Houston Rockets

Houston Rockets, a team that always had good players on their roster, some of them even becoming legends of the game. They have four total Finals appearances, while managing to win two of them, back-to-back, in 1993-94 and 1994-95, beating the Knicks in a close battle in ‘94, 4-3, then sweeping Orlando Magic one year later. We think it’s safe to say that those times represented the best ones for the franchise history. Hakeem Olajuwon, one of the best centers and one of, if not the best players in Rockets’ history, was the main reason for those two titles, averaging 27,3 PPG, 11,9 RPG, 3,6 APG, 1,6 steals-per-game and 3,7 blocks-per-game throughout the first season when they won the championship, and that stat-line is kind of impressive, given the fact that he averaged a double-double with 27,3 points and 3,7(!) blocks-per-game. As for the second season in which he won the championship, he averaged almost the same numbers. He dominated the paint on both ends of the floor for a major part of his seventeen-year career spent with the Rockets (one year he played for the Toronto Raptors). Charles Barkley is another well-known former star who played in Houston four seasons, averaging 16,5 points, 12,2 rebounds and 1,1 steals in 183 games, but didn’t manage to win it all. Moses Malone was another legendary center who played six seasons there, while winning 2 MVPs and a trip to the Finals in 1981, when the Houston Rockets lost against Boston. Clyde Drexler, Elvin Hayes, Calvin Murphy, Kenny Smith are some other names worth mentioning that helped the organization win a lot of games in that period. After Hakeem Olajuwon’s time came to and end, the team went through a rebuilding process, and with the first pick in 2002, they drafted Yao Ming. Years after this, they got another hall of famer from Orlando Magic, none other than Tracy McGrady, who was a scoring champion back then, but unfortunately for them, the duo formed of him and Yao Ming had a lot of injury problems and they didn’t manage to win too many games in the play-offs. After going through numerous changes of the roster and the coaching staff, the Rockets finally managed to get another franchise player in James Harden from Oklahoma City Thunder in 2012. Dwight Howard came after him and many of the specialists thought that they will form a deadly duo, and even if they had the potential to make some damage, they didn’t really get along and the center left the team. Despite of James Harden having some very good individual seasons, some of them MVP-worthy, they didn’t make too much noise until Chris Paul came from the Clippers in 2017 and gave them a little boost, but unfortunately for them he injured his hamstring in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals against the Golden State Warriors, when they were ahead 3-2. They ended up losing 4-3 without him.

Andrei Dilean, info@brainbasketball.net

Houston Rockets

 

 

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