The Ongoing Soap Opera of The Houston Rockets

In a lot of respects, the 2019-2020 season was one of the most memorable for the NBA. Think about it. It has been presented with a series of unconventional moments that make one question the very fabric of basketball as a cherished pastime. Many have complained that ratings are down, or that there should be additional tournaments to fix said ratings. Even the retired athletes felt like they had more than enough coverage this year, especially with the passing of legend Kobe Bryant. It was a depressing enough moment that saw every team taking 24-second shot clock violations to pay tribute. Then, if that wasn’t enough, they became the first major sports institution to cancel all upcoming games for the safety of everyone following the announcement that Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert was tested positive with Coronavirus. 

Yes, there is so much tragedy in an incomplete season. It’s the equivalent of authors who never finished their novels. We can never know what David Foster Wallace’s true vision for “The Pale King” was much like we cannot now know how the season was going to play out. Oh sure, if this season magically resumes next month we can have some idea, but there is a need to keep the ball rolling. You can’t just jump in and out of games like some NPC. Your body needs to have a consistency that absolutely nobody has right now. As the preseason will quickly point out, some teams take time to find their stride, and now nobody has one. Sure, you can still bet that The Lakers have the comeback kid narrative to beat all comeback kid narratives (For Kobe!) or that this is Giannis Antetokuompo’s year with The Bucks (more likely), but there is no way to account for if the bench is out of shape and impacts the fourth quarter scoring that makes or breaks a game.

With that said, one thing, in particular, will never stop being entertaining. In a time of such uncertainty, there is one team that is taking courtside antics to a new high. To follow their trajectory is to see a team that could be great, but you’re more drawn to the ways that they aren’t. Their own P.R. department feels like it’s a mess, though you really don’t want them to fix the problem. They are the greatest soap opera in the NBA this season. You can’t find a team that comes closer…

Ladies and gentlemen, The Houston Rockets.

In all honesty, I like The Rockets more than I probably should. Some say that their star player, James Harden, is a bit too predictable of a shooter and that he’s cheating the system. However, I think that’s merely a starting point for the majestic season that they had. Sure their work is cut out for them and they do play some great games, but this narrative began with The NBA Awards when Harden lost the coveted Most Valuable Player Award to Antetokuompo. 

It didn’t entirely make sense why he lost. He wasn’t just arguably the greatest shooter in the league, the stats would back him up. He scored the most points. End of story. However, The Beard wouldn’t let this die when the season started. He claimed that his goal was to win that MVP trophy. You could hear the crowd chanting during his first free throw of the preseason against The Shanghai Sharks “MVP! MVP! MVP!” Was it real, or were they mocking this man who thought that scores were everything?

Anyways, The Rockets beat The Sharks in a blowout 140 to 71, barely keeping The Sharks by losing by a total higher than their score. 

If that wasn’t bad enough, Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey wrote on Twitter: “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” This was in line with the ongoing protests of the time, and it upset the Chinese government. Harden would come out and say “We love China” in an attempt to tide everything over. Instead, Morey’s comments almost threatened China to stop supporting the NBA at all. It never came to pass, thankfully. Before the season had started, it was clear that The Rockets were going to have a pretty wild season.

The previous season saw rifts between Harden Chris Paul. The choice to get rid of him made sense, thus replacing him with the much more compatible Russell Westbrook, whom he had played with during his time in The Oklahoma City Thunder days. Ads would tell you that they were “Re-Hounited” and that this was a sign of great things to come. Harden and Paul’s rift had kept the team from going further the previous season and they needed a better strategy.

During this time, there was also an announcement that the rules for traveling would change. If Harden had one notorious move, it involved his three-pointers. When he had a clear enough shot, he would take the ball from a crouched position and rise. As he did, he would take steps backward, whether directly or indirectly. You could tell that after he began getting called on it that he was trying to change his game. He even had cornrows at one point, temporarily taking away from his iconic look.

The Harden-Westbrook initiative was fine at first, but you could tell that they needed to have work done. Their work with Clint Capela was also spotty, but they were great on a good night and remained that dominant runner-up team to The Los Angeles Lakers and The Los Angeles Clippers. There was no denying that they were great, but they just had a few screws loose. 

There was the reality that Harden’s old way of playing was getting stale. In one instance where they were playing The Clippers, it came down to a last-minute shot with The Rockets down by two. Had they scored a three-pointer, they would’ve won. What’s your best move? Pass to Harden. Well, anyone at home could’ve told you that, and it’s exactly why upon the ball being passed to Harden he was bum-rushed by Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, and Montrezl Harrell to keep that shot from going anywhere. Harden was predictable…

Except when he punched people in the nuts.

