FanPost

Way To Early Assessment of the Rockets

What the hell did I just watch? That's what I asked myself after watching Houston win the third highest scoring game in regulation in NBA history. Harden has 59, Westbrook a triple double, and other guys stepped up. The Rockets, however, were fairly lucky to beat the Wizards on a game winning free throw by no other than Harden himself.

The first thing I can tell after 4 games is Houston still needs another piece. The Rockets defense hasn't been good, even though the numbers are inflated because of pace. In a league driven by 3 and D wings you see the difference they make. The Warriors sans KD/Klay/Iggy/Livingston have looked awful defensively. While the Rockets haven't looked like that they still need more. PJ is 34, House is inexperienced, and Thabo along with everyone else buried behind him aren't producing. While it's early this will need to be addressed. So, who are the options?

Igoudala is still in NBA purgatory and is still looking for a way out. He will certainly be the hottest commodity for contenders looking to make one more splash. With the exigency for wing defenders and the lack of available options, Houston may need to pull the plug. Former Cavs Smith and Shumpert are still free agents. Roberson who may want out of a rebuild when he is healthy is a stellar defender. His relationship and synergy with Westbrook certainly helps but his woeful shooting has troubled his teams in the past. No one values perimeter shooting more than Houston so it would be an odd fit to say the least.

Then there is a question about the options behind Capela. This wouldn't matter as much but with the Lakers looming as a potential matchup the Rockets need to find a way to get productive bigs. Chandler and Nene are past their primes and then some, Hartenstein isn't ready, and Ryan Anderson shouldn't even sniff the rotation. This is a hard problem to solve because of the lack of productive bigs in today's league. The buyout market, trades, or bringing back Faried is what they are limited to.

The one encouraging sign is that Houston is lighting up scoreboards without shooting the deep ball too well. While Tucker and House may not continue their scorching hot shooting. We should expect Harden and Gordon to shoot better than the under 30% marks they are currently shooting at. Slumps are nothing new in Houston especially with the volume of shots they take and trying to integrate Westbrook by adjusting to his pace. When comfort raises, we can expect the shooting percentages to do the same.

The discouraging sign, only the young winless Pelicans are giving up more points a game. While pace has something to do with this, we can also look at a more telling stat. Houston has the conferences 5th worst mark for scoring differential (+0.5). So, with this increased pace other teams are also having their way with Houston. It's early so the data is inconclusive but still discouraging. My worry is the dependency on the same 6 or 7 guys to produce is leaving them lackadaisical defensively and deeper teams and even inferior competition are able to take advantage. The Rockets bench ranks 30th in minutes, 28th in points, 29th in assists, 27th in FG% and 30th in rebounds. This is not a recipe for success.

While depth becomes less of a concern in the postseason, the state in which your team gets there is not. Having a group of players who are fresh and healthy is preferable to team who wins a whole lot of games but is burned out. Coach D'Antoni gets a lot of heat for running his starters into the ground, but he has no choice with the current personnel and the production they’ve produced thus far.

Numbers never give the whole story as the Rockets would know but they help. When provided with context which watching the games give you, it's easy to recognize this Rockets team while supremely talented still needs 2 more pieces if were being honest. A frontcourt player to spell Capela preferably who can shoot, and a lengthy defensive wing. Those things almost certainly won't be found internally but Daryl has done some magic before. Rockets game are must watch but we won't get to watch long come postseason time if some important things aren't addressed.

-Naode Mehari

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