The feeling in my guts right now I would describe as "measured excitement". We have all the tools, but we have been excited so many times before and talked alot about how we are set for a big season. Pretty much every offseason hope springs eternal. Eg Derek Anderson and Swift. Bringing Bonzi in on the cheap. These are just some recent examples. I'm just ready to see us in the 2nd round. It will be hard to get too excited if we are having a tremendous regular season, because it could fall apart with injury etc come playoff time. I'm moving forward with extremely cautious optimism.
Every year, I'm the crab who predicts we'll underperform the latest high expectations. Every year, I hope I'm wrong. And every year, I'm miserably vindicated. This year, I'm predicting an NBA championship. Why? Because after all our sucky luck over recent years, we're due for some good fortune. A lucky bounce on the rim, a bogus foul call that goes our way, a prayer of a shot that somehow goes in. And because we finally have enough talent and options to withstand a few bad breaks along the way. So: this is the year. It's the last year for a while, unfortunately. No new contract with Artest. But it's the year.
Screw the first round predictions. As Ron Ron said, this team is winning a championship or its a failure. They were a 55 game winner last year and they are getting Yao back and Ron Artest. They are also got a good backup PG with Barry.
this is the season folks. i think we'll never have as good as an opportunity as this year at a title.
For the first time in years, and I mean years, this team has enough talent to be a contender: the issues that remain are health, health, and health, along with "putting it all together" which is on Adelman. I would suspect that this team will advance this season, and will be competitive for it all. Will they be champions? They could be, but too many variables to account for at this point. When "if's" and "but's" become fruits and nuts, we will all have a Merry Christmas.
If this team stays relatively healthy, I have no doubts that we'll be in the NBA finals. At that point, the Boston Celtics will give us a run for our money and you can't say what will happen. No one can. But for sure - we have everything to get there - and I've hadn't said that in a long long time. I am always a skeptic. But it all comes down to health - and that's it. There's no talent gaps or major issues about this team. None. It's all health.
Well.. I am as big a TMac as anyone here, but he is right. Yao+James = better chances for a championship. Can't deny that. On the other hand, TMac+Dwight Howard = better chances for a championship as well.
Don't know about that - I think Yao has a better chance of making a shot in the final minutes of a game than Howard does. Howard may get more boards and shoot a higher percentage - but I bet if you are an opposing defense with 30 second left in the game, you'd rather face Howard than Yao.
If you have a choice between Yao/James vs Howard/Tmac, which combo you would choose? And we have a much better chance (but still extremely small) to land James than landing Howard. Just imaging your GM: Case 1, "Hey James, would you like to come to Houston to play with Yao?" Case 2, "Hey Howard, would you like to come to Houston to play with TMac?" I think Howard would hang up the phone much quicker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY2yXngcKtA Brent Barry = new and improved rockets Ron Artest with this? Celtics are going to get schooled.
Call me crazy but the only thing I can think of is our INTENSITY. Hayes, Battier, Scola, Landry (c'mon Landry), Artest -- at any time we will have two, maybe three or four of these players on the court, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they will feed off each other, and anytime you put more than one of these players on the court the overall intensity more than doubles. Who would want to get on the court with these guys? A lot has been made about how mean and tough we will be, but I think these guys will more importantly be intense, as in hustle and focus, and diving on the floor, and playing super hard, not letting down, et cetera, et cetera. Couple our intensity with how much easier we are going to be able to score, and I say we win it all. DEFENSE wins games. wanna win the game? gotta play defense. and I think we've got that covered.
Am I the only one not expecting anything at all from Barry? The man is at the end of his career and had a serious injury last year. All this talk about him logging some minutes at PG is crazy; he couldn't even steal backup PG minutes from Jacques Vaughn! The spurs didn't sign him to that big contract just to be a spot up shooter, that's just what he became. I don't expect his game to expand at this point just because of Adelman. He just reminds me of all the "bargain" signings we've had over the years like Derek Andersen and Bonzi that just don't pan out like we planned.
Honestly,I think most people expect too much from Brent Barry. I feel he might be able to do a bit better than he did in SA at the most.I don't have much expectations from him apart from the occasional shooting outburst and a few passes.
BB won't be asked to do a lot here. He's a back up with veteran leadership skills... that can shoot! The guy can bring the ball down and set up the offense if needed.
both would say yes. when you come to play to houston with tmac, you also have artest, battier, scola, rafer... so no, i don't think howard would hang up the phone. plus, james would wonder why he's playing solo most of the time with yao on the injury list anyways.
