The Houston Rockets had made the playoffs pretty consistently in their history.Of course it helps that in the NBA more teams make it than not. However the Rockets longest playoff drought since moving to Houston has been 4 season which occurred in the post hakeem/ steve francis era (99-03). There was a 5 year drought near the inception of the franchise, but only three years if you only count the Houston years. Our current playoff drought is the 2nd/3rd longest in the history of the franchise which speaks to how good the franchise has been.
Get ready, if the Howard deal is even half true, it will probably be the biggest drought in franchise history.
99-03: being bad, Rockets were rewarded Francis and Yao.....that drought was nothing compared with this one.
Rockets traded for Francis. Later his headaches were the only reason we were bad enough to luck out on Yao - couldn't win without him on the floor.