After finishing the season with a 45-37 record last year, the Houston Rockets took the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder to a Game 6 in the first round of the playoffs before beginning their offseason.Houston’s offseason has kicked off with a bang, as they reeled in the biggest fish in the free agency market, Dwight Howard. Howard, arguably the league’s best center when healthy, will join a Rockets team led by superstar James Harden and a cast of very solid role players that had one of the leagues most explosive offenses last season, averaging 106 points per game.
So now that Rockets have a legitimate 1-2 superstar punch in Harden and Howard, are they poised to take the next step and become serious NBA Title contenders?
I’m not so sure just yet.
Let's take a look.
Offense
The Rockets were one of the best offensive teams in the NBA last season, and that was partly due to the fact that they played such an up-tempo style of basketball.Houston was constantly pushing the ball up the court after makes and misses, and often took shots with more than 10 seconds remaining on the shot clock. Something the Rockets rarely did was run post-up plays for their big men.
The Rockets’ starting center last season, Omer Asik, averaged 10 points per game last year, but only 3.7 points per game on post-up players, which ranked dead-last in the NBA for starting centers.
Now, no one is going to say that Dwight Howard has a tremendous arsenal of post moves, but he has become good at finding ways to score when he catches the ball on the block. Houston is going to have to change the way they play to accommodate to Dwight. He is going to want post touches, which is going to force the Rockets to slow down.
Can the Rockets be as efficient and effective playing a slower style of basketball?
Depth
The Rockets had to trade and release a couple of role players to clear up enough salary cap room to sign Dwight Howard.On top of that, Omer Asik has formally asked for a trade and is making it clear that he does not want to be Howard’s backup. It has also been reported that the Rockets are looking to trade their starting point guard, Jeremy Lin.
For a team that already had limited depth, potentially losing two more key pieces could be crucial. The Rockets backup point guard right now Patrick Beverley, and although he is a decent player, he is not ready to run a NBA team yet.
Howard has been known to get in foul trouble, and if Asik is gone, the Rockets don’t really have a backup center. According to reports, Houston loves Donatas Motiejunas, their first-round pick in 2011, but he has virtually no NBA experience at this point in his career so who knows what to really expect.
The Rockets could have one of the shortest benches in the NBA next season.
Coaching
Anyone that says coaching doesn’t matter in the NBA clearly doesn’t know much about the game of basketball.Kevin McHale is one of the best big men to ever play the game of basketball, but the jury is still out on him as a coach. McHale’s career coaching record is 118-124, and he has only led his team to the playoffs once.
You have to think that McHale can help Dwight Howard improve his back-to-the-basket game, but will he be able to find the right style of play to bring out the Rockets’ full potential?
For the first time in his coaching career, McHale’s team will have serious expectations heading into the season. It’ll be interesting to see how he handles these expectations.
Conclusion
I’m not saying the Rockets won’t be good next season. All I’m saying is don’t jump on the Rockets bandwagon too quickly.Houston will be a good team next year that will win a lot of games in the regular season. I’m just not sold on them being a legitimate NBA title-contender just yet.
[tps_footer][Mike Lucas Sports][/tps_footer]
