Yo. The 9th seeded Rockets finished 42-40. With Howard at center, we were doing just fine and could've easily won 43 games especially with Outlaw returning to help us offensively.
Possibly. Juwan was doing good but obviously running out of gas. The trade was a good one, especially in light of the injuries suffered by Joel.
What Roy said was complete bullshit!!!!! Oden wanted to be a bigger part of the offense, and Roy struggled with it. What Roy wants is guys that WANT to stand in the corner and wait for him to need a bailout because he hold the ball too long
Not sure how Roy saying he wanted an inside presence is complete BS. An inside presence would help, and as much as Oden might've wanted it, he wasn't really that good with it until a few games before he went down. I don't think what Roy said (or it's implied that Roy said) is much different then just saying "Oden in the lineup will help us, along with better shooting".
another year with this same core. There is a ton of talent in place, they just didn't fare well with injuries. No need to panic. If Brandon and Nic were healthy they blow the doors off those same Suns and probably the Spurs too. Add in Greg and another year of maturation to their young core and they should be an elite squad. I could see them making a move for a better longterm solution to the PG spot, but Bayless improved quite a bit this year. As I said at the beginning of the season, he needs a more consistent jumper... if he improves as much next year as he did from last in this regard he will be fine for them too. STOMP
Will that ever happen, though? Brandon is on his 4th knee surgery and Batum has injured the same shoulder 2 or 3 times in the past year. The Oden-isn't-injury-prone apologists always say his injuries do not appear to be related, thus no reason to believe this is anything more than an unlucky, coincidental streak. Well, Brandon and Batum's injuries clearly are related. We built a team around players acquired on the cheap due to injury/health concerns (Roy, Batum, Aldridge) and added Bowie II to the mix ... my hunch is we'll always be saying, "if we just had the core guys healthy..."
