If healthy, this team will get on the radar real fast!!!

No doubt we will, this isnt a ****in lottery team man, I cant wait till the season starts so the haters can finally shut their mouth. I love the Battier trade and I like our offseason pickups, obviously we still have holes but untill we see how this team plays together we cant fix them.

 

Yao turned the corner in a huge way last season. We are going to surprise and shock a lot of folk. Can't wait for them to hit the floor. With good health, this team should hit the 55 win mark. Anything less, with full health, will probably cost JVG his job. I think we are going to come steaming out of the gate and get to 55.

 

Haven't read the entire original post yet, but I skimmed to see if anyone else was wondering why he said "20 points in 5 seconds" in reference to Dallas. I assume he was talking about the 13 in 35 against San Antonio. Just wondering.

 

Best wishes~!

 

Not really true. If it were the case the majority of those teams weren't in the lottery the year before. The majority of the time they were already close to winning a title.... or a least a top team in their conference.

I thought last season showed all of Houstons flaws. We as fans basically spent the enitre season in "glass half full" mode until the last couple of weeks when reality set in. Then we sat and watched the playoffs and saw just what kind of talent is needed to compete at the highest level.....particularly in this conference.

I just wish Houston would add players who aren't soley dependent on Yao and Tracy. Players whose value stand on their own....not stars but more than marginal role players (someone who can at least create his own shot on a consistent basis). They've been so talentless since the McGrady trade that its a little difficult for me to get excited about John Lucus III.

 

I don't know how you can ignore the phrase "if healthy" when it's the single most important factor in whether we have a deep playoff run or end up in the lottery again.

I hope McGrady is right when he says he is 100% and he is going to prove all the doubters wrong this year, I really do. But he said the same thing last year in the Game 7 post game press conference. Remember?

I love McGrady and I love this team, but until he proves that his back problem isn't chronic, I'm just going to have to wait and see.

 

I do agree on the first point: it's pretty difficult to go from lottery to finals in one season, no matter the injury status and especially when you are counting on at least two new starters and some young kids (Head, Hayes, Spanoulis) to contribute.

However, the second point is just plain silly. What the playoffs showed me was not that you need immense talent, but you need stars to get hot at the right times. Wade, Lebron, Nash, Nowitzki, and Duncan were the stories of the playoffs, not the ancilliary pieces. Even Shaq was flat below average in the Dallas series, while the Mavs featured significant contributions from such highly talented individuals as Disagana Diop, Adrian Griffin, and Marquise Daniels. Cleveland put absolutely nothing around Lebron James, Phoenix went 6-deep after Bell got hurt, and San Antonio started Michael Finley at the four with Brent Barry first off the bench.

Now, I believe we are a year away from major contention, but to suggest that the talent-level in the playoffs was that much higher than what we will put on the court this season is not true. We will be good this year, will be in the playoffs, and will compete, but how deep we go is far more dependent upon the health of Yao and McGrady and how well they play than it is on the role players surrounding them.

 

Did the Rockets officially sign JL3?

Or is it still coming?

 

Finally some optimism around here!

 

Yes but he overworked his back last season trying to be the best he could be, that caused injuries and led to other injuries etc. Right now, I'm 95% confident that he can play 65 games for us. Of course, when or if he gets injured, it will be magnified so much.

 

If TMac is healthy and Yao is healthy even Charles Barkley will be kissing their bottom by the end of the season.

I can't wait to here Barkley say it "Hey, give the kid credit, Yao is the best center in the league" and then claim he predicted it.

TMac coming back with a vengence????

UNSTOPABLE

 

Nice way of saying it but I would say that our backcourt is down there with the very worst in the league - there are very few teams who I would not swap our top 4 guards with straight up.

 

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/5807564

Kirk Snyder — Rockets

Can do: Score points in bunches. Exhibit NBA-level athleticism.

Can't do: Tell the difference between a good and a bad shot. Play a lick of defense. Play unselfishly. Shoot with any degree of consistency.

Must do: Turn his career, i.e., his attitude, around.

Here's your chance to fire back at Charley Rosen. Got a question or a comment
Subject:

Comment/Question:

Name: (ex, john doe)
Email: (ex, a@b.c)
Hometown:

Prognosis: Has the potential to be an excellent sixth man, but he needs a stronger coach than Jeff Van Gundy to facilitate his development. That said, it's doubtful that Snyder will finish the season in Houston.

 

Most players eventually "GET IT" Bob Sura is an example of the same type of player......and he became a great teamate.

Let's hope the light comes on for Snyder this year.....but playing with 2 superstars will help tremendously because they are the clear leaders of the team.

DD

 

that's cute.

 

It is easy to be optimistic when you see the emergence of Yao last season and Tmac coming back healthy, you have an influx of youth and athleticism plus a journeyman leader in Battier. Even JVG can't screw this up. Plus it helps he has been put on notice to stop with his Hitleresque attitude and start coaching. Yes lot's to be optimistic about!

 

we'll be on the radar fast if we're healthy... i agree.

but we all know this is a 50 win team when healthy. i want more than to be on the radar, i want to contend.

i gotta be honest, i hope i'm wrong here, but i don't think this team is championship calibur. we have to get another 4 or 5 who can play defense, regulate the paint, and can score inside. a finesse PF ain't going to get it done next to yao. any way we can get wilcox? probably not.

on the bright side though... i do think battier will be a kay piece, but it may take one more off-season for us to re-tool enough to contend.

excited... but not holding my breath this year.

 

I can't argue with you that our backcourt left to its own merits is among the worst 7-8 in the league, but how many frontcourts can compare with ours? Name one team in the league with two All-Stars in the frontcourt. Maybe the comination of Carmello, Martin, and Camby was close the year before last, but who else? I'd take a healthy Stoudamire, plus Marion and Diaw as he played last year, but only in their system.

The point is that our backcourt doesn't play their backcourt in a separate game, while our starting frontcourt plays theirs, then the benches square off. We are a team built around a dominating wing scorer and a legitimate 7-foot plus post threat. While we still need another backcourt shooter, Alston can do his job of precise post-entry passes and seeing the floor well with spacing, Head can do his job of hitting open jumpers or getting in the lane against poor rotation, and Snyder can do his job of bodying up longer twos and finishing on the break. If we can find another shooter at either the one or the two, then get some limited contributions from Sura or Spanoulis, our guard rotation will be light years ahead of the James-Sura-Wesley rotation we sent out two years ago.

 

A team which has two star players as popular as Yao and Tmac will always be under the radar.