Rockets Press Conference

[78#]

Hello everyone. Last season was very successful for us overall. We did not have a losing sim for during the season for the first time ever. We finished with 57 wins which was tied for the second most in franchise history which helped us clinch our 4th divisional title in 5 seasons and 3rd seed in the West. In the playoffs we reached the Western Conference Finals for the 3rd time in franchise history and lost in Game 7 to the eventual champions Nuggets. The team finished 1st in defensive efficiency and first in many other categories. We also won GMOY by votes and the computer as well as MIP for Frank Garden by votes and computer. Last season could not have been more successful outside of getting to the Finals and winning a championship.

This offseason we didn't have big plans to shake things up as all of our starters were signed for this season. With the draft, we selected Rob McGee from the Air Force Academy. He's a big time scorer and will be a quality inside presence for many years.

In FA we only had the MLE to use but we acquired 3 shooters in Earl "Irish" OBryant, Jason Fisher, and Jeffrey Thurston. We also acquired key vet min backups in Timothy Kilmer, Jason Webster, Jonathan Treat, and Linwood Yamato. We feel these guys can give us quality minutes whenever asked.

Training camp was very important to us this season. All of our starters maintained including the great Al Horford at age 39 and we saw improvements from Desus Mero, Frank Garden, Thurston, Kilmer, and OBryant. Some have questioned our training camp methods but instead of me going over our techniques, I've brought Nicolai Koloff who was once part of Ivan Drago's team 40 years ago.



Nicolai: "as you can see, it highly advanced state of the art equipment and makes a man into a better man, a super, a great athlete into super athlete by harnessing all his strength most of the world is ignorant to body chemistry, we wish to educate your country"

Thank you Nic.

Our depth chart looks like this.

Center - Horford, James Webster, Kilmer
PF - McCormick, Webster, Kilmer
SF - Gordon, OBryant, Thurston
SG - Garden, Fisher, Treat
PG - Mero, Yamato, Delmar Lillard

Our first sim went very well going 5-1 with our only loss at the road in double OT against a very good Hawks team. Our defensive efficiency is 2nd right now, margin of victory is 17.0 and we've drastically improved our scoring output this season averaging 6th in the league in points, 5th in offensive efficiency, and in 4th in 3-point shooting. We need to improve our ball-handling, getting to the foul line more and our 3-point defense. Thank you everyone.

[garbageman]

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: If you had to guess, what is it about your General Managing style that nets you so many GMOY nods from computer simulation models that were built to determine optimal General Managing?

[78#]

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: If you had to guess, what is it about your General Managing style that nets you so many GMOY nods from computer simulation models that were built to determine optimal General Managing?

My guess is on the years I have won is where I've had multiple free agent signings/trades coinciding with a successful regular season. And the past few years that has seemed to happen more frequently especially since the majority of my free agent signings have been 2-4 year contracts allowing myself cap room every few seasons.

[TheSyndicate]

It seems like you're going to be locked in a tight division race all season with San Antonio - do you think you have the edge? What will make the difference?

[78#]

It seems like you're going to be locked in a tight division race all season with San Antonio - do you think you have the edge? What will make the difference?

I respect our little brothers to the West. They have a nice little team over there. We’ll see what happens. But you know how you let your little brother get ahead and then you just snatch it away from him. That’s how I see it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[drkavarga]

Do you feel that you will have a showdown with the Spurs in the conference semifinals or conference finals? I’m calling it now, winner of that vs. Nuggets Conference Finals with the winner being the eventual champions.

Secondly how will your team be able to get their rockets off the ground if the government is still shut down and there’s nobody there to press the big red button?