Last year, the Rockets finished the regular season 41-41, snuck into the playoffs as the eighth seed ahead of the Jazz, and got smoked in the first round by the Warriors. Not exactly what was expected from a team that had finished the previous season 56-26 with legitimate MVP candidate James Harden leading them to the Conference Finals.
After standing pat last offseason expecting the Rockets to maintain momentum, this offseason Daryl Morey came into free agency and the draft expecting to make wholesale changes to the roster. It all begins with the hiring of innovative offensive guru Mike D’Antoni as head coach. Word had been circulating around the league last season that D’Antoni had been looking for an opportunity to coach again after finishing last season as an assistant for the 10-win 76ers on Jerry Colangelo’s urging.
The expectation is clear from Morey, D’Antoni is in Houston to bring the best out of a refurbished roster on the offensive end focusing on pace and space. The simplest breakdown of Morey’s analytical approach to basketball is the philosophy that the best shots in basketball are open three-pointers and layups or dunks. D’Antoni will provide a gameplan that exploits opposing defensive breakdowns and capitalizes on open treys, pick and rolls, and backdoor layup opportunities. Expect new wrinkles to the offense he ran in Phoenix and New York as he builds an offense around scoring machine James Harden.
Roster: James Harden, Trevor Ariza, Clint Capela, Sam Dekker, Patrick Beverley, Corey Brewer, KJ McDaniels, Montrezl Harrell, Michael Beasley, Ryan Anderson, Eric Gordon, Nene, Chinanu Onuaku
What immediately stands out about the roster Morey pieced together this offseason is that there is an overload of small forwards and stretch fours on the roster. All ball-handling will be left to Harden, Beverley and Gordon. That leaves a lot of pressure on D’Antoni to piece together offensive plays that don’t break down when Harden is on the bench. His options are to either play Harden 40+ minutes a game, stack Harden’s minutes with Beverley’s, or essentially have Gordon run the whole offense for large chunks of time. Each alternative has significant drawbacks. Wearing out Harden in the regular season only to have him lacking energy in the playoffs is risky. Expecting Beverley to do much other than dribble the ball up halfcourt would require him to significantly expand his offensive skill set aside from learning the new offensive schemes. As for Eric Gordon, who is more than capable of being a combo guard off the bench, but injury seems to inevitably wreak havoc on most of his seasons. Finding the right guard rotation to execute the offense will be one of D’Antoni’s most significant projects going into the season.
New additions Ryan Anderson and Gordon have obvious roles within the offense as floor-spacers along with Ariza. Nene is a nice compliment to Harden in the pick and roll. D’Antoni is expected to incorporate Capela rolling to the rim and will hope Clint expanded his game this summer. Sam Dekker looked much improved this summer and will need to stay healthy and show that he can be successful in meaningful NBA games. However, aside from improved perimeter shooting most of the pressure to dictate the D’Antoni office will rest on Harden’s broad shoulders. The Rockets have several gifted athletes that can be versatile defenders, whether its Beverley and Ariza hounding opposing starters on the perimeter, or Capela getting weakside blocks in the paint. However, D’Antoni has never put a premium on consistent defensive effort from his players, and when Harden only plays one end of the floor it can be expected that the Rockets team defense will be extremely leaky.
A team that was 21st in defensive rating with Dwight Howard will most likely end up 25th or lower this season. The offense may take a short adjustment period, but with a guru like D’Antoni at the helm expect last year’s seventh-best offense to maintain or improve it’s efficiency along with its pace this season. The expectation for the Rockets is to be top-five in pace, points per game, and offensive rating. The only problem is whether the improved offense will offset the diminished defense. D’Antoni has never seemed to be able to solve this problem in the past, and the expectation should be to see more of the same. There will be nights where Harden scores 50, there will be nights where the Rockets score 120 and give up 125, and all in all they could end up with between 45 and 50 wins, play an entertaining brand of basketball and still disappoint with a first or second round exit in the playoffs. That leaves one very important question: will Daryl Morey still be the GM of the Rockets nine months from now?
Around the League
In other Western Conference news, expect the Jazz to exact some minuscule amount of revenge on the Rockets for just missing out on the playoffs last year by surpassing the Rockets by five or more wins this season. In the Southwest division, the Spurs will still be the head of class and the Rockets will be in the mix with the Mavericks and Grizzlies (where Chandler Parsons will now have played a role in all three cities). The Pelicans will be improved as they couldn’t be any worse than last season, but Anthony Davis will be disappointed to finish last in the division yet again.
The Warriors and Clippers will continue to dominate the Pacific with Devin Booker providing an enjoyable Suns team with a few extra wins. Meanwhile, the Lakers and Kings continue to be the laughing stock of the entire league. The Northwest will be the most dramatic of regular season races as the Thunder, Blazers, and Jazz all have legitimate shots of finishing on top, plus there’s the question of how good the collection of young Wolves studs will be right away. Expect the Thunder to see Westbrook put up multiple triple-doubles coupled with continued improvement from their bigs.
The Jazz will finally make the leap everyone expected from them last year. But it will be the Blazers that surprise yet again and finish on top of the division with Lillard leading an improved roster as Paul Allen opened up his pocket book this summer to capitalize on their luck in the playoffs.
Predicted Western Conference Standings
- Warriors 70-12
- Clippers 61-21
- Spurs 60-22
- Blazers 55-27
- Thunder 52-30
- Mavericks 50-32
- Jazz 48-34
- Grizzlies 44-38
- Timberwolves 43-39
- Rockets 41-41
- Pelicans 40-42
- Suns 38-44
- Nuggets 35-47
- Lakers 27-55
- Kings 25-57
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