Last season, the Houston Rockets were ousted from the playoffs by the Golden State Warriors in five games but entered the offseason with the hope that an NBA championship wasn’t far from their grasp. This season, the defending champions once again ended Houston’s disappointing campaign in five games. But a different word can be used to describe Houston’s mood going into the summer: uncertainty.
Even with reigning MVP Stephen Curry sidelined for most of the first round, the Warriors exposed the Rockets as a dysfunctional team that had no business playing in the postseason. In their four wins, Golden State beat Houston by 26, 9, 27 and 33, respectively. The Game 5 series-clinching win was such a lop-sided affair that Jim Ross should have taken over commentary to plead for the NBA to stop the match. It was a microcosm of the Rockets’ 2015-16 campaign: a sloppy one-man show led by James Harden with inconsistent effort, poor chemistry and nothing closely resembling defense.
Now, general manager Daryl Morey must go back to the drawing board in an effort to rebuild a franchise that had so much promise just a season ago. He won’t have a pick in this June’s draft until the 37th selection after surrendering his first-round choice to the Denver Nuggets is a prior trade, but he’ll have plenty of cap space assuming Dwight Howard opts out of his contract as expected.
With so much to accomplish and little time to do it, here’s an itinerary of what the Rockets need to do in the offseason.
Find A New Coach
The case can be made that Houston’s season started to unravel once the club made the premature decision to fire Kevin McHale and opt for assistant J.B. Bickerstaff in mid-November. The Rockets got off to a disappointing 4-7 start under McHale, but the former Boston Celtics great led to back-to-back 50+ win seasons and a trip to the Western Conference Finals prior to this season.
The club went a ho-hum 37-34 with Bickerstaff as coach and backed into the playoffs in the final week, but the new sideline sultan didn’t do much to fix the team’s lack of chemistry or porous defense. With immense pressure to turn things around immediately, it’s fair to say JBB won’t be back as the Rockets’ head coach.
By getting a late jump on their coaching search, the Rockets missed out on some big names that were available. Former Chicago Bulls czar Tom Thibodeau opted to take over a young Minnesota Timberwolves team. The Washington Wizards hired ex-Oklahoma City Thunder coach Scott Brooks to bring change to the nation’s capital. Golden State Warriors assistant Luke Walton, arguably the hottest candidate on the market, went back to Los Angeles to restore the Lakers.
With the field getting thin, former Rockets/Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy is believed to be the favorite to return to Space City. He’s the kind of hard-nosed defensive-minded disciplinarian who could be able to restore order in a broken locker room.
However, there are other intriguing candidates still available. David Blatt helped lead a loaded Cavaliers team to the Finals last season. Lionel Hollins had a successful run with the Memphis Grizzlies before tanking with the Brooklyn Nets. UConn coach Kevin Ollie always seems to pop up when there’s a coaching vacancy while top assistants such as Ron Adams (Golden State) and Ettore Messina (San Antonio) deserve a further look.
One outside-the-box option that hasn’t been mentioned is former Rockets forward Shane Battier. Battier has no experience as a head coach or even as an assistant. However, the same could be said about former players-turned-coaches Steve Kerr and Jason Kidd, who managed to hit the ground running.
`Battier is an intelligent guy with a championship pedigree, having won a national title at Duke and two NBA titles with the Miami Heat. He was regarded as one of the game’s best perimeter defenders during his playing days and has a good relationship with Morey. He’s not a sexy pick, but he is someone the team should keep an eye on.
Find a New No. 2 Option
March 07, 2016: New Orleans Pelicans forward Ryan Anderson (33) drives to the basket during the NBA game between the Sacramento Kings and the New Orleans Pelicans at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, LA. (Photograph by Stephen Lew/Icon Sportswire)
The relationship between Howard and Harden took a bitter turn this season with reports surfacing that The Beard attempted to push out the big fella at the trade deadline. The two denied having any bad blood, but the numbers and on-court body language painted a different picture. Howard routinely pined for more touches throughout the season while Harden did the lion’s share of the ball-handling.
With Howard expected to sign elsewhere this summer, the Rockets need to find another cornerstone who can take pressure off their franchise guard. The most obvious name is soon-to-be free agent Kevin Durant, who played with Harden during their time together in OKC, but why would KD leave a championship contender to join the circus in Houston?
Assuming Houston can’t lure Durant out of Oklahoma City, some other top-tier options would be centers Al Horford and Hassan Whiteside. Horford could easily replace Howard as a two-way interior threat, but he’ll likely generate interest from teams a lot closer to winning a championship than Houston is. Whiteside emerged as a dominant defensive center in his first full season in the pros, leading the league defensive rating and blocks per game. Was he motivated by the allure of a big contract or was this a sign of things to come?
Also, if Howard struggled to wrestle touches away from Harden, what makes anyone think things would be different for Horford or Whiteside?
There are also a few interesting free agents who won’t command the big dollars that Horford, Whiteside or Durant will get. Pau Gasol is still one of the league’s best power forwards at both ends of the court, even though he turns 36 in July. Sweet-shooting big man Ryan Anderson fits Houston’s need to space the floor and could emerge stepping into a starting role after being a sixth man in New Orleans.
It’s important the Rockets add some talent in free agency because they don’t have the trade pieces to acquire a superstar like Blake Griffin, Kevin Love or Carmelo Anthony.
Improve the Defense
The Rockets thought they fixed their defensive woes last season by adding Trevor Ariza, Josh Smith and Corey Brewer to a squad that already had a three-time Defensive Player of the Year at center. The team even got encouraging defensive effort from Harden, which helped them finish sixth in defensive efficiency last season.
A year later, both Harden and the Rockets took a few euro-steps backward defensively. Smith signed with the Los Angeles Clippers during the summer but was re-acquired in January.
He eventually fell out of the rotation in favor of the score-first forward Michael Beasley. The team allowed 107.0 and 104.3 points per 100 possessions respectively with Ariza and Brewer, two of the league’s premier 3-and-D guys, on the floor. Other defensive-minded players such as Howard (105.1), Patrick Beverley (104.6) and Terrence Jones (112.1) didn’t fare much better.
With Harden both commandeering the offense and being limited defensively, it is important that the Rockets surround him with players who can make up for his shortcomings. The team has a potential defensive stalwart in big man Clint Capela, but they’ll need more than the 21-year-old Swiss Superman.
Mike Conley Jr. is a free agent point guard who can assume some of the ball-handling duties while also locking opponents down at the other end. Gasol would be a good fit, as well. He can take scoring pressure from Capela, who is limited offensively while giving the Rockets another shot-blocker down low. Small forward Nicolas Batum can play either forward spot and would boost Houston’s horrid defense.
Overall, the roster needs to be overhauled. Harden and Capela may be the only players worth keeping, and everyone else needs to earn their spot. That includes Ariza, who hasn’t lived up to the $32 million contract he signed two summers ago.
Morey built a reputation as one of the best GMs in basketball by being a forward-thinker who outsmarts his counterparts, but this offseason will test all of his capabilities.
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