RealGM

Bad news on yao possibly ending his career...and who knows if tmac will play more than 30 games(i'll bet $100+ he will)?

Lost ron artest, a perfect 3rd scoring option(on a healthy team), now has a 3 yr deal with the champs.

But we get ariza in return, who could be a future all star. if we dont trade shane, we'll have 2 good wing defenders again, and hopefully they play the season healthy. if not ariza gets better at defense faster by guarding the best perimeter players instead of shane. gonna have to do that more for houston than he did for the lakers.

The summer league team is 3-0 so far. Budinger, Taylor, Leunen, and Dorsey all are playing their roles above average. Good news for the future.

The team is working on a trade for a center to replace yao for this season. With mcgrady changing his jersey number to #3, it looks like he'll play more games than he misses, which is what he's done before last season. Im high on tmac so i say he'll play in november, if not december, but he wont start playing in january, in my homer ass opinon.

supporting cast is top 5 in the league. brooks, scolandry, battier, lowry, now we have ariza. Add to that a possible summer leaguer on the team next season? or rookie? or DORSEY!!!!!! also add the guy who's gonna replace yao, who will be good enough to play starting center, so thats a supporting cast member .

not only do we have a great role players, at least 3 of them....brooks/scolandry...will get better next season (all 3 of them will be entering their 3rd NBA season). They also are our best players aside tmac/yao (maybe ariza's better than landry).

to top it all off, tmac could play 60+ games, preferrably 65+ (70+ really), with him playing like he did before last season, the team could end up in the 4/5 matchup again.

in morey i trust, and w/ the news on tmac, i'll bet the rockets make the playoffs next season. just watch out for tmac. im tired of saying that, probably sick from it, but still, you have to say it, specially when he's in his contract year. unfortunately, we had to say it every single season. but at least he delivers (he secured us a playoff spot last season by busting his body in november, when he should've been healing it)

Things are looking good despite yao ming's chanagans.

I like. How maach? High five!

<----------------------------- Past round 1

<----------------------- Beat LA in game 1

<------------------------- Losing Yao for the playoffs

<------------------------- Hou/LA game 7

<------------------ Losing Yao for season(career?)

<----------------------- Artest Bolts to teh Lakers and brags about it

<------------------ Signing Ariza to MLE

<-------------------- Reading this thread

Guy986 wrote:
<------------------ Signing Ariza to MLE

<-------------------- Reading this thread

i thought we didn't use the MLE on Ariza

Guy986 wrote::lift: <----------------------------- Past round 1

<----------------------- Beat LA in game 1

<------------------------- Losing Yao for the playoffs

<------------------------- Hou/LA game 7

<------------------ Losing Yao for season(career?)

<----------------------- Artest Bolts to teh Lakers and brags about it

<------------------ Signing Ariza to MLE

<-------------------- Reading this thread

Nicely presented
Ya Rocket sign Ariza with Disable player exception. will that change your emoticon?

I really don't get the lottery predictions. I still think we're better than the Suns, ergo, last seed.

If Tmac can provide his 20/5/5 next season, I still see this team contend for a playoffs spot next season.

There is no way this team does not make the playoffs next year. The odds are greater that a team makes the playoffs than if they don't. We saw what this team could do against the Lakers minus the big 2. They will at the very least be an 8th seed, and all it takes is a spot in the playoffs to win it all.

Where in the world is Boki Nachbar?

Nachbar_is_God wrote:There is no way this team does not make the playoffs next year. The odds are greater that a team makes the playoffs than if they don't. We saw what this team could do against the Lakers minus the big 2. They will at the very least be an 8th seed, and all it takes is a spot in the playoffs to win it all.

Guy986 wrote::lift: <----------------------------- Past round 1

<----------------------- Beat LA in game 1

<------------------------- Losing Yao for the playoffs

<------------------------- Hou/LA game 7

<------------------ Losing Yao for season(career?)

