Houston, We Have A Problem
The Houston Rockets have consistently been a playoff team, but they have never been able to break through and win a title. Now with Harden and Westbrook entering the 2020 NBA Season, the Rockets had a promising season ahead. But that season ended in disaster and now they’ve lost their coach and GM with no real future ahead. So, what can the Rockets do?
The Rockets have given up a lot for their current team. With Chris Paul they were one game away from the Finals in 2018, but an unfortunate injury held them back. And in 2019 a Durant-less Warriors teams beat them in 6 games. So they decided to trade Chris Paul, who was apparently washed. They gave up their remaining first round picks and Paul to OKC for Russell Westbrook.
And while the duo of Harden and Westbrook was great on paper, it was clear that they wouldn’t succeed, certainly not win a title in the highly-competitive Western Conference. And this was true. The Rockets tried to make the duo work by getting rid of Clint Capela, switching to a small-ball lineup. While this was certainly better than what they were rolling out prior, it wasn’t enough to hide the flaws of Russell Westbrook on the team. The small-ball lineup needed shooting, and Westbrook was counter-productive. Westbrook was pretty useless against the Lakers in the playoffs.
So now the Rockets are screwed, and there is no way out. The Rockets have already said that they want to keep going with their small ball lineup, but their roster isn’t good enough for them to keep using it. And they really can’t get much for the roster that they have. They don’t have any first round picks and they likely won’t have any for a while because of all the trades they make to improve their team.
I don’t think that they can find a good trade for Westbrook. It’s not like he’s untradeable, it’s just they likely won’t find a good deal that will really help this team. I don’t think trading James Harden is smart as he has never really been the problem for the Rockets. Eric Gordon is making a lot of money, and his production has been going doing year-by-year as he is injury-prone. They don’t have much bench depth and they are kind of stuck with what they’ve got for the time being.
Along with D’Antoni being gone, they don’t have GM Daryl Morey, a guy who was always willing to make a move to make his teams better. The Rockets will have the same team going into next season, just with a new head coach and minor changes to the roster.
So the Rockets have kind of screwed themselves, and there is nothing that they can do about it. They tried to go all in and win, and that didn’t work. They traded for another superstar, and that won’t work. They are out of picks, have a lot of bad contracts, and are generally in one of the worst places you can be in basketball. They have no real hopes of contention while having no young talent to build on for the future at the same time.
The Rockets will just have to deal with what they have for a few more years, and then they can get into a new era of Rockets basketball, maybe one where they can win a title. But for the time being, this team won’t be winning any titles.
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