How The Houston Rockets Solved The Puzzle To Title Contention

How The Houston Rockets Solved The Puzzle To Title Contention

The Houston Rockets might have just flipped the switch for years. This franchise has been in limbo, just trying to reassemble its identity after James Harden left them in the rear view. But now they’ve built something that is genuinely intriguing. And it’s not quite a young core rebuild like OKC where they’re developing players from the draft up, but instead they have a very unique mix of players that are on different journeys and stages in their careers. There’s a head coach with something to prove in his second stint after having a bit of a rough finish to his tenure in Boston. There are also two rising young stars in Amen Thompson and Alan Shangon who are jockeying for their position in the list of elite players under the age of 25 across the league. And now they have a future Hall of Famer in Kevin Durant looking for yet another shot at an NBA title after years of coming up empty. It’s messy. It’s bold, but it honestly might just work. Now, I’ll admit, and I actually do have a video on my feed talking about this. When they first made the move to bring over Kevin Durant, I was a bit skeptical about how I felt, right? But I’ve seen the moves they’ve made over the last couple of days, bringing some guys in along the margins, and right now, I do feel really confident in this team’s ability to make some serious noise in the stacked Western Conference. What I’m excited about for this team is the leap that they’re going to take on the offensive end. So, if you watched them last season, obviously their calling card was their defense and that comes as no surprise because Eay Udokulka is a defensive coach in every sense of the phrase. Remember back when he was in Boston and they made that deep playoff run and got to the NBA finals back in 2022 and actually turned their entire season around after a rough start. A lot of that was due to some historically great defense. My favorite moment of that season was an amazing first round performance they had defensively locking down both Kevin Durant and Kyrie when they were in Brooklyn. So defense is Emmy Odoka’s calling card and he brought that here to this Houston Rockets group. But with that, there were some struggles on the offensive end. And I think a lot of that was due to them kind of betting on Jaylen Green taking this massive leap offensively last season. And he showed flashes of it. And that’s been the thing with Jaylen Green is he has shown flashes of offensive greatness over the years, but consistency has always been an issue. It’s never been super efficient. And when he got to the playoffs, big issues in that first round and he only averaged 13 points per game. Right? If your best perimeter shot creator isn’t able to find consistent offense, that’s a struggle. You bring in Kevin Durant, that is as good of a replacement as you can get. And one thing that is unique about Kevin Durant, and I’ve talked about this a ton of times, is he’s always remained very consistent through his career as an offensive performer despite having a number of injuries, right? Like there are a number of injuries sprinkled throughout Kevin Durant’s career that could have slowed him down, but what he’s been able to do is maintain this offensive consistency year in and year out, right? And there may have been times where he missed an entire season, he’s still been able to return and play at a ridiculously high level. We talk a lot about LeBron’s longevity and durability through his career. Same goes for Kevin Durant. He is an extremely durable player when he’s on the court, despite whatever issue or injury he ran into, was still producing and putting up Kevin Durant like numbers. Into the specifics here for Houston, this team was just not a three-poin heavy team at all. They were near the bottom of the league in percentage of their field goal attempts that came from the three-point line. And as a result of that, they had a very small percentage of their points that came from behind the three-point line. Now, to their credit a bit, the Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder had similar numbers. They were both kind of in the 30s as far as their percentage of looks that came from downtown, but they also had ridiculous pace, and that’s something that Houston did not have, and that’s how they were able to kind of make up for that. Houston did not have the pace to make up for their lack of three-point shooting and just not a good enough all-around offensive scheme. And that’s why that was such a glaring issue for them that held them back as a whole offensively. When you bring in Kevin Durant, automatically you’re a better three-point shooting team. And that’s not just because he’s a great three-point shooter himself, but Durant can create a lot of gravity with his ability to create his own looks. Whether it’s behind the arc or whether it’s the mid-range area or him getting to the rim, he can create gravity. And one thing that’s very underrated about Durant’s game is his ability to make plays. Since his time in Oklahoma City, I think Durant’s been one of the most underrated playmaking forwards in the entire league. He’s always hovered around four to five assists per game through his career. That is something he can bring here to the table for this Rockets group. So again, you struggled from a three-point shooting standpoint, both attempts wise and from a makes standpoint and from a percentage standpoint. You get better at that by adding Durant, who can not only find his own looks, but is a really good creator for others on the offensive end. Another move that I was so excited about was them bringing in Dorian Finny Smith and getting him on a multi-year deal. One of the signature 3 and D players in all of basketball and also a really, really versatile defender. Can guard guys from the three all the way up to the five. And so what they have right now on this roster are two amazing versatile multi-positional defensive players with both Thompson and also with Dorian Finny Smith. And I’m excited to see if Reed Shepard is able to make a big impact defensively with more minutes, potentially more minutes next season. So, if you worried about this team possibly sacrificing some defensive stuff with giving up Dylan Brooks and bringing in Kevin Durant, who isn’t an amazing defender, I think you could put some of those worries to rest because I think they’re going to be just fine on that end. They still have some really good multi-positional defensive players, guys who can also guard at the point of attack. I’m excited to see what this team does from a two-way perspective this coming season. Now, here is a question, and it was the exact same question that I had a few weeks ago for this team, and it’s a question I also have right now for the Atlanta Hawks. While we’re praising these teams for making these massive additions, one thing you have to remember is some of these guys are not extremely healthy. So, for the Hawks, if you think the Hawks had the best off season, I don’t blame you. But a massive question is, is Kristoffs Porzingis going to be healthy enough for the entirety of the season? That is a question you also ask with Kevin Durant. If we believe he’s going to carry a good enough offensive load to take this team to the next level on that end, do you trust his availability as much at this point in his career? Now upside, Durant over the last few seasons has been healthy, but from a larger picture and a larger perspective, since leaving Golden State, Durant has not been the healthiest player, even with situations where he’s missing either the entire season or more than half of an entire season. So, we’ll see. So, there is that question is the health, but I definitely think they closed a ton of gaps that they had last season. And I think they’ve taken themselves to the next level on paper with the offseason additions that they made. Now, a lot of this is also going to fall on Aman Thompson’s development potentially as a shot creator out there for this Rockets team, and I’m excited to see what leap he takes. But I’m ready for Houston to finally just go from being this team that’s surprisingly good in the post James Harden era to being a real threat and a squad that can win some massive playoff series out in the stacked Western Conference.

The Houston Rockets have gotten busy on the free agency and trade market, first moving away assets for Kevin Durant and also adding Dorian Finney- Smith and a few other impact role players to the roster. With these additions, they are set to make a massive run out in the Western Conference. For me, personally? I feel COMPLETELY different about this group than I did a few weeks ago

Time Stamps:

0:00 Intro
2:36 Durant’s Unique Longevity and Consistency
3:15 Houston’s Offense Will SKYROCKET
4:50 What Dorian Finney-Smith Brings To The Table

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