<----------------------- Artest Bolts to teh Lakers and brags about it

<------------------ Signing Ariza to MLE

<-------------------- Reading this thread

<------------------ Reading this post.

IF Tmac plays and plays how he did the seasons before this past season, we will have a chance to make the playoffs. Its a huge IF though, and personally I dont see it happening but im keeping the faith!!
Still a bunch of talent in this team but we desperately need a big man to carry the defensive load ala Mutombo!!

Stop kidding urself it SUX to be a Rox fan rite now!!!!

Munchlaxatives wrote:Where in the world is Boki Nachbar?

Boki signed with Efes Pilsen, Turkish team. He was keeping an eye on offers from NBA teams, but still he signed for Efes.

well sorry the thread title shouldnt say anything about not being a bad time for houston rockets fans. losing yao ming for next season and possibly his career is terrible. one of the worst things to happen to the rockets imo. my bad about the thread title. it is a bad time to be a rockets fan.

but w/ tmac playing a good portion of the season, at the level he was playing before last season, the team could make the playoffs. Its big if, but w/e, im not a pessimist.

all the team needs is tmac and a starting center to get to the playoffs next season. possibly 3nd our run at the 2nd round agin which im 120% fine with.

All good things must, and will come to an end! If the Ming Dynasty is dead, (not what I want, but being realistic!) We must forge ahead. Conjecting on Mac is irellevant at this point, he isn't a factor until A\S break, where he will either get moved to another team, or come back. I think Morey does an excellent job in assembling a complimentry bunch of players to play alongside the "Go to Guy's" and have faith in what he will do this offseason.

I like the idea of playing younger players, however not at the expense of heading to the lottery.

No way houston can complete in the STACKED western conference without Yao. You know mcgrady cant play a full season with that back...plus he knows hes on the trading block so doubt he has much motivation. I like Scola's game but he doesnt carry your team to the promise land. Ariza is an up and comer but going to be a lot of pressure on him this year.

Bottom line how do you complete with the Spurs, Lakers, and Denver. Everyone has gotten better and you guys have gotten worse. Yao was a complete beast in the middle tough break.

Yao's awesome, and it's easy to appreciate how hard he's worked for us, but our odds of winning anything while built around him and TMac have been low and dropping for ~3 years.

I think that his going down is actually far from being the worst thing to ever happen to the team. It's going to allow us to expedite our restructuring while we still have our new and revised core of the last 2 years. Our "core," in that reference, being Scola/Landry/Battier/[Disposable, but capable, PG]/Morey/Whatever star we can, through great fortune, plug in from the IR at a given point.

If Yao can come back, we'll be better, same as with McGrady, but as has long been established, neither of them can be our true focal point.

SApuro_ wrote:I like Scola's game but he doesnt carry your team to the promise land. Ariza is an up and comer but going to be a lot of pressure on him this year.

So we're not title contenders next year. Big freaking deal. Western conference hasn't been STACKED for 4-6 years, though they're still significantly better than the EC

SApuro_ wrote:Bottom line how do you complete with the Spurs, Lakers, and Denver. Everyone has gotten better and you guys have gotten worse. Yao was a complete beast in the middle tough break.

Lakers got worse, sorry, but more importantly we don't even need to beat them consistently in order to be a 40-50 win team.

There are 5 elite teams next year (= 13 games total), 4 more really good teams (another 13 games), then a bunch of decent and crap teams (56 games). 25% win against the top 2, then 65% against the rest, and voila, 7 + 36 = 43. I think that's our low-end projection, and could see this team winning as many as 52 games, with just the current roster.

I support Moof's view above ^^

Especially want to see the special trick of shooting a baby out of Joe.linnen's pee hole.

So Rockets go grab that 8th spot!

I don't see how you guys aren't excited about Aaron Brooks. He put on a show in the playoffs and I think you guys struck gold late in the first round with him

AB_THETRUTH wrote:I don't see how you guys aren't excited about Aaron Brooks. He put on a show in the playoffs and I think you guys struck gold late in the first round with him

WE LOVE U AB!!