It has been awhile, but welcome to the bad ol’ days.
It is cold out here for Rockets fans.
So cold, many wish former general manager Daryl Morey had stuck around to help the team battle through the storm, instead of absconding to Cancun, er, Philadelphia.
The way the dominoes have fallen, particularly the rash of injuries after the James Harden trade, new GM Rafael Stone has done about as well as anyone could.
Harden took a lot of Rockets’ wins with him to Brooklyn. At least with him on the floor, the Rockets wouldn’t be an embarrassment.
If you didn’t already know that the Rockets were in the midst of a can’t-win, won’t-win season, the reality should have set in this past week.
They entered play last Sunday on a 15-game slide, but their next seven games were to be in the mostly empty yet friendly confines of the Toyota Center.
Christian Wood, currently their biggest hope for a star-level player in the future, was slated to return from an injury that not coincidentally spanned that entire 15-game losing streak. (Houston had a winning record before he suffered a badly sprained ankle.)
And John Wall and Danuel House were scheduled to be back on the floor after missing time with injuries as well.
There was hope that the Rockets might not reach the franchise record of 17 straight losses. Not because the team showed any sign that they are better than a record losing streak, just that as is the case with a lottery purchase, you hope for luck.
These Rockets aren’t good, and they haven’t been lucky. They have won only one game since February 1.
Lowly Oklahoma City is in town for a Sunday afternoon tipoff, surely thinking it has a chance to drop a 20th straight loss on one of only two teams in the Western Conference with a worse record than it has.
It is so bad that on Tuesday we reached the point in the program where everyone cheered the Rockets for not giving up. It was like applauding an off-key singer for showing the courage to take the mic and sing an entire solo, mostly off-key.
That was after the albeit inexperienced, undermanned Rockets battled back from a 23-point hole to tie the score against the Hawks. Atlanta, which was favored by nine points, scored on the next trip down the court and eventually won by 12.
It was an inspiring effort by the Rockets. It was another loss. It was a predictable one.
I’d never advise you to throw hard-earned money into the fickle world of wagering, but betting on the Rockets to lose has been the best bet in the NBA this season.
They aren’t throwing games — I mean, we haven’t seen Elvin Hayes run out of the tunnel in a Rockets uniform … yet — they just aren’t winning any.
History lesson for the kids who came across this on your smartwatch: Hayes was one of the greatest to play the game, but the 53 minutes he played in an overtime loss in his next-to-last game, were, at the time, the most ever played by anyone that age or older.
The Rockets needed that loss to secure a spot in the coinflip that resulted in them picking Hakeem Olajuwon No. 1 in the 1984 draft.
Unlike then, these Rockets don’t want to lose.
The starving organization hasn’t tasted victory in more than six weeks
The only time in franchise history that the Rockets have lost more than 29 of their first 40 games was in1982-83 when — sort of like the end of the following year — they entered the season trying to win (by losing) the rights to draft Ralph Sampson.
Understandably, the Rockets’ record run of defeats has been lost in this week’s news.
With the UH Cougars playing like a Final Four team, the standard spring training optimism building for the Astros and the Texans making news seemingly every hour on the hour with a player transaction or another accusation of unseemly behavior against quarterback Deshaun Watson.
With their injury-riddled lineup, head coach Stephen Silas has been forced to start 27 different lineups in 40 games.
“There are no excuses,” Silas said. “This is the NBA. We got to be better regardless of who we have on the floor.”
Yeah, but it would be easier to be better with better and healthier personnel.
Without a doubt, the Rockets’ NBA-best run of eight playoff appearances in a row will end this season. The question is how long will they be a team whose most meaningful victories are moral ones?
Well, only four times in team history have the Rockets failed to make the playoffs in two or more consecutive seasons. Each of those down stretches involved the departure of a Hall of Fame player.
Those bad ol’ days kicked in when Elvin Hayes, Moses Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon and Yao Ming left town.
Harden left the Rockets out in the cold.
This is only Year 1 of the newest bad ol’ days.
"bad" - Google News
March 21, 2021 at 04:51AM
https://ift.tt/312WvPq
Solomon: A new era of the bad ol’ days for the Rockets - Houston Chronicle
"bad" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2SpwJRn
https://ift.tt/2z7gkKJ
No comments:
Post a Comment