The Big Lead leaves the Rockets out of their playoff predictions

It is up to Yao's health.

Without Yao, Rockets should not be considered a playoff team.
You have to live with it.

 

LOL. Clippers will make the playoffs because of BLAKE GRIFFIN???? He hasn't even played yet.

 

They're better than the clippers without Yao.

 

Who cares.

 

but he IS healthy now and going to be playing. So that counts for something. You can't assume he's going to get injured again.

 

When DOESN'T the media underrate us?

 

when our players do steroids, unknowingly of course.

 

flood their inbox

jmcintyre@thebiglead.com; tyduffy@gmail.com; thesportshernia@yahoo.com; alumnigonzo@gmail.com

 

We need CP3.

 

WGAS?

 

they left out portland too

 

I have never heard of The Big Lead....

I wonder why.

 

*adds big lead to list of internet sites never to read*

 

I usually don't care about these pre-season predictions, but when they put the CLIPPERS in front of us, IT IS A HUGE PROBLEM!!!

 

Already e-mailed them about why they are choosing the Clippers and forgetting the Rockets.

 

Why aren't they?

Rockets won 42 games last season without Yao playing a minute.

The worst playoff team won 41 games.

To our 42 win team we bring in a 7' center (who knows and suits the offense) - one of our great weaknesses last season was having a genuine big guy at all.
We also bring in Kevin Martin - a 20 point per game scorer who has the ability to generate his own shot and/or get to the line. The other thing that last years team was really missing.

AND THEN there's another year of experience for young guys Brooks, Budinger, Hill, Taylor - all of whom were playing in a new role last season (whether as closer or just NBA player).

So don't add in Ming, and you've got a FAR better team than the one which managed to win 42 games (in the West) last season. I don't see any reason why we wouldn't very conservatively expect to win 3 games more - even without Ming. 45 wins might not be the playoffs - but it's gonna be pretty close (and that's extremely conservative). Probably more realistically 5-6 more wins = 47-48 wins...

We DID win more games than we lost last season!

 

Why waste time on a site like this? There's tons of them out there. The way the preview reads they're not qualified to even write a high school paper. They offered little or no analysis and lengthened the preview by adding huge embedded videos. It's pretty obvious the person that wrote this follows basketball generically and therefore knows names, basic stats, and highlights, but they dont know basketball.

 

wat the hell they just said we are not better than the CLIPERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

They rank the Spurs so high but have questions surrounding the health and trade possibilities of their players. They admit losing Stoudemire will cost the Suns their inside presence but say they have other playmakers now. Obviously not using the same logic then when ranking the Rockets... you have to assume at this point Yao will be healthy and ready to go. And we have Martin for a whole season. Yao's presence alone will change the game dramatically for what was the ninth seed in the west without him last year. Not to mention the team has a serviceable backup for Yao in Miller.