[OFFICIAL] 2022-2023 Power Rankings Thread

https://www.nba.com/news/power-rankings-2022-23-week-1

#24↑ HOUSTON ROCKETS
2021-22 record: 20-62

OffRtg: 108.1 (26) DefRtg: 116.4 (30) NetRtg: -8.3 (29) Pace: 101.2 (2)

Preseason notes: The first quarter of preseason games is the 12 minutes that most resemble regular season basketball, and the Rockets were the best first-quarter team in the preseason, outscoring their opponents by 32.3 points per 100 possessions in the opening 12 minutes of their four games. More promising is that Jalen Green just continues to get better. He came back with a stronger base and a better-looking stroke on his 3-point shot, and he remains ridiculously quick. The Rockets scored more than 130 points per 100 possessions in Green’s 105 minutes on the floor.

Kevin Porter Jr. also had a strong preseason and Tari Eason looks like he can play. The rookie shot 23-for-33 (70%) in the paint and ranked third in offensive rebounding percentage (17.3%) among players who averaged 15 minutes or more in at least two games.

Something to watch in Week 1: Turnovers. The Rockets had the league’s highest turnover rate (16.2 per 100 possessions) by a comfortable margin last season, one reason why they set an 18-year record for most transition points allowed per game (25.0). The preseason (when only the Nets turned the ball over more per possession) wasn’t promising, and the Rockets will face some tests in Week 1. The Hawks have last season’s leader in deflections per game (Dejounte Murray) and the Grizzlies ranked fourth in opponent turnover rate last season.

The Rockets lost their first 11 road games last season, and ten of their first 13 games are on the road this year.

Week 1: @ ATL, vs. MEM, @ MIL


https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...clippers-edge-celtics-lakers-avoid-bottom-10/

27. ROCKETS — It may not lead to many wins this season, but you could do a lot worse than a young core of Jalen Green, Kevin Porter Jr., Jabari Smith Jr. and Alperen Sengun. Defense is going to be a major issue, but the Rockets should be able to put points on the board as the youth develops. Green finished his rookie year on a major heater, so it will be fun to watch how he comes out of the gates this season.


https://theathletic.com/3608925/2022/10/17/nba-power-rankings-season-opening/

27. Houston Rockets

What do we like? The last two drafts for the Houston Rockets have been tremendous in adding young talent. Rafael Stone has already had a great return in cashing in those acquired draft picks for the Rockets with promising pieces. A young core of Jalen Green, Jabari Smith Jr., Alperen Şengün, Kevin Porter Jr., KJ Martin, Josh Christopher, Tari Eason and Usman Garuba is really exciting for the future of this franchise. There is a ton of potential in that group of guys on the court. Stephen Silas has a lot to mold there but also a lot to work with in development. This is going to be an athletic, fun team to watch grow.

What do we question? The problem with teams that are this young is they make a lot of dumb mistakes due to inexperience. Rick Adelman used to say, “Potential gets coaches fired.” I don’t think we’re in danger of that with Silas, but it shows you that growth for a young group in the NBA takes a long time to come together. While the Rockets will have a lot of jaw-dropping highlights, they’re going to be bad on both ends of the floor. This team just needs a lot of reps and a lot of seasoning.

One random prediction: Green averages at least 23 points per game. Post All-Star break last season, Green exploded for 22.1 points per game on 58.9 percent true shooting. It was just a 24-game stretch, but he was brilliant. I think the rookie woes are gone, and he’s figured it out enough to put up some impressive individual numbers.

GIF ON THE BEAT:

 

https://theathletic.com/3694476/2022/10/24/nba-power-rankings-week-2/

30. Houston Rockets (previously 27th) | 0-3 | -12.4 net rating

Weekly slate: Loss at Hawks, Loss to Grizzlies, Loss at Bucks

First impressions: The Houston Rockets are a bad team, but they’re a fun bad team. And that’s kind of the point of this stage of the rebuild. It’s also what we should expect for a lot of this season. The Rockets’ young guys will get better and more comfortable as they get into the second half of the season. Oddly enough, this team is shooting really well from 3-point range (38.3 percent) and has the worst 2-point percentage (45.8 percent) in the league after the first week. While some of these guys are struggling, Jalen Green looks to be continuing his strong second half surge from the rookie campaign.

