Maybe top 5 bad Rockets moment was Westbrick rocking the baby down 25 late in an elimination game. Just awful. Up there with Finley’s foot on the line, Stockton’s 3, 0-27 (or whatever it was)
Nah man as someone who was a fan during the Chuckwagon era I can tell you those years post Yao and pre Harden were the worst. The team had a "small 4" of Aaron Brooks, old Luis Scola, old Shane Battier and Chuck Hayes. Yeah they'd beat garbage teams in the East and make the playoffs but then they'd be lucky to win 1 game in the first round. Those teams were really bad, theres no point beating up bad teams like the Bobcats if I wanted meaningless wins I'll just watch GLeague games. The team was "competing" but had no direction, no plan and no strategy to get back to contention. It took 5 yrs of asset collection and a fluke chance to get James Harden to get out of that rut. Thats why I find it funny to see lots of fans crying in yr 1 of rebuild lol y'all have no perspective.
I get the initial reaction, but if this rebuild is done in a year then Tillman did the right thing... 2 or 3 building blocks and max cap space is better than where we were... try doing this without Harden's trade value.. Missed out 2 or 3 more contending years doesn't mean we missed a championship..
Francis / Mobley/ Taylor years were worse... you could tell they were committing to the wrong guys...
It was more like 3 years. I consider that Lakers series in 09 as the end of the Yao era. Those technically good Rockets teams that never made the playoffs between that Lakers series and getting Harden were a struggle for me to watch because there was no direction. I'd play with the espn trade thing trying to see how the rockets could trade for thad young and jrue holiday, etc. On the flip side I use to yam folks o. 2k with those Rockets teams. Theyd all pick the thunder, heat, lakers, or the sleeper warriors. And I'd own them with Lowry, C Lee, and Budinger raining 3s lol
As someone who can barely watch any livegames and is limited to 10 minute highlights and box scores - this is the most fun regular season in a long time. Last season sucked. Before that, in the Harden years, we knew we were good. It was interesting to see, how good the team was and yeah, winning is fun - but overall I never felt very invested in the regular season. The real season started with the playoffs. Now this year we had at least 3 young rookies where it was fascinating to watch, how they develope. Add to that the KPJ experiment at PG, Tate as a second year player and even Wood (though that was more frustrating…). And the race to worst was actually kinda engaging as well. Now I dont want this to become the norm. I would like for us to build around our young core and not be afraid of winning (by adding veterans) pretty soon - either next season or the season after that. But overall, this was a great season for me.
I mean Yao Ming was pretty much owning everyone in 2K cuz of his height lol. Yeah its crazy people saying these 2 years were the worst I mean sure the Rox lost a lot of game but they were very watchable cuz we have exciting players on the court and this team were capable of upsets sometimes like when they beat Memphis Grizzlies. I'd rather watch Green, KPJ Sengun and Wood lose games than watch old Shane Battier and Chuck Hayes win games vs garbage teams.
For sure but Im talking about post 2010 after Yao retired and the Rockets had no stars on 2k. Many rage quits against me lol. I agree these last couple years don't feel like the worst because there's hope in a few young players the rockets have right now. No matter how hard we hoped, C Lee and Budinger and Kmart werent leading us anywhere. I do wonder what Harden and Lowry on the same team would have been like
I actually enjoyed this year alot. I knew we weren't going to win games and was ok with it (for now).
The 3 straight 9th seeds were waaaay worse. We sucked and had no future at the same time. If it wasn't for the memes that woulda been a very dark time.
The 4th pick from last draft was Josh Christopher. As to the OP's question, the worst span in Rockets history was the Kevin Martin years. I was praying for two years like these last two that entire time. There was nothing more disheartening than watching your mediocre team fight for the final spot in the playoffs only to get swept in the 1st round and having to draft 14th for like 4 years in a row. I was so mad at Les Alexander for not allowing Morey to rebuild.
I'm not sure how we stack up to other franchises but since Hakeem came in 1984 we've probably had like 4 losing seasons before 2020. 26 years of winning basketball doesnt suck, even if there were some boring years and only 2 titles. Francis / Mobley ISOball drove up my beer purchases at Compaq Center, I'll give them that.
This is the worst 2 years in Rockets history. The weird thing is that when we drafted Ralph and Rodney after only winning 15, we immediately jumped to 29 wins (which was also last and took some tanking at the end as well) to get Hakeem - then it was 50 wins and off. That is how quickly you can turn stuff around....2 GOOD drafts and off you go.... DD
Yes, the year before we drafted Ralph Sampson. I think it was 81'. We just traded Moses Malone to Philly, I was SICK. Rarely if ever does the team with the worst record win the lottery, hence the year the Rockets won it to pick Yao. This is why I hate it when fans cheer for the Rockets to lose.....IF IT'S FOR, IT'S FOR YOU
I'll give you the two worst seasons in a row: 2010 (42 wins) and 2011 (43 wins). All ended without playoffs and #14 pick (Patterson and Morris) 2012 may have been included with 34 wins in 66 games played and drafted Royce White, but we traded our pick Lamb as part of a package for Harden. When your team sucks so much that you can't win enough games to be in the playoffs but can't improve your roster through the draft you have to get lucky in a trade (and Harden was it)
