Older Rockets fans how memorable has this season been?

Not an older fan but I gotta say:

It's been one of the most memorable and frustrating seasons I can remember

 

Since we have only the regular season to comment on this team. I'll compare it to the Rockets greatest regular season in franchise history. 1993-94 Rockets won 58 games. That team was FAMOUS for driving you crazy. They actually made a commercial the next season of a fan watching the game on TV with a cinder block tied around his leg. Gene Peterson is calling the game, Rockets miss the go ahead shot at the buzzer. Cinder block goes through the glass window of a high rise apartment with rope trailing as you here Gene say "BUT WAIT.... HE WAS FOULED!" They were so exciting to watch, it felt like they tried to give games away half of the time but managed to save themselves at the last second.

They were practically healthy all year. Mario Elie/ Mad Max were the fire in that team. They where an average offensive team 13/27 with 101 p/g. Defensively they were top 5 at 96.8 p/g. That team lost 4 in a row at one point in the season. Nobody picked them to win the Championship at the beginning of the season. It was Knicks in a landslide with Jordan out of the East. The West was Suns and Sonics as favorites, we were longshots only because Dream was the best player in the NBA and you can't count that talent out.

This season has been fun. I saw several articles saying we might be in the lottery. Mavs would battle it out with OKC and Spurs. Clippers were ready to make the jump. NOBODY picked us. Hell last week they still were not taking us seriously. So with all the different starting line ups, trades, injuries the fact that this team has not lost more than 2 in a row all season long is amazing. It is a testament to their toughness. Would have loved to have seen a healthier season. This team is a top 5 defensive team with a healthy Howard. Will we win it all? Odds are not likely but they weren't likely in 93-94.

Great topic I've enjoyed reading all the other gray beards points of view.

 

I've been following this team since the 1993-1994 season. I am not 31 years old. What made the the championship seasons special were the playoffs. They were great! In order for this season to be special, this team needs to make a serious playoff run. I will consider it a special season if we lose at the WCF in seven games. If we are out in the first or second round, I will not consider the season to be a failure.

 

yet fans of tmac think he was so special that he could elevate everyone's game

can't have it both ways. either you're the man or you aren't the man.

harden is the man.

legit mvp candidate, doesn't matter who gets hurt, Howard, Beverly, Harden steps his game up and does not yap his mouth

 

agree with those who said that this team has a lot of potential but are cautiously optimistic about the playoffs.

i'm curious about the mental toughness of this year's team. are they resilient when the game gets hard? who is going to step up and hit big shots other than harden? when the rockets won the championship, the role players had major contributions. maxwell, elie, horry, cassell, thorpe, herrera . . . they all played a big part in making those championships happen. will the guys on this team step up when the moment gets big and all the lights are on? we'll see.

have i enjoyed watching this team? yeah, for the most part, despite all the injuries. but for my part i dont really like "entertaining" teams that go nowhere. i hope they make a solid run in the playoffs, and if they do, i think we can all celebrate the season as a success, or as a stepping stone, or as a proof point for what the team needs to improve on.

one other thing - i think this team is really going to miss beverly in the playoffs. he has what i think is the epitome of a "playoff" mentality. whatever it takes to win. damn the consequences. all effort, smarts, and getting in the head of the opponent. if the rockets don't do well in the playoffs this year my guess is that it will be because of defensive failures at the point.

 

Really? I really loved the T-Mac/Yao days. That squad at one point was starting to jell. Then IMO we were robbed by the league on our home court vs. Dallas in game 3 and 4. The league wanted the series extended. Ref Tim Donaghy admitted that he was instructed by the league to extend the series and Van Gundy was fined $100,000 because he stated the Tim was targeting Yao. That team had McGrady at an MVP level. He was playing out of his mind despite what the "SHE Mac's" say. Yao was really becoming a force. The supporting cast was good. James, Wesley, Barry, Sura, Dik were all quality role players. We should have got out of the 1st round to play the Suns in what would have been a great series. I doubt we would have made it out of the west against the Spurs. But with all that said that team was excepted to win 53 games and be in the middle of the West. They won 51 and were in the middle of the west.

This season's team wasn't excepted to win even 50 games! They have been riddled with injuries from the 1 week on. I bet nobody would have them winning close to 50 with Howard/Jones out for over half the season. Our starting 5 of Beverley, Harden, Ariza, Jones, and Howard have played 2 games together. Remember Canaan had to start game 3. We have had so many different line-ups (25 per CBS) This team STILL is held together because Harden has emerged as a true leader. Harden has his wise counsel from JET as he stated. The team has committed to defense finally under McHale. This team easily compares to Tracy/Yao. Harden is equal to if not greater McGrady. Current Howard and 2nd year Yao are at least close to equal. The bench is deeper on this team. Jones/Smith/D-MO are about to be in a dog fight for minutes come playoff time. They already have had a better regular season. They might even have a better post season, lets just wait and see.

Patience is a virtue not just a fat school girl that gets raped by her mother.

I was young too once, "Old Timers" are smarter than you think.

 

They're having a very good regular season, showed a lot of resilience, although I want to see how they do in the playoffs before declaring this to be a historic year. Harden's been great to get his name so high up in the MVP race, but is he going to take his game to an even higher level in the playoffs, make opposing coaches start ripping their hair out because he's shredding their gameplans? Or is he going be a Karl Malone type who looks tough in the regular season and then defers to his "sidekick" in the real big games?

 

Fan since 82-83.

Interesting season. The team has overcome a great deal of adversity in terms of injuries and lack of roster stability. I am surprised that they have done so well in terms of regular season record, but Harden has been spectacular.

