re: power rankings season begins, week one

HOU would've been 2 either way don't pat yourself on the back. They would've won a game earlier in the season if that's what they needed to get the 2.

quote:

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Yall were one game away from the 6th seed. Congrats on the 2 seed, but don't come at us with "OMG WE'RE SO UNDERATED GUYS!!!" bull shite. If the Pels lost their last game, yall would have been 6th.

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I actually gave the predictors more credit than they deserve. Looking back, seems as if most predicted 7th or 8th. Not 5th or 6th:


ESPN:

8th, 49-33 " No chance Houston wins 49 games. They lost Parsons, Lin, and Asik. Very little talent outside of Howard and Harden."

https://web.archive.org/web/20140929174713/https://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/11334331/2014-summer-forecast-west-standings

Bleacher Report - Josh Martin, NBA Lead Writer:

8th, 46-36 "Say what you will about the perils of such an arrangement, but if that's what it took for the Rockets to rope in a superstar center like Howard, it's well worth the short-term pain of watching Parsons play for an in-state rival while the Rockets themselves slink back down the standings a bit."

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2207017-nba-predictions-2014-15-win-loss-projections-for-every-team-pre-training-camp/page/24

Yahoo:

7th "All in all, the Rockets are not much worse than they were last season, when they grabbed a 4 spot in the West. "

https://sports.yahoo.com/news/2014-2015-nba-season-predictions-132618438.html

Rant Sports:

6th. "They did add Trevor Ariza, which helps, but I see the Rockets taking a step in the wrong direction this year, and they certainly won’t win the 54 games they did last season."

https://www.rantsports.com/nba/2014/09/14/predicting-final-nba-standings-for-2014-2015-season/

Hoops Habit:

8th, 49-33. "It’s not even the lack of secondary talent outside of the starters that diminishes Houston’s seeding from No. 4 to No. 8. It’s the corrupted chemistry, and type of leader James Harden and Dwight Howard have turned into for this team.

Actually, it’s the type of leaders they are … not the type they’ve just now become.

Hearing about their team camaraderie ethics and how much they are willing to work with the “role players,” it’s not something that can ever be ignored. Not eating with the team, one of the two publicly saying they’re the cornerstones, and their unassertive, playful attitudes could result in a weaker defense, and people not being on the same page."

https://hoopshabit.com/2014/08/31/nba-power-rankings-western-conference-projections/10/








So they were all predicting doom and gloom. The defense was going to suck they said. Wrong. It improved greatly. They were going to be on the playoff bubble. Wrong. They were going to take a step backward. Wrong. Chemistry is bad. Wrong.




Go find me one single article that actually predicted that the Rockets were going to IMPROVE.



They were vastly underrated last year. More so than even I remembered. But reading those articles, it's all coming back to me now. When the Rockets missed out on Bosh and lost Parsons and Asik, everybody was shitting on the team.