They’ve had close wins, technical wins, nail-biters and blow-outs; they’ve (reportedly) turned down superstars and and currently sit third in the west with a record of 11-5 — In a Western Conference finally coming alive, can the Houston Rockets keep this up?
The Rockets are on pace to tie or surpass the franchise’s win record of 64, set by a team led by James Harden in 2017-2018. It was Harden’s — and all the failed years of being in the running for title contention — ghost that still hung over the franchise as recently as last season, no matter that Harden himself has been part of three different rosters since he sulked his way out of Houston. Everything from the Rockets brand of basketball to the team’s waylaid trajectory back into competition had been set and then upended by him.
It was something of an exorcism then, that Houston handily beat Harden’s current team, the Clippers, in back-to-back games this week.
What feels especially lasting about the winning pace the Rockets have set is that there’s plenty room for the team to improve. Houston’s sitting at 25th overall in field goal percentage, 27th in three-point percentage, and is still claiming the ninth overall offensive ranking in the league. Their starters have all been shooting well below their career bests, and yet, nothing about the Rockets’ wins have looked harried.
For a team that has an average of just four years NBA experience between them, there’s a wealth of patience. When the Rockets have been pressed this season, or teams like the Pacers and Bulls have tried to rush them with pace, they fall back on snapping passes and sinking into ball movement. There are still sequences of ISO ball and flubbed defensive rotations, but Houston has leaned into their transitions as opportunities to reset. No doubt in part to having the always unflappable Fred VanVleet driving this thing, plus the veteran offensive ballasts of Jeff Green and Dillon Brooks.
If the Rockets really did reject an offer from Milwaukee to trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo, well it wasn’t a mistake. What we’ve seen throughout the early sample size of this season is that superstars aren’t sure things. Whether their because of health, fit, chemistry or perhaps individualized perspective, the league’s stars have only grown more mercurial, the effects of which have swamped their respective teams.
Houston is working with a core of seven athletes all on roughly the same developmental and career trajectory. Alperen Sengun and Jalen Green both signed contract extensions prior to this season starting, Jabari Smith Jr. and Tari Eason will be in a position to do the same this offseason. Amen Thompson, who Brian Windhorst reported as being “untouchable” in trade talks, looks blisteringly confident, and Reed Sheppard, coming off the bench, is finding his feet.
It’s a rare and valuable thing in the NBA to have such a deep roster of already skilled athletes primed to only improve, all on the same wavelength, and in virtually the same career years as far as the financial outlook for Houston. The Rockets were, for a very long time, hobbled by placating a superstar who wound up costing them not just millions, but years of developmental opportunity. This Rockets team — ambitious, young, just enough to prove — is the antithesis of that.