Stein put us up to 6th. THIS TEAM IS ELITE!!! http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/powerranking?season=2006&week=-1 Yao had his first-ever restful summer and now has the athletic frontcourt sidekick (Swift) he needed as much as rest. Rockets thus move to the brink of the elite, in spite of the Sura situation.
I was looking at other teams rosters and there are a few teams that really improved. Dalllas will still be tough. Memphis should be better with Stoudamire and Jackson in the backourt. Goldenstate looks to have its best team since run TMC. Even the Clippers have improved. The games should be extremely competetive this year so if homecourt in the playoffs is the main goal the Rockets will have to win their fair share of close games.
Even though I think we are the 2nd best team in the west, it drives me crazy knowing that unless we somehow overtake the Spurs, the best we can hope for in the playoffs is 4th. Overall I'd say: 1)SA 2)Miami 3)Detroit 4)Houston Next year I think it will look more like this: 1a)Houston 1b)SA 3)Detroit 4)Miami That's mostly based on Shaq and Duncan getting older..... Pugs
How are the Pacers better than the Rockets? Just look at the core of both teams....Yao/T-Mac or Artest/O'neal....who would you go with? We only gained talent and they lost Miller. Don't even start about role players....
I agree with the rankings, The way I look at it, the pacers may seem to be alot better of a team, if they can keep their guys on the court, but even with the improvements in the East they will still do very well. I dont believe they are a championship calibur team yet tho.
I guess this ranking is an -on paper- ranking, so given that, I would say that the Pacers should be in the top 6- but not at #4. Maybe 5 or 6, behind the Rockets.
Personally I could care less what the national media cares b/c most of them aren't banking on the Rox doing anything significant like going to the WC finals or winning it all. All I care about is the Rox going out and doing it!
how in the world are the Pacers with a core of O'neal, artest, jackson, and tinsley better than a Rockets team with Yao, T-mac, swift, and DA. Our bench is just as good (if not better than their) and the Pacers havnt done anything in the off-season to get drastically better not to mention they lost one of the most clutch players in NBA history.
The main reason why this team is not highly ranked is due to the lack of the stability in the PG position. Our current PG's can't match well with the basketball IQ's of players like Bibby,Parker, Billups, etc... He should also match with them defensively or offensively...
Eh our PG situation isn't as bad as you would think. We got a ton of PGs. Sura, Wesley, James, DA, Head, and *shudder* Moochie. While having a Jason Kidd, or Nash would be nice all we really need is someone that knows how to cutback turnovers, can make an open bucket, and can make an open pass. I'm not too worried about our defense since we'll have two legitamate shotblockers in our starting five to clog up the paint, leaving perimeter defense to our guards which they shouldn't have much of a problem with since JVG defense relies heavily on help defense. The fact that we have such an enormous amount of PGs means we'll have fresh legs out on the court at that position all the time. Sura was doing pretty damn well up until his injury. I think it's by design that we have so many PGs now in the likely scenario that Sura will come down with something.
