I think the Rockets and Dallas (UGH...) are #1/2 (interchangably) in the league and no one (besides maybe SA and Suns) is all that close. I don't know if you agree or not but here goes my reasoning. 1) This is only 1 game but: The Rockets DEMOLISHED a fully healthy Utah team (3rd best in league) without Yao.... think what they would have done with Yao. 2) No one in the East is even worth mentioning. 3) The Spurs look OLD. If you watch their games, you can definately see Duncan looks older the way he plays. He doesn't have that same air to him. Still a VERY GOOD TEAM, dont get me wrong, but if you look at them, the Rockets match up VERY VERY WELL vs. Them (No one on that team other than Duncan can stop Yao and if Duncan has to D up on Yao like that he will be too tired for offense). 4) TMac looks BETTER than I have ever seen him (and trust me I have watched ALOT of his games). He is driving, slashing, passing, doing everything correctly (sure he isn't dunking but he makes his layups so a dunk is no more points than a layup). His 3pters look crisper than ever, his FTs look crisp, his moves looks Godly again. Oh man what can you say about him. 5) Um Yao isn't back and we are holding our own vs. teams and very well at that, I would love to see how good the Rockets can be when we have Yao. 6) Come Playoff time this team is 100% built for it. We can win it all (IF HEALTHY). I don't think that any team (outside of Suns) really pose huge threat. This team looks built to matchup against the Spurs and Mavs and I believe it does. We have Yao who no one can stop if he gets downlow, we have Tmac as 2nd option... maybe 1st ... and um he is pretty good at this game of basketball. And our role players look good. (Deke and JHo have esp picked up their game this year). 6a) Only reason Suns scare me is... they play at a tempo I don't think we can keep up with. The ONLY way we can beat them is force them to play our tempo and 1/2 court game. Simply the team that controls the tempo wins the game. The only reason they are truly not top 2 team is that their team is honestly a season team not a playoff built team. Amazing team, love to watch, but definately built for season. Well thats my thoughts. Let me know what you guys think.
I'd love to agree, but I can't. It's stated somewhere in my self-made contract to myself that says I won't wear homer glasses. San Antonio, Dallas, and Phoenix are all better than the Rockets right now. Utah may still be, believe it or not, and the Lakers (while I hate admitting as much as anyone) might actually be in the conversation too. Let's get Yao back and if Tracy is still playing like this then, I'll personally go back and bump this thread for you.
Simply put I meant WHEN Yao gets back I guess I should have added that. Most def. not at this moment, but come playoff time I think us and Dallas are the 2 forces to be reckoned with.
(for the semantic nazis, please forgive my frequent use of "we" in the following paragraphs). Hold your horses, guys. Anyone who knows me well enough on this board knows I'm the eternal optimist, but I feel there's a little too much euphoria after last night's win. I'd say we are doing really well right now and are definitely capable of beating anyone in this league and possibly win a championship this season. BUT we still have a long way to go. The next few weeks are going to be very challenging, and how we emerge from the month of January will be a much better indicator of where we are as a team. It's awesome to have T-Mac clicking now, but honestly we still have yet to see this team at full strength yet. At the start of the season we had a half T-Mac, super Yao and no Bonzi. We were playing pretty well. Then we lost T-Mac and things went down a little. Yao goes down, T-Mac comes back and we're on a 5 game winning streak. And so on goes the story. I'd still like to see all our key parts come together (Yao, T-Mac, Bonzi, Battier) with the supporting cast at full strength (Alston, Head, Snyder, Howard, Mutombo et al) and develop chemistry. Luckily, I think we will have just enough time to build that chemistry before playoff time. We're not there yet, but when we get there, we sure are capable of winning it all. As for right now, I'd put us in the top 5-6 but can't be comfortable with a more superlative ranking.
Yes true we won't be highly seeded, but January WILL NOT tell how good we are. If we win ALOT of these games then yea we are without question the #1 team in the league, but if we go on avg. right now thats what is expected, UNTIL Yao returns. I think with only Tmac or Yao we are an above avg team, (44-50 wins MAX). With both healthy we still may not win alot (52-58) but we will be a FORCE in the playoffs.
No, not a top 2 right now...but perhap a top 5 in the NBA, but if Yao comes back and both him and Tracy sustain same the level of excellence , we will win the championship!!
