Houston Rockets: Where Do They Stand In The West?

Sep 27, 2013; Houston, TX, USA; Houston Rockets shooting guard

(13) and center

(12) pose for a picture during media day at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

With media day and training camp starting up for many teams and the season just around the corner, people are already speculating where each team stands going into their respective conference.

Some teams, like the Milwaukee Bucks, are entering this season embracing the clean slate that a 0-0 record brings them and looking to improve with their newly acquired draft talent knowing that this is just the next step in a very rough rebuild phase. Other teams, like the San Antonio Spurs, are going into this season looking to build off the momentum from last season and equate if not better their performance and repeat. There are also the teams, like the Cleveland Cavaliers, who are entering this season coming off a very successful off-season with high expectations and championship aspirations.

Then there are the teams that don’t quite know where they stand coming off of an unsuccessful off-season, like the Houston Rockets. Speculations for this team range from a generous 4th seed in the Western Conference down to not even being a playoff team. For any fan of the team, reading these rankings can be brutal and very unpleasant. However, there is a lot of truth in the fact that this team is not what it was once was last season. This roster is a drop off from last year and that’s quite a bitter pill to swallow.

In saying that, there is little doubt that this team will be in the playoffs next season. A lot of these predictions are frankly a huge exaggeration from just how much the team has truly fallen off. Yes, Chandler Parsons, Omer Asik, and even Jeremy Lin were huge losses to this team, but they weren’t big enough losses to warrant a prediction that this team falls short of making the playoffs this season. You have to take a step back and question the credibility of these media outlets when such ludicrous conclusions are drawn out, but that’s for another day.

So, where does this team stand then? This is a very difficult question to answer because we haven’t gotten to see this newly reassembled team in action but we definitely have a pretty good idea where they COULD end up.