Most of you all now would agree that, aside from the hope of a first-round upset to help serve in making Houston seem a somewhat palatable destination for Kevin Durant, this season, for all intents and purposes, is over. The micro-level discussions from last year regarding strategy and opponents have given way to the macro debates of seasons past over team building. Discussions which we thought we had left safely in the rearview mirror.
With the Warriors’ historic levels of success, and the Spurs nipping at their heels as the presumed runner-up, the ingrained assumption has become that only an imitation of their styles could hope to pose a challenge. In essence, unless you play small and share the ball, you don’t have a chance.
The reality of such conventional wisdom is problematic for a team like Houston who features a traditional, relatively unskilled big man, and more importantly, a 90’s era ball dominant superstar whose value is diminished when operating without the ball. Does this mean James Harden must adjust? Does this mean a James Harden-led team cannot win?
I’ve been thinking lately that maybe we’re thinking about the issue in the wrong way. Houston last season was eliminated by the Warriors in a West Finals series that was actually much closer than the final results would indicate, and they did that underhanded. But what if Klay Thompson or Draymond Green had turned an ankle and missed the duration of that series? Maybe the Rockets then go on to win, getting to the Finals. Wouldn’t that result necessarily alter our blueprints for success? After all, had the Cavaliers held on and won the Finals, it would have just been an affirmation of how titles have been won for the last thirty years.
Ideally, you could build a team with five high IQ, sweet-shooting, rangy athletes. But as that’s obviously easier said than done, is attempting to imitate the almost inimitable preferable to just being “good enough”? We talked on a recent podcast about much of the Spurs’ success being attributable to just hanging around over the long term and commitment to continuity. Now there are obviously more differences than parallels between the Spurs and this Rockets team, and the 2016 Rockets specifically aren’t a great example for this point. But this year is probably an anomaly. The Rockets’ accumulated record indicates that with James Harden as your best player, you’re going to have at the least, a pretty good team. That, as a starting point, should not summarily be dismissed.
This discussion leads to another point. Kevin Love, despite altered public perception, is still a very good player in this league, and probably can be had at a cost reduced from his real value. The conventional wisdom today would lend towards the belief to avoid him like the plague because of his unplayability against the Warriors. (Let’s set aside the discussion whether he’s actually as bad defensively as the eye test suggests). But Love would help you win games and he’d make you a really good team, if you can build the right system. Maybe you just build the best team you can independent of external factors? Is that setting the bar too low? Maybe it is, but how can blowing it up and heading back to the doldrums be preferable?
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