The lockout aside, I seeing the rebuilding process taking 4 to 5 years. The guys coming out of college aren't as talented in the past and having a mid first round pick doesn't help us much. Also, the superstars are going to big markets and I don't see the rockets being able to snatch one up.
This is going to be an long off season. 1st - we arent in the playoffs. 2nd - Lockout. Looking forward to Draft day.
I'm not seeing a lot of upside in next season. We'll get help from a poor draft, and we'll have a middling amount of cap-space at best for free agents. Morey has been trying and failing for awhile now in swinging a big trade. The offseason will be handicapped by a lockout. And, probably worse of all, they're going to fire Rick Adelman, which means we're going to lose this awesome offense we have, will have months of re-learning under a new coach, and might have to turn over a lot of system-players on the roster. I wouldn't be surprised to see next season be a repeat of this one -- struggling to be relevant most of the season and only figuring out how to play as a team when it is too late to make the playoffs.
Well, I HAVE been following this team for over three decades now and I must say that I was NOT disappointed in the least because I basically started the season with zero expectations. You see, the handwriting was on the wall (so to speak) when I saw Morey basically do nothing to bulster the center spot during the off season. Getting Brad Miller to back up Yao did not represent improvement to me. All that told me was that they (Rockets) were going to live and die on Yao's ability to come back and play meaningful basketball. Which, of course, was a big stretch given his injury history of the past few years. Once he went down, that was basically it for this season. Yes, they played hard and "scrappy" but in the end, you have to ask yourself if this was a team built to compete in the NBA Western Conference and the answer has to be NO. Even with Yao, they still lacked size on the front line. When you look at the rosters of teams ahead of them in the standings, you can see just how far they have to go in order to become relevant again. Until that happens, I believe that the best approach is to expect nothing from them - it's much easier on the nervous system and all.