Or shot the ball so hard it went back through the net.

Then again, The Rockets playing The Clippers has become its own ongoing soap opera. For starters, Westbrook has had a longtime feud with Patrick Beverley going back to early seasons. At one point Beverley collides with Westbrook to the point that he becomes injured and Beverley has single-handed ruined Westbrook’s phenomenal season. Some say he wasn’t the same after that. Still, it was enough to keep the blood boiling. 

It starts off with the promise of two of the best in the west facing off against each other. It gets better when you begin putting everything into play. Harden started off the season strong but has since had one of his less successful years. At times he’s fallen back on Westbrook to save the day. Still, put that up against Beverley whose rabid dog antics and you get the delight of the unexpected. Suddenly a foul can turn into an all-out fight. What is a Rockets-Clippers game without at least one ejection? Even the calmest dude in the world, Lou Williams, got ejected at one point. Things are so heated between these two teams that the fourth quarter is practically a deathmatch.

The best part came in a November 2019 game. With tensions high, Clippers coach Doc Rivers became livid and started arguing with the referees. While this was bad enough, Austin Rivers got involved to such an extent that he got Doc ejected from the game. If you’re wondering who Austin Rivers is, the last name should be a clue. He plays for The Rockets and is Doc’s son. Yes, Doc Rivers was partially ejected from the game because of his son. As far as we can tell, they’re the only Houston-Clippers affiliation to not have any long term animosity. 

It also doesn’t help that The Rockets had one of the “easier” Christmas Day games in quite some time. In fact, anyone with a gambling addiction would’ve told you that The Rockets were not only going to beat The Golden State Warriors, but they were going to leave them orphans. After all, The Warriors would finish the season in last place and were currently a shell of their former selves. Their saving grace, Steph Curry, had injured his hand leaving their star players as (check notes) Draymond Green, Willie Cauley-Stein, and D’Angelo Russell. Yeah, it should’ve been an easy win for The Rockets. 

Nope. Not only did The Rockets lose, but they lost to a team of predominant rookies with a score of 116-104. I’ve dubbed it “The Christmas Miracle,” as it is great news for me, but also one of the most surprising Christmas Day NBA wins in several years. To be fair, The Rockets haven’t let The Warriors forget this in subsequent games with brutal defeats, but that loss felt more like the start of Harden’s existential crisis than just another bad game.

The start of the New Year brought two things for The Rockets: a brief time for Harden’s cornrows and a reshaping of the team. They were going to do something that few significant teams were doing. They were going to do small ball. Lose the Center and just go for it. They eventually traded Capela, Gerald Green, and Nenê for Robert Covington as part of a four-team super-trade that takes too much time to go into. Let’s just say with Covington they began to reform their team for the better, focusing on outside shooting and less buffering when it came to Westbrook driving down the middle for the basket.

In one of the more embarrassing later season games, The Rockets took on The Thunder and lost. It wasn’t just that. They were going up against Harden’s old teammate Chris Paul, who had quickly become one of the league’s best players in Harden’s absence. In a move that showed how well CP3 played with his new team, he made the 100th point after dribbling the ball through an opponent’s legs. He was laughing so hard that he demanded to be taken out of the game. The final score had The Thunder winning 113-92. Add in the irony that The Rockets are currently in the sixth seed behind The Thunder and this rivalry has a new level of preciousness.

Then there’s Harden. Remember how he started the season angry about losing that MVP trophy to Antetokuompo? Well, it came back. Considering that there were only 25 games until the finals, there was talk starting to rise again as to who the MVP was. A late surge of votes for The Lakers’ LeBron James took the pressure off of Harden, though I personally don’t see it happening. Antetokuompo joked that he didn’t like Harden because he wanted "somebody who's gonna pass the ball." Harden responded with the more savage "I wish I could be seven feet, run and just dunk. That takes no skill at all."

Yes, there’s a large “To Be Continued…” sign over the feud between The Beard and The Greek Freak. It’s delightful in part because Antetokuompo seems like too nice of a guy to talk trash. He probably didn’t mean his statement to hold as much malice as Harden thought. Even then, it’s yet another feud for The Rockets to get into, and one that probably wouldn’t have played out in the championship.

Unless there was a miracle, The Rockets were always going to be a runner-up kind of team. Even with their more interesting approach to basketball, they still have a few things working against them. Harden is more of an antihero despite his massive talents, and it’s fueling The Rockets’ soap opera into fascinating new directions. On the one hand, they’re boring to watch at times. However, that’s to ignore their place in the league. Without them, certain teams wouldn’t be nearly as compelling either. Whether it’s The Clippers, The Bucks, or even The Warriors, The Rockets make the game more interesting watch.