How memorable the season is and how it stacks up to other seasons will depend on the playoffs. First round exit - disaster. Second round exit - meh. Hoping for conference finals or better .....

We have a tremendous upside if we get all of our bigs healthy, but I am concerned about James' stamina and ability to adjust to playoff officiating and our crappy free throw shooting. We need to get hot. It will be interesting.

 

Rocket fan since 86' after moving to Houston out of college. Always felt like we played with inconsistency at times. It's great seeing James mature as a leader, the USA basketball definitely helped in that area. For the season, definitely feels better than the season's when we won championships. Nobody could've predicted that in 94/95.

As with DD, cautiously optimistic with a big side of hope! Can we get stops in the 4th Qtr done the stretch and hit 3's?

 

Why do you always have to CRAP on a thread with this? Michael Jordan himself wouldn't have been able to elevate Ryan Bowen's game (can you believe he was a starter???), Scott Padgett or Bob Sura's corpse. Look at this roster! I'll take DMo, TJones, Brewer and JSmove over anyone on the 2005 roster not named Yao and McGrady. It's not even close.

 

Seriously. He's just got blind hatred at this point.

 

This might be the first time in history that DD has written a post that could've come from me.

Been watching since the team first arrived in Houston. I played on my driveway as a young kid imagining that I was Rudy or Calvin or The Big E.

I think what it's going to take, more than any other single thing, for this team to advance a round or two in the playoffs, is that Harden has to play almost every game as the badass he can be when he's on. If he shrinks back to depending on the refs to bail him out, we're going to be in trouble. If he's on his game, though, we've surrounded him with enough firepower to get us pretty far.

 

In my eyes this team is a contender.

 

Been watching the Rockets full time since 2006, I'm 24 years old now. The Rockets '08-'09 team was the best team they had recently, and they SHOULD have won a title that year if not for T-Mac and Yao getting injured. This year's team reminds me of that team, but I'm also cautiously optimistic. They gotta work on their free throws with the big fellas.

 

Well, this season has definitely been more gut wrenching for me than compared to seasons past. I am biased heavily towards the Hakeem years, because he was by far my favorite player. Most grew up worshiping Jordan, but I idolized the Dream. He was the reason why I always tried to play post during recess even though I was the smallest kid out there. Consequently, I always got the hell stuffed out of me and was always picked last. The thing with the Hakeem years was that we had stability during the playoffs. We knew Hakeem was going to beast and the rest of the team will follow behind him. We also knew we would most likely go deep unless we ran into the Jazz or Sonics. God I hated them...

Francis era was all about Fool's Gold. It marked the end of an all time great leaving us for CANADA of all places. It marked the beginning of a knucklehead but passionate baller. Man Franchise could do put on some truly jaw dropping aerial shows, but damn he was incredibly stupid a lot of times. Kid had heart though, he had so much heart.

T-Mac and Yao... now there is an era that was so full of broken promises and ultimate disappointment. I don't care how good we do in the season if we just get shat on over and over during the playoffs. That duo had a chance to be so special, but injuries just ruined it. It was truly unfair.

Can we even call AB/Ariza/Scola/Martin/Lowry/Dragic an era? This was a really dark time for me as a fan. I mean, the team had so much heart and passion, but ultimately each season was a harsh reminder that talent usually wins and we didn't have enough. It's like a knee to the balls that you saw coming. You knew the end would hurt, but that didn't make it hurt any less. Most of us were willing to throw away a few seasons (tank) to try and find a star through draft. Then Morey's genius bore fruit and we got Harden.

This era though, specifically this team has been a roller coaster ride. It felt like every time we would gain momentum, someone would go down. T-Jones was turning around and BAM! Nerve injury, gone for who knows when. Howard goes down with a knee injury, says its bone on bone, comes back obviously hurting, and then goes down again while we are in the mix for a top seed? That was a heavy blow. After that, it was just a next-man-up-trial-by-fire experience for our unproven bench. Thankfully, they all withstood adversity incredibly and here we are now, fighting for a number 2 seed and watching quite possibly, a future legend unfold in Harden.

 

Before the season started, if I said to you that Joey Dorsey and Tarik Black would combine to start 28 games this season and that we'd have the 3rd best record in all of basketball, would you believe me? Yeah, this year's been pretty special.

 

If you told me Dwight and Jones both miss half the season, I would have said we're fighting for the 8 seed max.

 

"Let DoMo play!"

1-2 season ago.

 

31 here. This has been more memorable than the Championship years because those were 20 years ago and this is this year.

It's actually true, though. I was kid during that time, and I remember everything in a haze. I'd absolutely love to watch both championship playoff seasons in their entirety if I could get a hold of all those games. I remember the emotions of beating the Knicks, and our utter slaughter of the Magic who were fronted by this new monster named Shaq.

Most of all, I remember the $%*^%ing O.J. white Bronco chase cutting into the coverage of the Knicks series, and I be happy to give him the chair just for that. The whole murder thing is second in my mind.

Harden is the best player since Dream, but their games and The Game itself is very different, so I'll remember them in different ways. Hakeem's Dream Fade is permanently etched into my mind as one of the most incredible moves in basketball history, and I'll remember Harden for his ability to punch through an entire team of defenders to get to the basket. We really have had some special people in the history of this franchise. Harden's first 50-pt game on 20th Anniversary night was the most perfect link between the past and the future of this team.

(Seriously, though, I really want to watch all those old playoff games, so if anybody has any suggestions, I'm open.)

 

31 here too. The best feeling i have had going into playoffs since championships was in 05. I thought that team was going all the way with Tmac and Yao in their primes and a nice supporting cast. This year I am really nervous. I am worried we will be bounced out first round again. It just happens every time i get my hopes up.