Those who think twenties are out of their minds. Worst case mid thirties, best case mid forties. This is so obvious the writing is on the wall, those who still have ptsd from the last three years might be slow on the uptake but will catch on soon enough.
He seems due based on playing what seems like a total of 50 games in his 4/5 yr venture so far outside of that one all star season
our group of coaches are top notch... that should be a great consideration on our winning projections and predictions... game planning down to every detail should be astronomically different from the past years
I think that's a little optimistic. Mid-40s would be doubling our win total. Not totally unprecedented, but historically very rare. I fall somewhere between the extreme pessimists and that level of optimism. I think our median outcome (after adding Bullock) is mid-30s. Worst case would be right around 30 wins, best case close to 40 wins.
I’m 5 wins ahead of you, not a huge difference. I think you have to throw history out the door. We are not doubling our win total from internal improvement alone, which would be an extremely tough task (which is why it’s historically very rare). We are replacing over 50% of our team minutes from that year. And if we count Tate who barely played last year, 6 out of the possible 10 rotation players will be new, including the best player on the team - Fred Vanvleet. Of the 4 returning rotation players, Jalen, Sengun, Jabari and Tari, every single one of them will improve from last year due to their age and how they were misused - a couple of these will make a major leap imo - Sengun (usage) and Jabari (just because how bad he was last year). Between the 50% of new minutes including our new best player, and the misused young players who will improve naturally and be better utilized this year, these are not normal circumstances so we cannot look at historical precedence, IMO.
I want to believe ..... But you are going to have to convince me that they are better than at least 8 teams in the West if you really buy that mid 40's figure. The Suns (45), Clippers & Warriors (44) were the 4-5-6 seeds last year with those win totals. I'll give you Portland & San Antonio. Need 6 more and I just don't see them. I think they'll be a pretty solid defensive team but I'm really concerned about the offense, particularly outside shooting. They were next to last this past season and didn't appear to get any better with their additions over the offseason. Watching the practice 5 on 5's was like watching a brick layers convention .... The only guy who was hitting his shots is one who isn't likely to get a whole lot of minutes early on in Cam Whitmore. I really hope that isn't what the offense looks like on Oct 10 when we get our first look at them against another NBA team. Convince me otherwise ..... I really want to believe after enduring the past 3 seasons of suck.
There are more bottom teams in the East. Key is to capitalize on some of those winnable games. Magic is the first game of the season. The Wiz, Det games don't come until later on.
I have the Rockets getting the 10th spot with the surprise team falling out being the Golden State Warriors. I don't expect CP3 to work out in Golden State and I also expect Klay and Draymond to regress leaving them with just Steph carrying the team and I don't think that will be enough for them this year.
I think the rivalry to be top defensive dog is great. Cant wait to see it. So glad we passed on a guy who wanted to come to the Rockets to win a scoring title. Night and day.
Is there a site where you can find out how many games the rockets were ahead going into the fourth quarter and how many they won? I think with our greater depth we may take a few more wins just by having most of our good players available in the fourth.
I did the research myself. We were 12-17 in games we led going into the 4th quarter. I believe 7 of the wins were against bottom 5 teams. So 5-17 against decent teams. We should get a few extra wins just by having better depth and actually trying in the 4th.
If we do somehow make the play in, I really look forward to the responses from all those analysts that have predicted us to suck. I mean, I havent seen a single one pick us for the play in, have any of you?
As a reminder, in the "predict how many wins we will have this year" thread from last year, even the person with the lowest predicted number of wins (me) still predicted too many.
I think its unlikely, very unlikely even, but usually some analyst somewhere will make that almost impossible prediction anyway. If for no other reason, so they can gloat later if they turn out to be right. But lets see how the pre-season turns out. If it goes really well, some peoples opinions may change.
pre season doesn't even entail regular season every day rotations. don't see that changing much outside of just cutting players who aren't good enough
The Rockets have underperformed for three years under the previous regime. I would not be surprised if we now outperform and win even more than the highest predicted number of wins (maybe me).
