The Houston Rockets are the NBA's most frustrating team this millennium
"Bad basketball."
"They don't give a crap."
"Zero effort."
These are all phrases pertaining to the Houston Rockets you've likely heard at one point during this 2015-2016 NBA campaign.
The million dollar question, as it's been ever since Daryl Morey and his legion of statistical-driven basketball apprentices took the basketball operation reins of the franchise, is: What are the Houston Rockets?
Literally: they are a team which snuck into the playoffs with a 41-41 regular season record. One that would be down 3-0 in their opening round playoff series against Golden State if not for an absent Steph Curry Thursday night.
Figuratively: they are a dysfunctional collection of underachieving All-Stars who play basketball with the same enthusiasm you exert when you roll over in bed to hit the snooze button on Monday morning.
But what's the big deal? We've seen super-hyped talented rosters in pretty much every pro sport look like they wanted nothing more than to be on a different team while playing; for example: the 2003 Oakland Raiders, 2003-04/2012-13 Los Angeles Lakers, 2015 Washington Nationals. Just throw the 2015-16 Rockets into this bucket too, right?
No, I can't do it ... not yet. There is something unique about this year's Houston team that slithers under the skin and makes them stand alone from that collection.
It starts at the top with Daryl Morey, the franchise's general manager. The moment he was promoted to the position, the NBA analytics cult hero instituted a philosophy of "Threes and Dunks only" -- essentially: "we want our players to shoot anything that is not a long two-pointer." While there is enough statistical evidence to support a positive outcome of this hypothesis, Morey's refusal to acknowledge his ideology's deficiencies, liabilities, and shortcomings has been the the spearhead of the Rockets' decline.
What exactly are these 'liabilities' I speak of?
1) His refusal to (publicly) acknowledge and/or expose James Harden's lack of effort on defense.
dont mess w/narrative, your focus should be on 1 possession in gm, not Harden 40/5/14 &1 of only 7 wins @TOR this yr https://t.co/cfypizmfbG
— Daryl Morey (@dmorey) March 7, 2016
Listen, Daryl, we all know Harden is a tremendous offensive basketball player. He won the NBA Players Association MVP last season, finished second in the league-given award voted on by the media, and is a bona fide all-star for a reason. However, his offensive prowess does not give him (nor anyone) the right to be a completely careless, abstaining, "whatever" on the other side of the ball.
We'll likely never know how James' lack of commitment to expend energy on defense truly effects his teammates, but, until we do: I think we can all agree that it has to create a sentiment amongst his colleagues similar to when the boss' spoiled son who plays Minesweeper all day gets the promotion over a deserving candidate. The point here is: Harden's lack of leadership is a problem and will always be a problem until someone in the front office recognizes that it is a problem.
2) The rapid deterioration of Dwight Howard.
Dwight Howard was the prize acquisition of the Rockets in the summer of 2013, and the franchise was rightfully excited by it. Since donning the red & white Howard has been plagued by the chronic knee, ankle, and back issues that surfaced towards the end of his tenure in both Orlando and Los Angeles.
Even when "healthy," Howard is a shadow of his old self -- evident by his steady double-double average accompanied by a Player Efficiency Rating (PER) declining from 21.3 to 19.2 to 18.9 during his three Rockets campaigns. Furthermore: Howard has reportedly been completely "frozen out" from the Rockets offense by his teammates, seeing his points per game drop from 18.3 to 15.8 to 13.7 and his usage from 24.0 to 23.3 to a staggering 18.4%, the lowest since his rookie season.
Simply put: any time Dwight Howard has a productive night, it feels soulless.
Let's give Morey the benefit of the doubt here and say he has no control over who head coach J.B. Bickerstaff puts on the floor and the rotations he plays. What Daryl does have control over is the ability to change personnel within the rules of the NBA's collective bargaining agreement, of which he has been brutally inconsistent.
On The Vertical's trade deadline show this February, Morey elaborated re: his reasoning behind not trading either of his two best players who reportedly tried to have each other traded
Ok, that's understandable -- so, Daryl must have a plan to either keep Dwight Howard around or get some sort of value back for him in the event he declines his player option this Summer and walks to another team?
From the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, as relayed by Sports Illustrated's Matt Dollinger:
This doesn't sound like a notoriously stubborn front office executive who will likely take his basketball principles to his grave, does it?
And this, my friends, is exactly why the Rockets are so torturous -- with every up, there are two downs.
Whether it's Morey's awkward public persona...
A star center whose attitude sometimes makes you wonder if he's even paying attention to the game...
Or at least aware of how his actions are perceived, like the time he got caught using illegal stickum on his hands and failed to acknowledge the implications:
No, it is like being a gynecologist, you don't get sick of it RT @chriswk14 does having a job in bball make you sick of watching it?
— Daryl Morey (@dmorey) January 14, 2015
...I don't hate the Houston Rockets ... I don't hate that they are a disappointment ... however, I do hate the way and why they fail.
I'm not going to say "The Rockets don't care" because that's not fair to Corey Brewer, Patrick Beverley, Clint Capela, and at least a handful of other Rockets players who bust their ass night-in-and-night-out and are visibly frustrated with the stars' ambiguity.
If the Los Angeles Clippers are the villain kings of the NBA, Houston is without a doubt the court jesters who can't juggle -- an unavoidable act that makes you cover your eyes with your hands, but, you can't help yourself from looking through the space between your fingers whenever it's in front of you.
The flashes of Harden's scoring brilliance and Howard's intimidating defense suck us in. I'll be the first to admit it, even I've said: "Ok the Rockets finally figured it out -- they're back!" more times than any neutral fan should; but, when Harden hits a game-winning shot in a home playoff game against the best regular season NBA squad ever, and this is his team's reaction:
...we are once again reminded of the Rockets' true colors: red, white, yellow, and a splash of frustration.
