Houston Rockets Press Conference.

[78#]

Location: Toyota Center
Speaker: Owner Lowell Ramos

Hello everyone. Glad you guys could make it at our new arena. It's great. Over 18,000 seats, 2,900 club seats and over a hundred luxury seats. It's the best. And we built it.

This offseason went well overall. We drafted a great guy like Ty Lawson. We signed a superstar in Kobe Bryant, and signed a young budding star in Ike Diogu; Though training camp has derailed some of our plans, the future still looks bright for our organization.

However, training camp is still fresh in my mind, and really the results aren't we totally hoped for. Glad to see guys like Horford, Lawson, Brewer, and Diogu work hard, get better, and come ready to play this season, but however we were disappointed in some young who appear to not have a future here in long-term. DeJuan Blair who was our first round pick really struggled in camp badly and unfortunately we had to let him go. We wish him well, but I doubt we will ever see him in a NBA uniform. J.J. Hickson is another guy who struggled which was really disappointing after having a great camp last season. But his team will be short here as well. Don't be surprised if we let him go during the season. And last we have Thaddeus Young. He improved in camp, but unfortunately we don't see much potential long-term. We had high hopes when we drafted him and he has improved, but unfortunately he hasn't been happy with his lack of playing time. The truth is, he's been too raw to get any meaningful playing time. He really should have stayed in school longer if he wanted more playing time. We still hope he can produce for us, but we don't see it happening.

That said, I want to get to the positives. We really like Kobe Bryant. This guy is one of the best scorers in the league and we think he will be big-time for us. He's definitely our go-to guy.

Another positive is Ike Diogu. He's been a great story in this league. He's gone from a low first round pick to now a future star. We hope he continues to get better and be our PF long-term.

Ronnie Brewer continues to get better. He's very athletic and is a very good defender. And his scoring has slowly improved.

Ty Lawson had a good camp too. We feel he can already score and we know he can handle the rock. The key for him will be his decision making and defense. But we like what we see so far.

Al Horford is the man. He's already one of the best defenders and rebounders in this league. He's so good that he is a great candidate for defensive player of the year. If his offense catches up with his defense, we could be looking at one of the all-time greats.

So let's go to our depth chart

Starting center - Al Horford. No surprise here.

Starting power forward - Stromile Swift. We like his defense in the paint and perimeter. And he's very athletic and smart.

Starting small forward - Luke Walton. We just picked him up, but this guy does a bit of everything. We really see him being valuable this season.

Starting shooting guard - The black mamba himself. We expect him to average between 25-30 ppg this season.

Starting point guard - Ty Lawson. He had a good enough camp to start this season.

The bench goes like this.

Combo big - Ike Diogu. This guy will score and be physical in the pain. This will allow his defense to catch up with his offense.

Combo wing - Ronnie Brewer. We like what he can do on the floor.

Backup point - Jay Williams. He almost edged out Ty Lawson, but he will see plenty of minutes on the floor.

Look for Melvin Ely, Thaddeus Young, and Maurice Evans to get minutes.

[NOLa.]

What are the expectations for this team? You got a group talented enough to make the playoffs, so do you see yourself as a contender for the Midwest division?

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[JNR]

GWR: Does Stromile Swift plan on keeping his wildly successful and popular TV show going in Houston?

[78#]

What are the expectations for this team? You got a group talented enough to make the playoffs, so do you see yourself as a contender for the Midwest division?

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In our last 74 games we finished 28-36 so we're hoping to get to .500 at least. Last season we were mainly led by Horford's defense/rebounding, and scoring from Big Z, Redd, and Chauncey. We hope Kobe and Diogu to be the main scorers while expecting everyone else to improve. I don't think we will be a playoff team this season but hopefully around .500.


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[78#]

GWR: Does Stromile Swift plan on keeping his wildly successful and popular TV show going in Houston?

He will have a show but it won't be quite the same since this market is a bit different. In fact he's gonna host it with Houston legend Calvin Murphy.


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[Eazy P]

Kobe took a hit after training camp, do you see him giving you the same production this upcoming season that he did last season with the lakers?

[78#]

Kobe took a hit after training camp, do you see him giving you the same production this upcoming season that he did last season with the lakers?

The one positive was he was hit a few points across the board so I think he will be very productive outside of maybe 3-point shooting. Plus he will get the majority of touches on offense so we expect him to score a bunch.


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[NickMalone77]

Nick Melon; The Advocate: You seemed to have soured fairly quickly on Thaddeus given his disappointing training camp. With Ike Diogu and Walton now in the fold, is Youngs disappointing TC the most disappointing feature of your offseason?

[78#]

Nick Melon; The Advocate: You seemed to have soured fairly quickly on Thaddeus given his disappointing training camp. With Ike Diogu and Walton now in the fold, is Youngs disappointing TC the most disappointing feature of your offseason?

Yes, absolutely, his training camp is a killer long-term. We looked at him as the primary wing scorer with great defensive potential to compliment Horford in the paint and Lawson running the point. So we take a hit long-term and most likely will look to the draft again assuming we don't make the playoffs.

[logpmess]

Al Horford has really come into his own on the boards and defensive end. Is his role clearly defined on that side of the court, and what will be his expectations offensively?

[WigNosy]

If Lawson has a rocky start to the season, would you consider starting Williams ahead of him at some point?