This year, a familiar rallying call for Houston fans has been the Rockets’ record against the lower-rung teams of this league, the poverty class that the team has routinely and methodically pounded into the dirt with Houston’s option-rich, even if none are particularly dependable, offense. The point is not one that’s entirely invalid as the Rockets have established some level of dominance with their 15-7 record against teams under the .500 mark (as of the time of this writing), better than a contender like Dallas (13-7) but not nearly enough of a boon to call it one of the team’s absolute strengths. Instead, as has been the case often for these Rockets, Houston has had to be satisfied with that bit of mediocrity, that shrug of a victory. The 2010-11 season has been such a season for these Rockets, one of humbling and contemplating when so much more was expected (as Jason Friedman told Rahat the other day, “a quiet confidence” could be felt with the team prior to the start of this campaign, though I’d hate to be with the team that didn’t have that even in the preseason).
Most sad has been the Rockets’ absence of hope, that shining light that could, probably won’t but could at least try, to save it all, to return the team to the prominence it had not too long ago. In the Rockets’ own desperate search for a future, almost every game against the non-contenders that the Rockets so happily feast upon has been a glimpse through the looking glass, a peer over at a team that may not be winning now but could have a lot more than win-loss records against sub-.500 teams to talk about in a few years.
That’s what I saw last night against Minnesota. That team could not look more like a collection of knuckleheads unless their jerseys read “Kings” across the front; if readers remember the talk this preseason, the Wolves were supposed to be historically bad while the Rockets seemed destined to thrive. The Rockets’ problem has been their personal lack of luck in the area of “supposed to”; year after year, the odds have been in Houston’s favor only to find the Rockets beaten on the river card, doing it the right way without getting much right along the way. Remember the indelible image that Michael Lewis left the readers with at the end of his brilliant, oft-mentioned piece on Shane Battier in The New York Times Magazine? The one of the brilliant guy outmatched by some freak talent, rising above to get off the impossible jumper, leaving the intellectual shrugging his shoulders? That’s been Houston, for a few years now.
Here Rockets fans are, at the scary part: could the Rockets’ penchant for making the right move, the smart one, the one based on logic and due diligence… could that actually be a bad thing? Look at the wild card/raving lunatic running the show in Minnesota. David Kahn’s semi-apparent plan has come into place, and while it still represents more than a mashed-up ball of pretty objects, Kahn has stumbled onto a team here. One with a future superstar (Kevin Love), a guy who can produce buckets at will (Mike Beasley), a very serviceable and relatively cheap big man (Darko Milicic… can’t believe I typed that), a young big with a cadre of offensive skills (Anthony Tolliver), a “veteran” scorer off the bench (Martell Webster), an extremely young high draft pick of a point guard (Jonny Flynn), the number four draft pick of this season (Wesley Johnson) and the rights to one of the most coveted foreign basketball players in the world (Ricky Rubio). Maybe readers didn’t need a rundown on the Minnesota Timberwolves roster, but for Chrissakes, that team looks like one that will have endless options in the future if run properly (CAVEAT! CAVEAT!). Where Daryl Morey made sure not to pick up clunkers, Kahn shot darts at the right parts of the wall and got himself a bounty. And somehow, this risk evaluation has hurt Houston; the Rockets’ very strength, its intelligence, has failed the team by leaving it with a roster of solid but potential-less “character guys”. The jerks win again; noise and mayhem reign while reason finds itself beaten senseless on the streets.
Alas, all hope for Houston is not lost. Morey is not just the stats guy or the man with the magic formula; he understands that risks need to be taken for significant improvement to take place in this league, and when a team can only honestly brag about its record against the bums of the NBA, it does need significant improvement, even if its point differential makes it seem like a sleeper pick. Because right now, Houston is a sleeper pick, and that’s exactly what it will be until it gives the NBA a reason to do anything besides sleep on the Rockets. The Rockets may be a team full of strong finishers and the smart pick to take the eight seed, but then why is Minnesota relevant and Houston not? Because no one cares about eight seeds; this league only cares about two things: what reigns now and what will take over soon enough. The Rockets aren’t on either of those lists, and that’s a damned bad position in which to be stuck. May I suggest some high quality darts, Mr. Morey?
