The rockets actually played out to my expectations so far. I was hoping they exceeded them, but not as of yet. Im waiting for the coaching to exceed the expectations, which weren't that high. But they are getting along fine.
I'm certainly not disappointed with the record. But I'm disappointed in their reality. I did think that by this point in the season, I would at least know what this team is. That I would be able to predict their wins and losses with 65% accuracy. The fact that I can't trust them to get it done against a Sacramento or a Memphis on any given night is the disappointment to me. And it makes the team feel much worse than their record or even point differential would indicate. Maybe the Asik situation has caused that. Maybe not. Not for me to say. If you had told me before the season that the Asik stuff would happen I probably wouldn't have expected the Rockets to hold a 53-win pace, so I guess in that regard they've done fine. But again, I think they're a little worse than the record indicates - Hollinger rankings has them on a 51 win pace, Pythagorean win expectation is 50 wins. Rockets are 8th in the West in point differential. The problems that do exist are not impossible to remedy and there's time left to do so but there's zero doubt in my mind that if the playoffs started today the Rockets would be at best absolutely slaughtered in the second round, and likely worse if the Clips were still holding the 4 seed.
Considering the Asik situation and the injuries...we are about where we should be. The emergence of TJones and more recently DMo have been big plus surprises....and the PG play and bench support have been overall disappointing. I can't blame DM for trying to get best value for Asik. I do totally blame Asik for non-performance. Our bench would have been so much stronger with the Asik of last season....and D12 wouldn't have to carry so many minutes. A lot of games yet to go...and the Asik issue yet to be resolved.
How are SA and Clippers more disappointing. They both have better records than us and have dealt with more injuries than us. Clippers don't even have CP3 and are still winning.
Too many REAL injuries and a suspect injury to one of the best players on the team in Asik. Had that mofo been willing to help out this team as he did last year, we would have at least 5 more victories. That would have given us a top 4 record wise.
Minnesota, Dallas and the Lakers are the most disappointing teams in the West. We have had some disappointing , embarrassing loses but we are not the most disappointing team in the West. We are still building team chemistry, haven't played at full strength, and Coaching still trying to find his rotation. Next we expectations for this team will be higher.
We are disappointing only because we lose to scrub teams more often than not. Other than that we are doing very well and much room for improvement. It's such a joke we are labeled the most disappointing team when 13/15 teams in the East are garbage!
I was expecting the Rockets to be in the top 4 after the Howard signing, so that's definitely a disappointment. But it's just the first half, and it takes time to fit your best player with your team, I have high expectation for the 2nd half of the season. The Warriors is a disappointment, too, but you don't expect too much out of a team with handicapped starters in Lee & Curry (no D), and Bogut & Ig (no O). The Grizz does have good physical defense, but they don't have enough fire power to stay with the better teams for long stretch. So they are about where they should be, on the borderline of the playoff.
I do understand what they are saying. Some nights, the Rockets have looked incredible. Other nights, they have looked terrible. Or shoot, some halves they have looked so good while others have been bad. But most disappointing? Morey himself said that this team wasn't a finished product yet. He said that he would be looking for one or two more pieces, and that his goal for this year was homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs and to make the western conference finals. We are right there in the hunt to have homecourt in the first round exactly like Morey hoped. We will have to wait to see how they perform in the playoffs, but I don't think they have been even close to disappointing this year.
When the season 1st started these guys were saying we would be 5th or 6th. Now that we aren't 1st or 2nd they say we're disappointing... Makes sense!
Those teams had no expectations so they are disappointing. Minny was expected to be a fringe playoff team and still are. Mavs, if anything, are playing better than most thought. The lakers were expected to suck and do suck
The Rockets this year are like the Miami Heat the year after they got LeBron. The expectations are sky high, and everyone expects them to have sorted out all the kinks in 2 days. Dwight has been a fantastic addition, and the Rockets are fine. They are on track.
I actually don't mind this. I like the idea of people sleeping on us and then having to eat their words. Feels better than falling short of sky-high expectations.
