff wide open and doubled down on paint and perimeter. We were too dumb to adjust and continued to jack contested 3's and drive into people waiting in the paint. If we continue to play stupid then good teams will just beat us.
This team with CP3 is better built for the finals. I have no doubt this team would've beaten SAS. Problem is I don't think we'll win as many regular season games. The question now is to bring in another "star" who do we have to cut/trade? And will we lose depth?
In my eyes Rockets aren't anywhere near close to contending now, nor do we have any realistic options on the table that I see boosting us into real competition for the Warriors. I love the Paul pickup, but he is 32, he's got a couple of more seasons top playing at a superstar level. Ariza/Tucker are 32, Nene's 34. Ego/Anderson are super injury prone. It's going to be tough trying to stay healthy, it's going to be tough having a squad of older guys trying to keep up on defense. Even if we got Melo (who's 33), we'd still have a major defensive/rebounding and soon enough a age/health problem. Any other time, we'd have a chance, but the Warriors are insane, they are built damn near perfectly. Their stars are young, athletic, healthy and besides Curry, very defensively capable. The combination of skills and physical tools that they have is flat out unfair, add that they are one of the best coached teams in the league, have great systems and chemistry... it's unreal. I'm not sure theres anything the Rockets can do besides get lucky. I hope we position our selves as best as we can, I wouldn't want it any other way, that being said I don't see us being able to knock off a healthy Warriors team.
Without another tall star, we're second round fodder that will win at most 55 games like this year. Potentially a few games less because of how ridiculous the west is. CP and Harden are game changers, so that alone allows them to keep pace and fake team chemistry through their genius. The main issue is that we haven't solved many of the things that killed us in the playoffs...height/rebounding depth in a half court game, bench depth to the point where MDA trusts them enough to play them in crunch time. One thing that's potentially solved is having a player Harden can unload the mental burden so that he can feel comfortable during crunch time without disappearing. I'm guessing he'll explode by just figuring out how to destroy whoever guards him rather than trying to know everything on the court, who needs what and can do what, and then scrap all that thinking by going for a play that will likely hinge on whether the ref will bail him out because his teammates aren't making/creating their shots. The man's a thinker and he waits for the flow of the game to come to him, which can produce genius results when pressure is low, but overtaxing for him in a 7 game series.
