55 wins may be necessary now for home court in Round 1. I thought all along that 54 was sufficient, but with Portland, LA, and San Antonio right behind us and the first two already owning the tiebreaker over us, that's probably no longer enough. 56 is the minimum for winning the division. I don't know how that's possible though with all these injuries.
Will say it over again Harden winning a Finals MVP> Regular season MVP all day. Let's hope we make some noise this year! Let's go Rockets!
First thing's first and that is getting the first round monkey off of our back. Nothing else matters until then.
In a loaded West, with our highest paid player missing half the season, THIS is the wording you choose? It's like you're allergic to being happy.
I seriously doubt if there's a person here who wouldn't prefer the same thing, assuming they have a functioning brain. My personal preference is for James to win both this season, or any other season while he's here playing at an elite level. It's happened in Houston before, Hakeem in '94, and he deserved both in '95. One of the awards are incredibly difficult to win, much less two in the same season. Moses Malone, another hero of the Rockets, could have been a Houston player to win both had we not lost in 6 games to Boston in the '82 Finals. Because the cheap Rockets management at the time didn't want to pay Moses what he was worth, he was dealt to Philadelphia for chump change. Ultimate irony? He won a championship with the Sixers the next season, winning both the season and Finals mvp awards. Houston's history has irony in spades.
Back in July after the Bosh/Parsons thing went down, Morey said that in April the team would be better equipped for the playoffs. Morey fulfilled his own prophecy! To go from: Bev/Terry/Canaan Harden/Daniels/Johnson Ariza/Garcia/Covington/Papa Jones/DMo Howard/Black/Dorsey/Capela To: Bev/Terry/Prigioni Harden/Brewer/Johnson Ariza/Papa/McDaniels DMo/Jones/Smith Howard/Dorsey/Capela He built a bench from the ground during the season. That's crazy! We now have the depth to do some serious damage in the playoffs, something that was a huge question mark in the start and the first month of the season. If we can get guys back and we get into a rhythm, we are going to be an extremely hard out for anyone.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Looking at Houston's bench, and not sure they make the playoffs this season</p>— Ethan J. Skolnick (@EthanJSkolnick) <a href="https://twitter.com/EthanJSkolnick/status/524718899053735937">October 22, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Can some post all of the tweets from analysts etc that had negative outlooks for the rockets this season? Thanks in advance
What was their bench at the beginning of the year? Terry, Papa, D-Mo(before the Jones injury), Dorsey, Black, Cisco, Johnson, and Daniels. Am I forgetting anyone? Not to take anything away from Brewer and Smith who've been fantastic since joining the team, but that bench actually did do a very good job holding down the fort during the first Dwight injury. Remember, they got off to a 19-5 start despite missing Dwight and T-Jones for most of those games as well as other guys(Canaan, Cisco, Papa, Bev) having their own less severe injuries.
That'd be an exhaustive search! Here are some preseason pieces from most of the major outlets. CBS Sports: Projected records for every team CBS Sports: Expert predictions & playoff brackets CBS Sports: Going all in with the Clippers CBS Sports: Southwest Division preview ESPN Forecast: West Standings ESPN: NBA Power Rankings ESPN: Southwest Division Champs ESPN: Houston Rockets 2014-15 forecast ESPN: Summer forecast - Best newcomer ESPN: Summer forecast: Team turmoil Grantland: Tiers of the NBA - ranking teams top to bottom Preseason Power Rank: 12th FOX Sports: Western Conference standings predictions FOX Sports: Playoff predictions Preseason Power Rank: 8th And James Harden isn't a top 10 player lulz NBA: GM Survey NBA: [Offseason] Bottom 10 NBA: Report Card NBA: Rockets preview Preseason Power Rank: 11th Preseason Power Rank 2: 8th PBT: NBA Playoffs & Champion PBT: 2014-15 Houston Rockets preview Preseason Power Rank: 8th SBNation: Predictions SBNation: Western Conference (Rockets) Preseason Power Rank: 7th SI: Coaches on the Hot Seat SI: Flop teams SI: Southwest Division Preseason Power Rank: 8th USA Today: Southwest Division preview USA Today projections Preseason Power Rank: 8th Yahoo Sports predictions Yahoo Sports BDL Rockets preview Preseason Power Rank: 7th
Great win to lock it down, Josh Smith's interview was the best. How this guy was deemed a cancer and bad guy is beyond me. He seems humble and grateful to play the game!
