A Q&A with Ethan Rothstein of SB Nation’s Rockets site The Dream Shake.

What needs to happen for this to be an enjoyable season for Rockets fans?

The Western Conference Finals and a minimal amount of drama.

Houston Rockets / Projected Starters
Position	Starters	Bench
Guards	Chris Paul James Harden	Tim Quarterman Bobby Brown
Wings	Trevor Ariza	Eric Gordon P.J. Tucker Luc Mbah a Moute Troy Williams
Bigs	Clint Capela Ryan Anderson	Nene Tarik Black Chinanu Onuaku Zhou Qi

What makes Rockets fans most excited about this year? What makes Rockets fans most nervous?

The addition of Chris Paul is enough to make any fan base giddy. Adding him to James Harden seems like a slam dunk.

What makes us nervous is that we've seen superstar pairings in Houston before, and we've seen them with Mike D'Antoni before. They don't always go swimmingly. This feels different because of the people and circumstances involved, but nothing is ever certain.

Gut Check

Survey data collected from site writers and editors. The wider the graph the more optimism and trust the fans have in their team! The grey line indicates the average of all sites' collected data.

9.0

Out of 10

How good will your team be this year

9.3

Out of 10

Are they on the rise or on the decline

9.3

Out of 10

Are fans happy with the team’s direction or angry

10.0

Out of 10

Are they trying to win now or build for the future

What storyline might a national audience be missing about the Rockets?

The defense. The Beard/CP3 combo is going to bend space and time on the offensive end on the court, and the Rockets will score and shoot at historic clips yet again.

But with Paul, P.J. Tucker, Luc Mbah a Moute, and, perhaps most importantly, a Harden who is not exerting maximum effort on offense every possession, the defense should be vastly improved. The team has set high defensive goals this season, and that will be how they improve on last year's finish.

Why should neutrals pay attention to the Rockets this year?

People can ooh and ahh at the moves the Thunder and Celtics made, but only one team in the league has the Hall of Fame, MVP-level talent to really give the Warriors a run for their money.

And although we don't endorse this way of thinking, neutrals always love a good case of Chris Paul-James Harden schadenfreude. We happen to think you'll be disappointed, but we'd be lying if we said watching the body language of these two temperamental players will be fun to hate-watch if you aren’t a fan of the team.

What's your prediction for the season?

59-23, No. 2 seed, lose in six games to the Warriors in the Western Conference Finals.