Why this year Rockets will be immensely better than last year

Well for one, we actually will have a training cap with a full roster with an actual game plan for this season. Last year the sudden acquisition of Harden literally a day before the season started allowed no time for the Rockets to gel their promising core of Lin,Harden,Parsons and Asik. Of course, by the end of the season they were clicking together rather well but in my opinion still underachieve by falling to the 8th seed.

Last year the Rockets had 21 back to back games including several weeks of 4 games in 5 nights. Most of us would remember this as hell month where Rockets went on a terrible losing streak. This was a huge test for the youngest team in the NBA as it test their ability to win in unfavorable conditions. It was also obvious that the new age Rockets weren't battle tested. While we managed a lot of blowouts, we weren't very good in tight games. Last year Rockets didn't manage to win even one overtime game. Hopefully with a full year of experience and actual plays being called, this problem can be dealt with this year.

Obviously the defensive factor will be a huge improvement on the Rocket's record this year. With both Dwight and Asik constantly roaming the paint, Rockets should have a top 15 defense at the very least. Especially in pick and roll defense where Asik wasn't very good at. Dwight dominates in this category and even last year when injured was so good at defending post players that opposing teams didn't even try it.
For further analysis of Dwight's impact defensively
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHNKs3YHOKI&list=UUSpvjDk06HLxBaw8sZw7SkA

Also we got Beverley who is a way better defender then previous back up point guard Tony Douglas. Garcia, if he returns to pre-Kings day(where NBA career goes to die) can be a devastating 6th man scorer(Pre Kings 44%FG and 38% from three's). We caught flashes of this last year and overall the man should be more efficient and better then Delfino overall.

Of course one of the main plagues last year was the amount of turnovers the Rockets accumulated. While some of it can be attest to the pace the Rockets played at, other times it was because the Rockets backcourt didn't have a reliable big man to throw the ball to. While Asik has gotten better at generating offense, he still wasn't very good at catching the ball or actually scoring since he lack the hops to dunk if he wasn't wide open. Instead we were treated to a variety of hilariously bad circus layups. With Dwight as the best pick and roll big man in the NBA, this problem should be alleviated. Also despite being injured, Dwight still had a better FG% then Asik while having more shots. In fact Dwight beats Asik in every category last year statistically besides turnovers, fouls and freethrow shooting.