Top 10 picks who have led teams to the playoffs last 4 years

I'm not penalizing anything. I don't see why having higher expectations for your team, given the not insignificant level of talent they have amassed relative to the rest of the league in recent years, and especially relative to the sad sack losers that you lump them in with, is "penalizing."

You asked me why I differentiated the Rockets from those teams: Answer: because the Rockets win more games and have better players. I know it sucks to "penalize" the Rockets by saying they have better players than the Cleveland Cavaliers, but it's an assessment that ANY reasonable, informed observer of the NBA would make.

What does this have to do with anything I said? They deserve a lot of credit for it. Next.

What am I supposed to do? Throw them a belated victory parade for their fabulous 01 season?

All right, enough with that, but do you really think it's only us stupid homer rockets fans who have a higher expectation level for the Rockets than what they accomplished? No. Why do you think that ESPN guy gave Rudy an "F" for coaching this season? Why do you think other league observers (Walton,etc.) continually whine about the misuse of Yao in our offense? Why do you think the Rockets were favored, prior to the games, to win games against Cleveland, Atlanta, Clippers, Miami, Memphis et al, by vegas oddsmakers, yet flamed out royally? It's not just us that expected more this season.

 

WHOA! i smell something familiar.

 

Sam-what you have to factor in is that the players we added are all younger than Steve. We are on pace. Yao didn't dominate this year for long, EG had problems, and Steve and Cat (to a lesser extent) both changed their roles mid season. Add to that we have very little depth (out of 5 positions only C has playoff-quality starter and backup) and you can see where problems arose.

 

No, I did factor it in:

Yao + Eddie + James Posey + Glen Rice > Pig Miller + Shandon Anderson + Walt Williams + Dan Langhi.

 

Doesn't this point out a terrible plan so far by our coaches/gm to adapt to the zone.
Also, KT looks pretty good against the zone - after leaving the Rockets, shot almost 50% for season after joining Sixers.

 

You can make all kinds of excuses you want about our youth and spin it however you like. The fact is that we had the opportunity to go to the playoffs but didn't go in there because we played horrible down the stretch. We showed no heart, no fire, and no team unity with a horrible system in place. If we played with more effort especially defensively, we could have easily made the playoffs...I mean EASILY. That's the bottom line. No if's then's or but's about it.

 

I have no problem with the above logic as it applies to the top 6 seeds in the west. But think about this--

The Houston core of Francis (25), Mobley (28) & Yao (22) is on average 2 years older than the Phx core of Marbury (26), Marion (24) and Amare (20). Phx had far worse health and lower production of their supporting cast including primary vets (Gugs, Hardaway, Tskaliades). In fact they had to play league throwaways like Langhi, Williams, and Brown for stretches (like 20 MPG from this junk collectively). Looking at team differentialls--Houston has an edge in PPG differential, shooting (offense to defense) differential, and rebounding. The only edge Phx had was with TOs--probably the one facet you have the most control over via team discipline and intensity.

Given far better health, given the older core trifecta of kep leaders, given Houston's roster is a lot deeper than Phx (Langhi couldn't even make 13th man on the Rockets), given Houston's better shooting, rebouding and scoring differential--w/o question in my mind we should have been ahead of Phx. In the end we didn't make the playoffs IMO simply because Marbury wanted it more.

One other thought--I'll take a core group at age 25, 28 & 22 any day over a team lead by a 39 and 41 year olds who had to pencil in two starters this year who noone else wanted. Fact is Utah at this stage in their two key players age is not a talented team, you are seeing this in the playoffs though they probaly prevented a sweep the other night. That is a testament to coaching and player effort they got the #6 over us or probably Phx for that matter--though Phx has the excuse of poor health (especially in that really only their 3rd quality offensive player was injured or played injured most of the year) that we do not have.

One final thought. TD won the championship in his 2nd year--it is not like you can't be a leader early on your career. Nor is too much to expect your two time starting all-star player to lead you to the playoffs within his first 4.