Rocketscast/Kevin Pelton on why the Rockets are beating expectations

I agree... Numbers and stats can be thrown around in turned into scientific equations but at the end of the day it's still all assumptions and "educated" guesses.

And McHale probably doesn't play rookies because he's trying to make the playoffs. If that was the case he would have did that with the rookies last year. With the young talent on this team, high scoring, great start _ if McHale doesn't get this team to the playoffs, both him and Morey could be gone.

Plus they where .500 last season. Why expect much different.

 

I thought they were a 33+ win team before James Harden, and a 40+ win team after.

#LookslikeIwasright

 

Hmmmm. Not sure how to take the argument that Smith and Morris rated notably well, therefore were projected not to play (or not to play much at all.) Almost as though Morris and Smith got their projections made. . . recently.

 

This.

 

Lin is the reason.

He just Lins.

 

Ha ha, right on...

Harden is worth 5 wins, but Morris and Smith are worth 11. Dividing by two, they each account for 5.5 wins, so I guess Morris and Smith are better than Harden.

 

I think the comment about them factoring in more rookie minutes is fair, but it couldn't have accounted for 11 wins. Maybe if we had Kyrie Irving on our roster but extra minutes for Marcus Morris, Greg Smith and Patterson give us 11 wins?

Also, good post Carl. Seems as though you've gone on a recent trend of making really high quality contributions rather than racial or lame pun jokes.

 

#BeWell

IMO, the latter are high quality.

 

Well the increased time for Asik/Harden/Parsons should have been expected.

 

I was expecting 38~42 wins b4 James Harden's trade. After that I predicted 40~45 wins. I think I knew this team much better than those experts...;P

 

I really don't get it. McHale did terrible with last years team. He couldn't get the players on the same page. He was terrible in Minnesota.

My expectations after Harden was for this to be a very mediocre team, 30 wins was about right. Harden was very good, but we still had a losing start and I thought - yup, just about how i expected. But I was surprised at how close the games were.

The other thing that was weird....was that the first game of the season we looked great. How much time did McHale have to integrate Harden.

So I really think Harden is the superstar we are looking for and you can build around him. He's got some mad game and intelligence going on. I was wrong about him - totally wrong.

As for McHale - I guess I have to give him credit too. He's done an excellent job molding this team.

I know people talk about how bad our defense is. But honestly, it's much easier to fix a defense than it is an offense.

 

Well whaddya know, having a superstar and a legit 7 foot center makes coaching easier.

 

Fair enough, but the Rockets philosophy has always been to rebuild without tanking.

The signing of Carlos Delfino was an indication of that.

 

very astute observation

 

Harden replaced Kevin Martin. Smith and Morris would replace Jones, White, and DMo. Martin when when healthy is a very good player. 2 years ago he was borderline all-star caliber. This is very reasonable to assume Harden would be moderate improvement over him.

 

Yes. In this sense Pelton made a guess and missed wildly. Even without Harden trade, it was unlikley that the rookies, even Lamb, would see much playing time. KMart would've had the lion share of the minutes and usage provided he was motivated enough. And why shouldn't he when he's working on getting a new deal?

But the fact that he made that guess means that most other teams would've taken that route. Kind of sad that tanking has become so much the norm, that projection formulas has to account for that.