Any chance they’re not going to tank? Like everybody else in this grouping, they’re going to tank. With the Rockets, I don’t think they’re trying to put forth a lesser product. They’re simply letting their young core go with very little supervision on the court and living with the results.

https://www.nba.com/news/power-rankings-2022-23-week-2

#29↓ HOUSTON ROCKETS
Record: 0-3
OffRtg: 108.4 (20) DefRtg: 120.8 (30) NetRtg: -12.4 (30) Pace: 102.5 (12)

Rockets opponents are still running. Last season, Houston set an 18-year Synergy record by allowing 25.0 transition points per game. Through three games this season, they’ve allowed 32.3 transition points per game, even though they’ve turned the ball over less often (14.3 per 100 possessions, down from 16.2). Their losses in Atlanta and Milwaukee are two of the six instances from Week 1 where a team scored at least 25 fast break points, and their losses to the Grizzlies and Bucks are two of the seven instances when a team has scored more than 125 points per 100 possessions. The Rockets have allowed almost 130 per 100 in 76 minutes with the two franchise cornerstones – Jalen Green and Jabari Smith – on the floor together.

After starting three games in the preseason, Alperen Sengun has taken well to coming off the bench (again), which he did even when Bruno Fernando missed the loss in Milwaukee on Saturday. Sengun had 23 points and 12 rebounds (while registering a plus-13) against Memphis the night before, doing a lot of post work against the Grizzlies’ backup bigs. The Rockets were 11-3 when they scored at least 118 points per 100 possessions last season and had 122 on 103 (118.4 per 100) against the Grizz, but they couldn’t stop Ja Morant.

The Rockets will have a rest advantage when they host the Jazz (who played Sunday night) on Monday. They’ll then play eight of their next nine on the road, and they don’t have an actual homestand (at least two straight games at the Toyota Center) until Nov. 18.

Week 2: vs. UTA, @ UTA, @ POR, @ PHX

Not power ranking but…

 

https://theathletic.com/3724120/2022/10/31/nba-power-rankings-week-3/

25. Houston Rockets (previously 30th) | 1-6 | -10.0 net rating

Weekly slate: Win over Jazz, Loss at Jazz, Loss at Blazers, Loss at Suns

Cause for optimism: Despite the early struggles for the Houston Rockets, the reason for optimism is that their schedule has been pretty tough for such a young group to face. Only two of their seven games have been at home, and they’ve started off with Memphis, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Utah twice (before they send players away) and Phoenix. That’s asking a lot of those young guys. They’ll get back to Houston at some point, play some easier competition and get their legs under them. A bounce back will happen for Houston as it continues to develop.

Cause for concern: This Rockets team really can’t score, and the three biggest shot takers are not really doing a great job of shot making. Kevin Porter Jr., Jalen Green and Jabari Smith Jr. have combined to make just 38.0 percent of their shots so far. The good news is they’re shooting competently (35.5 percent combined) from 3-point range, so they just have to figure out how to attack a little smarter. But if they shoot like this for a big stretch, the Rockets simply can’t score enough to keep up with everybody.

GIF ON THE BEAT:



https://www.thescore.com/nba/news/2446246

28. Houston Rockets (1-6)
Previous: 24

The Rockets know there'll be growing pains. Still, Jalen Green shooting below 40% from the field must be harrowing for fans after his development over the second half of last season.


https://www.nba.com/news/power-rankings-2022-23-week-3

#30↓ HOUSTON ROCKETS
Record: 1-6

OffRtg: 107.3 (28) DefRtg: 117.2 (26) NetRtg: -10.0 (30) Pace: 102.2 (5)

The Rockets’ early schedule didn’t look that bad at first, because it included two games against the Jazz and another against the Blazers. But the Jazz and Blazers have not been the teams we thought they’d be, and so the Rockets’ first seven games have come against opponents with a cumulative record (counting Utah twice) of 33-10. Take the Rockets’ games out of that math and those teams are still 27-9 (.750) in games in which they weren’t playing Houston.

