What were your expectations before this season started?

Not blaming the coach necessarily, but a different dynamic has to emerge. I don't think asking a young rookie head coach to go through this year and then take the team where it needs to go next year is the best thing.

 

make playoffs, not top 4 in west.

 

2nd round to WCF.

 

Not to have a r****d for a coach

 

I was expecting #6-8 last season (mainly with the removal of Parson) and #3-4 this season (mainly with the addition of Lawson).

I believed Parson's play making ability was a very important part of the team lack of offense creator outside of Harden. I believed Lawson would bring a new dimension to the Rocket's offense.

 

that McHale would stay another 2 years at least.

 

I expect a championship at the start of every season.

 

Well, I thought GSW and SAS were clearly going to be better than us. And I thought there was a good chance that OKC would be too. I also thought that the West had gotten even stronger (I was wrong), so that it would be likely for us to win fewer games this year. But yeah, I thought we'd get around 50 wins. Still a good season.

So I had us as 4th best in the West.

 

Conference Semi Finals

1st Round = 90% Expected
2nd Round = 50% Expected
3rd Round = 25%
Finals = 0% Chance

 

I'll even go one further.
Next Year prediction without signing a superstar this off season. With or without Dwight.

1st Round = 45%
2nd Round = 30%
3rd Round = 5%
Finals = 0%

 

I expected:

1) That Harden and Lawson would start out a little stiff - sort of like Miami did with Lebron and Wade. One possession for you, one possession for me-type thing. It would be successful, and Harden's overall usage and minutes would go down, but good teams would be able to defend it.

2) Dwight would get more lobs as Lawson was able to make Faried look damn good in the PnR game. We've always said the Harden/Howard PnR SHOULD be better than it is. I assumed since PnR is also Lawson's game, we'd run a ton of it to great success.

3) As they started to click, We would run Lawson PnR while Harden came off screens. The hope is that at the same moment we'd have Lawson going to the rim with a step on his man, Howard rolling beside him, and Harden coming free at the 3 pt line.

4) We'd run Harden PnR with Lawson coming off mid-range screens. Same set up except Lawson gets the ball 16 ft from the hoop and, with the defense in flux, he can shoot or drive depending on how his shot is falling.

5) Ariza would shoot 40% from 3 just like he did in WAS because he'd be receiving just as little attention as he did in WAS.

6) The bench would be strong with one of Harden/Lawson in at all times. Run the same thing with Capela that you did with Howard and maybe some DMo post ups.

and a bunch of other sh_t that should've happened but didn't.

 

My expectations were to at least win a playoff round at the bare minimum and be a contender.

 

I was expecting the 3rd or 4th seed and certain victory in the 1st round. I wasn't very confident about beating a healthy OKC or GSW in a playoff series.

The Spurs I wasn't so sure about since you never know when Duncan and/or Parker might get hurt but they are clearly fine. I also wasn't expecting Kawhi to carry them at his current level. I figured they would need Aldridge to be their best offensive player. I was wrong.

The Clippers - mentally, we own them. At this point we lost our confidence so they can beat us, but going in - completely own them.

Memphis -I thought that group's time was up and was hoping we might have the chance to make a run at Conley.

With McHale as the coach and DMo hurt I was not expecting us to get past round 2. That was my realistic expectation. The X-factors to me were DMo and Lawson. It was up to them to elevate us in 2016. Neither one has done anything.

 

This is an honest answer, not 20-20 hindsight. I thought the WCF and most of last season was a glorious fluke, and I thought it WHILE the season was going on. I did not expect the same result this year unless some major fundamental improvements to the team happened AND the team stayed healthy.

I wanted a point guard that could facilitate to all the players and give Harden more off-the-ball scoring chances. We got Lawson, and everyone seemed excited, but I still had major doubts that the coaching could actually put together a system using a point guard to enhance Harden, Dwight, and the rest of the team, regardless of the PG's talent. Sure enough, they never even got in the same country as that idea, making Lawson useless and still leaving the ball in Harden's hands.

So my expectations were much lower than last year. I figured we'd be maybe pull a fifth or sixth seed. I did not expect the defense to become so utterly abysmal, however. Thus, while I already had low expectations, the Rockets have managed to go much lower than I even had already prepared for, and that's why I've watched very little of them this year.

 

Would have been tough to do last year's record but still a top 5 team. Nothing this pathetic however.

 

I expected to get to the WCF again. Pretty much started the season with the same roster and we added Lawson. Didn't expect us to start the season blasting through the gates but didn't expect we leave the gates limp dicked.

 

Pretty much the same with me. I expected the Rockets to be battling for a top 4 seed as well. And expected around 57/58 wins.

 

I expected GSW, Spurs, OKC to take the top 3 seeds, but the Rockets would fight for 4 - 6 with Clipper, Mavs, NO, etc. But boy, did they & Pelican's fall off the cliff.