If we’re moderately healthy, I think we go 41-41. Our defense looks like it knows its a pain in your ass and they’re proud of it. Gotta do it with vets sprinkled in though. Our youth still doesn’t play as a unit defensively.
I made this thread about 3 months ago - https://bbs.clutchfans.net/threads/poll-how-many-games-does-this-team-win-next-season.320351/ - which was slightly different, it was predicting the win total rather than just over/under. It has almost 400 votes.
Yes that one, on page 4, maybe someone will bump. The leading choice currently is 33-36. I voted lower but mid 30's is still possible.
I think the Rockets win 33-35 games. They are still a couple of years away from being a true playoff team, but the new defensive focused coach, new floor general in VanVleet, and internal growth from the Jalen, Sengun, Jabari, & Tari - along with a lack of tanking, lead to over 10+ game win improvement.
Had us at 32 wins when we added Bullock but I'm not sure his shooting spaces the floor enough. Coaches and management understand this as well, this is why Alec Burks 41.4% (3P%), Brogdon 44.4% (3P%)......Tucker-Horten 28% (don't ask me?) are being sought. I'm going under at 30 wins. Team is too one dimensional on offense where everyone wants to be in the restricted area and not enough shooters to draw the defense away from the restricted area. Rockets will only average 89 points if forced to be a jump shooting team......defense will keep the opposition to 104 points. That's more of a losing proposition than winning one. I just don't see where the wins will come from? The West runs 12 deep deserving of being a playoff team. It's murders row in the West. If the Rockets look like they will end up 15th, 14th or 13th in the West.....I feel they will tank so that OKC doesn't receive the pick right now. Top 4 (worst) protected. Stone gets fired. Apache (10/19/23): 30 wins
Everything has to go right to get to 35 wins.. No chance of that happening so I'll take the way under of 25 wins
You'd like to hope so .... but statistically even that's problematic as only FVV is a career "league average" shooter from distance, Jalen has shot .340 in his two years - worse in year two than his rookie season and Jabari .307 as a rookie (I do expect him to make a big improvement, he's too good a shooter). They'll have to make some significant improvement to reach "league average" which is about .372 over the last 5 years. Shooting was something I complained about quite a bit last season too - the volume of open / wide open shots they missed as a team was crazy and those numbers almost always get worse as defenses tighten the screws. They shot a league worst .327 as a team last season despite the high volume of open / wide open looks and have shot even worse as a team this preseason going .300 from distance. Jalen Green .000 FVV .267 & Jabari .533 This team desperately needs a deadeye shooter.
If the rotational players remain healthy for most part of season I would imagine around 34-37 wins, plus its more likely than not that half of the playoff caliber West teams will have key players miss time at some point, its inevitable, the injury bug is ferocious The defense is going to keep them in good portion of games, especially if they play with the same energy as first two preseason games, playing that way for 82 games is going to be xtra grind for all outside of Dillon/VV
Ime experimenting with a switch everything defense with Sengun the last two games vs San Antonio, and the team looking bad as a result, has really got you guys switching up your own opinions. Remember to keep that energy when the real season starts. From what I’ve seen of preseason so far has me more optimistic than before for a couple of reasons. By far the biggest question mark going into this season, and so far the biggest takeaway from preseason, is the development of Jabari Smith. We know exactly what the vets are (at least I do, some of you still severely underrate Fvv). We have two years of data on both Jalen and Alpi, and because both improved substantially in their year 2 we can project that they will continue to get better. Tari was already good in year 1. You can also say that Amen and Cam are question marks, but Jabari stands out because how truly terrible he was last year. People take it for granted that all of these high picks will work out, but the nba is littered with busts that never amount to anything, players who come in terrible and stay terrible until they are inevitably out of the league. Knock on wood because he hasn’t done it in the regular season yet, but going from one of the worst players in the nba last year to what he looks like now in summer league and preseason is going to have a major impact for the team’s win total. Not only was he terrible, we played him big minutes for 79 games, that’s a huge contributor to the team’s losses just like Jalen was the year before. Even if he can just become a net 0 player this year, that’s equivalent to adding an allstar - that’s how negative he was last year. The second biggest takeaway is Sengun’s defense. Some of us always suspected it, that his high stocks rate in the Turkish league would translate and compensate for his slow feet. In the first two games it was on full display how Sengun could not only be viable, but flat out disruptive on defense given the right coverage and help from teammates. What has gotten everyone fooled is the last two games where Ime is CLEARLY experimenting with having Sengun switch everything. We know this is experimental because Ime has said himself that he isn’t comfortable with Sengun switching. But I suspect that he saw how well Sengun played on drop and hedge, that he got funky and wanted to test out switching, you never know until you try it (in addition to not showing our hand to Popovic). Sengun actually even looked good in switching the first game vs the Spurs, but the second game got into foul trouble chasing guards in space, so a mixed bag. Yes his offense has been putrid, but unless you are worried about a sample size of 2 games vs 2 years, the takeaway here is if you combine his offense the last two years (with higher usage) and his defense in the preseason (88.6 defensive rating is elite) - that’s an allstar. Fred Vanvleet is an allstar caliber player. Sengun with his preseason defense is an allstar caliber player. Jabari going from what was essentially an anti-allstar the last year to even just a replacement level player this year is equivalent to adding an allstar player. We are adding three allstars to last year’s team and that isn’t even hyperbolic.
Below 30 is my guess. Bimathug on the recent Clutchfans podcast said that all the other teams in the West got better, which is something unprecedented in recent memory. This year is basically about instilling culture and discipline, and separating the wheat from the chaff. Green, Jabari, and Sengun have to show more consistency and improvement this year, or one or more of them are going to be gone by next season.
Why don’t you go through every team in the west one by one and judge yourself if they improved or not instead of taking someone’s word for it.
I am well beyond that age, thank you, but I think that way because the major defensive tasks will be put on them. You could see against the Spurs that with FVV and DB out of the lineups, the team looked horribly wrong.
35-40 is realistic. We should have won at least 30 last year if it wasn't for a dumbass coach. Adding about 10 games because of a coaching change and 5-8 for the players we added gives me confidence we'll do at least 35 wins this year
Neither is going to get tired out. I think Ime can easily use a 10 man rotation this year and keep everyone fresh even with his style of non-stop defensive intensity. I would still love to find another enforcer type back-up center even though Jock looked pretty good last game. People constantly focus their attention on half-court offense and think that guys like Amen and Cam should get limited minutes. I think our second unit is going to trash opponents in transition if Ime lets Cam and Amen play a consistent role. If Holiday and Bullock don’t find their shooting touch they should be the one’s relegated to mop up duty.
Look if you cannot tell what older means, I cannot help you.....grammatically speaking it is the right word for a comparison to the younger players who make up majority of the roster. But I guess it happens that people jump at a word they are not particularly endeared to.