So a 1-6 start with the league’s worst point differential isn’t as terrible as it looks on the surface. The Rockets are the only team that ranks in the bottom five on both ends of the floor, but they did hand the Jazz their first loss of the season, two of their losses were within five points in the last five minutes, and their loss to the Suns on Sunday was one second away from being within five in the last five. The Rockets have had some success on the glass, seeing the biggest jump in offensive rebounding percentage and leading the league with 19.0 second-chance points per game. Jabari Smith Jr. has shown flashes of what he can do on both offense and defense. Even a long close-out in which he didn’t quite get to the shooter in time was a glimpse of how he can be a weapon on that end of the floor.

Unlike the Utah games, a home-and-home set with the Clippers initially looked tougher than it does now. It’s a good time to be playing the Clips, and the Rockets will actually face them three times in the next 15 days.

Week 3: @ LAC, vs. LAC, @ MIN

 

https://theathletic.com/3747083/2022/11/07/nba-power-rankings-week-4/

30. Houston Rockets (previously 25th) | 1-9 | -9.4 net rating

Weekly slate: Loss at Clippers, Loss to Clippers, Loss at Wolves
Transition offense: 97.4 points per 100 possessions (27th) | 13.1 percent of possessions (30th)
Transition defense: 121.5 points per 100 possessions (26th) | 20.8 percent of possessions (30th)

The effect: Pretty easy here to see the starting problems of this young Rockets squad. They allow the highest rate of transition opportunities for opponents while also yielding one of the highest scoring rates in transition. That’s a pretty bad combination. But it gets worse when you factor in they have the lowest transition volume on offense, and they’re bad at it, anyway, with not even scoring 100 points per 100 possessions in transition. Those are both signs of a really young team being allowed to just go figure it out and try to grow. When we see both of those numbers headed in the right direction, I bet we see that record improve greatly and that net rating start to shrink.


https://www.nba.com/news/power-rankings-2022-23-week-4

30. HOUSTON ROCKETS
Record: 1-9

OffRtg: 106.0 (28) DefRtg: 115.4 (27) NetRtg: -9.4 (29) Pace: 101.7 (7)

There are 87 players who’ve attempted at least 100 shots from the field this season. And among the 87, Kevin Porter Jr. (45.2%), Jalen Green (45.1%) and Jabari Smith Jr. (38.6%) rank 81st, 82nd and 87th in effective field goal percentage. Porter and Green have shot OK (a combined 35.4%) from 3-point range, but they’re a combined 46% in the paint and a brutal 10-for-48 (21%) from mid-range. We kind of knew that the Rockets would be bad defensively again this season, but there was some hope (especially with how good Green looked in the preseason) for some improvement on offense.

That improvement hasn’t come yet, though it should be noted that seven of the Rockets’ 10 games have come against teams that currently rank in the top 10 defensively, while only one (their weekend loss to Memphis) came against a bottom-10 defense. To that same point, all 10 of the Rockets’ games have come against teams currently at or above .500. They had a five-point lead over the Clippers in L.A. on Monday, but scored just five points on 12 clutch possessions, with Eric Gordon coming up empty — turnover, missed drive — twice in the final 35 seconds. The Rockets are 4-for-19 on clutch shots for the season.

Green’s shooting has been particularly bad (effective field goal percentage of 35.7%) on the road, and the Rockets have four more road games over the next 10 days. Only one of their first 30 games is against one of the other three teams – the Pistons, Lakers and Magic – that have fewer than three wins through Week 3, and that game is Monday in Orlando. After that, they’ll play three more games against top-10 defenses.

Week 4: @ ORL, @ TOR, @ NOP