As I begrudgingly watched the NBA Playoffs after the Houston Rockets embarrassing effort against the Los Angeles Lakers, it became more and more clear to me that the words 0f the former football coaching legend Bill Parcels were spot on. He once famously said, “You are what you record says you are.”
While the Rockets won 52 games for the second consecutive season, that record was only good enough to put them in the fifth seed in the Western Conference. No one would argue honestly that they were contenders
after watching their Round 1 exit. This became clearer after watching both the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks in the Finals.
It’s not as much a talent discrepancy as it is a skillset and structure discrepancy… The Spurs have a plethora of guards, the Knicks gave multiple guards, the Rockets have three guards. Reed Sheppard, Aaron Holiday, and Fred VanVleet. Of those three players, none of them are top tier at creating their own shot, and none of them is taller than 6-feet 2-inches. Of the three, I guess we can call Reed Sheppard the most consistent shooter, but it would be hard to label any of them as consistent.
When it comes to the offensive structure of the teams in the Finals, I watched two teams that were not perfect by any means, but teams that moved the basketball, had players moving without the ball, and with the exception of the Knicks occasionally allowing Capt. Clutch put on his cape in critical moments in the games, there wasn’t a lot of standing around and watching iso ball. If you watched the Rockets this season, then you know there were times that it looked like the Rockets don’t even practice offense. This was especially the case when Kevin Durant was out with injury in the playoffs.
Rockets fans have to ask themselves if at the age of 32 and coming off of a torn ACL is the 6-foot Fred VanVleet going to be enough to transform this team into a high-powered offense? While there is no doubt he will add more structure to the offense, the real issue is he can only contribute to the structure of the offense to the extent that a structure has been put in place by the head coach, and this leads me to what I believe is the biggest shortcoming the Rockets have in comparison to the teams we saw not just in the Finals, but even in the semi-finals.
I watched the New York Knicks fall down double digits in every game of the NBA finals, and I watched Mike Brown and his staff be able to find adjustments that worked. Yes, the Knicks, Spurs, Thunder, and Cavs all had game-plans and looked as if they actually practiced said game-plans ahead of time, but they also were able to deviate from the plan when it wasn’t working, Additionally, when Mike Brown realized that against conventional thought, Jose Alvarado and Jalen Brunson were actually working well on the floor together, he stuck with it and the Knicks made one of the greatest comebacks in NBA history because of it.
Are any of us convinced that Ime Udoka would have sacrificed the defense of one of his main rotation pieces, regardless of how atrocious they were playing offensively, in return for a guy who got hot off the bench? No, in the Rockets scenario their “Jose Alvarado” would be Reed Sheppard, and the role of Josh Hart would be Tari Eason. We were getting Tari Eason no matter how poorly he was playing and no matter how well Sheppard was playing, nearly the entire season.
In Udoka’s defense, that’s probably the right move in most situations when everything is going as planned, but sometimes things don’t go as planned. Sometimes the Spurs decide they are going to put Wembanyama on Amen Thompson to try and bother him with his length, and instead of having him stand on the perimeter while watching Durant or Sengun go iso on someone, or having Amen go iso against a 7-ft 4-inch extra-terrestrial, you have him set some screens and roll to the basket, or free up Sengun, or Sheppard, or KD with those screens for better looks at the basket? I don’t really know because I’m not the coach of an NBA team, but I do know you don’t keep slamming your head into the wall and wonder why you’re concussed.
One of the most telling things about the Rockets organization, as currently constructed, I observed at a game I saw in person this past season. March 5th versus the Golden State Warriors. My wife and I were invited to watch the game from a suite, which is now my absolute favorite way to watch at Toyota Center now. If you know, you know, but I digress. We both felt really good about the Rockets chances going into the game relatively healthy against a Warriors team that featured no Steph, no Jimmy Buckets, no Porzingis, no GP3, and no Moses Moody. That confidence was massively displaced. The Rockets lost in overtime 115-113, but the score did not indicate how troubling the loss was.
What stood out to me immediately was that the Golden State Warriors play the exact same way regardless of who is on the court. The result is not always the same, but they play the exact same way when Brandon Podziemski or DeAnthony Melton are running the point-guard position as they do when Steph Curry is there. Ball movement, off-ball screens, player movement, running players off multiple screens, penetration into the paint and kick-out to shooters… It looks the exact same because it’s a system. The Rockets defense chased them around all game long and were behind most of the game. The difference in the game? Stop me if you have heard it… Lack of execution down the stretch in crucial moments. One might ask is it lack of execution, or was it lack of a system to execute?
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I want to be very clear. Not all hope is lost for the Rockets, but they have a lot of work to do. For staters, building the roster in a way that allows you to not have to reinvent the wheel whenever a player is out. Having a system that becomes second nature to those in it so that players are playing and not thinking. Coaching that isn’t too stubborn to admit something isn’t working and make a change to what is working on that particular night. Once the Rockets have that then they can focus on gaining the mental toughness required to go through the gauntlet of the Western Conference to even have the chance at an NBA title. Even then, that will only make you a contender, it doesn’t guarantee that they will win it all with the likes of OKC and San Antonio still here and steadily rising. It would however mean that the Rockets would be close, which they are far from at this time.