No, we are not a top two team. Suns, Lakers, Mavs, Spurs are all ahead of us. The Heat might be a top 5 team after Shaq and D-Wade comes back. You can't really judge them without Shaq. Now, if we can go 9-1 in the next 10 games, then we are defintely top 2.
Mavs, Suns, Spurs, Utah and maybe, just maybe Lakers are still better than us. Spurs may seem old and boring, but come playoff time.. they are a force. Mavs, Suns, and the Spurs have proven themselves in the playoffs and the Lakers showed us last year that they can hold their own and they have only gotten better. The only team that isn't really playoff tested is the j*zz.. and so far I think they're doing pretty good for themselves.
Combing through your thread roflmcwaffles, this is what I have to say. Top 2 in the NBA? No. The Rox have the potential to be #4 or #5 very soon in the NBA. Agreed the Spurs have lost half a step, father time appears to have finally caught up with them. Things to look for ... This month, we have to play at Dallas, at Denver, vs Denver, vs LAL, vs Phoenix and at Chicago could be a hindrance. We need to say this team win 10, 12 or even 15 in a row without Yao, for me to say we belong in the upper crust. Phoenix and Dallas have just exploded and trying to get these two teams to lose a game, you may have better luck at squeezing blood from a turnip. To be the best, you have to beat the best. Utah was a good start, but two things we must bring the energy and intensity every night and we must be more consistent in our overall play to legitimize the claim we are a NBA elite team. Top 10 1 Phoenix 2 Dallas 3 Detroit 4 Utah ... played more consistently than we have. 5 LAL 6 Rox (#4 within the next 2 weeks possibly) 7 SA 8 Cleveland 9 Orlando 10 Washington Oh, how the mighty have fallen in the Alamo city! Still all that being said, dont count them out but, while they are big on heart, I dont think they have enough venture back to the leagues elite. Yao comes back after a phat winning streak and then, with this team coming together welcome back H-Town to the NBA elite penthouse.
I think this is a bit premature. Although it pains me to say this, call me when the Rockets win 13 in a row.
Sorry, we're not even top two in the conference. We are top 6, where is exactly where we are sitting.
for the past 2 yrs we see either tmac or yao on the team more than we see both of them together and now although both are playing at new peaks, they are still not playing healthy together. So you can't put the rockets as top 2 yet. I would really want to see yao comes back and tmac still holding his own by then and dominate all the other western conf teams before i put them as top 2
I think you misread me a little bit. Obviously we still don't have Yao so we won't know just how good this squad can be until it is back in full strength and chemistry. But like you said, if we win a lot of these games, then we can start to talk about being top 2 in the league. Otherwise it's just premature. On the other hand, there is not really a single team in the league that can count off a litany of wins against elite opponents this year. Dallas probably comes closest - they've beaten the Spurs twice and the Suns but they got blown out by Houston. So even if we don't streak our way through January, it doesn't mean we're not an elite-level team. Let's just take it one game at a time...and when all is said and done, we'll know who's elite and who's really pretending come April.
we're not top 2 by any means...we might be by the end of the season if we continue our play but as of right now...we dont have much credibility...we're nothing until we prove we can run with the big boys until the end of the season and make some noise in the playoffs. The spurs are old and are getting no where so ur right about that but the top 2 teams right now are easily Dallas and Phoenix at this point.
I dont know who you guys are, but Im a Die Hard Rockets Fan, and I agree we are top 2, possibly #1 in the NBA.
Perhaps once Yao gets back and Bonzi gets healthy... and t-mac STAYS healthy. If all those factors happen (they should and hopefully will) we may be a top 2 team. Right now I think we are in the top 5 maybe 6, but the Suns, Dallas, and probably the Spurs and maybe Jazz are still better. No one in the East is better, I'll tell you right now. Every team in the East is inconsistant and even the best Eastern teams wouldnt be better than 6th or 7th seed in the west. We are a team built for the Playoffs though, and I look forward to a healthy team that can beat anyone come playoff time.
Also, because I can't edit my own posts for some reason, I want to add that the Heat... even with the big (old) aristotle is no where near as good as Houston. Miami is a team in decline. Sure they have D-Wade, and Shaq can still be good when he wants to be, but the rest of their players are old, increasingly ineffective, and lack drive to win in the wake of their title.
