Healthiest team in recent years

I've debated bringing this topic up for a bit now, because of the jinx factor - why talk about it if you're only going to make it worse? - but still, it needs to be said that such a large part of our success this year has been bolstered by our ability to stay on the court. Name a single Rocket in our rotation that has been forced to miss significant amounts of playing time. You can't, because there isn't one. Patterson was out for something like five to eight games, that's it. And look how Morey repaid him for his indiscretion.

Two points to be made here: one, a lot of credit needs to go to Harden for playing through numerous minor dings, the likes of which we've all heard about. And although he has gone through a couple horrendous shooting nights while playing through the injuries, he's also had a couple of admirable performances also. The best player on the team pushing it out like that sets the tone for the rest of the guys, and you see it also in Parsons who has played through some minor knee and back issues as well as Lin who looks like a boxer half the games with all the shots he takes to his face.

And 2: just as we need to congratulate somebody for this, we also need to blame somebody on the past four years' teams for their injury-riddled fates. It's easy to blame pudgy socialite Keith Jones and call Les a cheapskate for not signing the entire Phoenix Suns' training staff, but let's go a step further. Kyle Lowry, I love you but why did you have to go out and get an intraabdominal abscess requiring emergency surgery? What's up with that. And Aaron Brooks, why'd you have to be there when Ginobili decided to undercut you on a half court shot? Kevin Martin...ok you were actually really healthy when you were here. Good job.

My thinking is that this might also be a new evolution in the Morey mindset. Previously he saw value in guys whose stock had been lowered by freak injuries, just because of the low likelihood of those injuries in most cases repeating themselves. The more I thought about it, however, he must have seen a relationship between having superstars/leaders of the team who were constantly injured like Tracy and Yao and the effect it had on the rest of the squad. Conversely, he looked at a guy like Luis Scola who NEVER missed a game and realized that you could in a sense breed a culture of health. That, and screening out all the injury-risky players even harder than he had once done. So there you have it. Like all other Clutchfans threads, we come full circle just to pat Morey on the back. Your move.