espn http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/powerranking?season=2010&week=0 No. 20 Rockets Can the gutty little Rockets hang around No. 8 long enough for T-Mac to come back and drag them into the playoffs? Probably not ... but they won't fall as far in the West as teams like OKC and Memphis are hoping. nba.com http://www.nba.com/2009/news/powerrankings/10/26/preseason/index.html No.18 Houston How many games can a squad comprised entirely of pretty good role players win? Unless Tracy McGrady travels back five years in time, we're going to find out. Expect the Rockets to beat the teams they should and struggle against those with more talent.
That's about what I expected in preseason power rankings. The parts of this team don't look all that good, but the sum of those parts turns out to be a lot better than one would expect.
We will prove them wrong like always.... People forget we were the second best team last year without Tmac and a injured Yao. We took LA to 7.
Can you please stop using that "We are the only team that took the Lakers to 7" excuse? It's getting really tiresome. 1). Lakers were half-assing it almost the entire series. (This was evident in our Games 3, 5, and 7 losses) 2). Rockets have lost Ron Artest. 3). Trevor Ariza is NOT a replacement for Ron Artest. 4). Von Wafer is not going to be hitting game-winners for us anymore. 5). Yao Ming was the #1 reason we had such a high seed in the playoffs in the reg. season. Now... it's going to be a struggle. Don't expect high results.
Denver and LA were both ahead of us in the playoffs and there's no guarantee we were better than Dallas, either. That's just within our own conference.
I'm not trying to be a pessimist... but seriously... I'm not expecting anything better than a 7th seed.
Realistically speaking, this team is desperate for talent. It has heart, grit and passion, sure, but hardly any talent at all. I think the rankings are a bit high. I see the Rockets more at 22-24, though I hope I'm wrong. I just don't feel good about this season at all.
That's just my opinion. I think as high as 18 would be our peak, but our top three players are an undersized shooting guard in a point's body, a player who would be the third wheel on any championship team and a gritty, tough power forward who should be a No. 2 or No. 3 inside scoring option. This team consists of way too many role players who will be asked to play lead roles. That's never a good thing.
The two things about our team that you can't really put numbers on is they always play hard and they play together. I agree, we could use more 'talent' but as we all know having all the talent in the world means nothing if they dont play hard and together. We are going to be able to sneak some teams early because they will see no Yao or McGrady on the floor and think it will be a easy night.... Then they will be in a dogfight with guys that know how to do that, if nothing else. We will lose some close games due to a lack of superstar talent, but as long as we are not getting blown out every night and showing fight i'm ok with that due to our circumstances. I'm looking forward to the season.
Well 1) I agree with number 1 with Yao out, we have no business winning even 1 game against the Lakers. Not everyone is as deep as the Lakers though-Aside from the Lakers, Spurs and maybe the Nuggets I think we have a chance against every other team in the West. 2) Ron Artest was a detriment in the playoffs. Look at his horrible FG%-it was raferesque. 3)Ariza is not a replacement for Artest, and I'm happy for that. God knows we need another overhyped, ball-stopping bat**** crazy player on the team. 4) Chase Budinger more than compensates for Von 5) This has nothing to do with taking the Lakers to 7 games. More importantly Yao Ming had a lot of bad games last season, and we still had a relatively high seed. I expect us to do more than what people are expecting, and then really take off once Tmac comes back in Nov/Dec.
4) Don't ever compare Chase to Von again. Chase might be able to shoot just as well and play better D but he is no where near as athletic and dynamic as Von was.
Are we talking about the same Von Wafer? The one who was so UNwanted by NBA GMs that he had to go to Europe to find a contract? Yeah, that guy had Hall of Fame written all over him.
