Houston Rockets Outlook: Even With Yao Ming, Are They Contenders?

Just a few weeks after the tough defeat to the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, the crushing news that Yao Ming’s foot had not healed properly and would require season-ending surgery came down, instantly crushing all Rockets fans’ hopes for a successful 2009-2010 season.

Since that day, the vast majority of the fans and team executives alike have been counting down the days until Yao’s return, hoping that his presence would help propel an already strong team to championship contention.

With the acquisition of Kevin Martin in February and the addition of Brad Miller to fill out the front court, hopes are high that the Rockets will be able to equal the excitement of their 1990’s glory days by embarking on a deep playoff run.  However, even with the highly skilled 7’6” monster holding down the middle, can they really expect it?

Unfortunately, looking at the past NBA champions, it is clear that to win an NBA championship, your team must have at least two legitimate stars, and in most cases, three. While the Rockets up and down look like a tremendously deep roster, it is clear that the roster as currently constructed is not talented enough at the top to go anywhere exceptthe first or second round in the playoffs.

Take Aaron Brooks for example. After a year in which he upped his scoring tremendously and won the league’s Most Improved Player award, Rockets fans were quick to label him a rising star and anoint him the team’s next great player, despite the fact that his porous defense helped turn the team from a great defense to a bad one, and his lackluster play-making skills only improved marginally from the year before.

In fact, his backup, Kyle Lowry, was the more effective player last year, as his ability to create offense for others and defend with physicality outweighed his less impressive scoring skills.

Simply put, while Brooks is a tremendously exciting player with a great scoring punch, he has too many holes in his game to be mentioned in the same conversation as top young point guards like Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook.

The Rockets other “stars”, Martin and Yao, both have elite skills in their own right, but like Brooks, are simply not complete enough to be top players on a championship squad. Martin is a paper-thin defender who gets pushed around like a shopping cart defensively, and nobody quite knows what to expect from Yao.

All of this is not to say that the Rockets will not be a good team this year or that they don’t have a future, because this is simply not true.

Armed with up-and-coming complementary players like Chase Budinger and Courtney Lee coupled with sage veterans Shane Battier and Chuck Hayes, the Rockets have enough firepower on both sides of the ball to compete with anybody on any given night. Additionally, with potentially two lottery picks coming in from the Knicks the next two years, they could find themselves with a tremendous cache of young talent very quickly.

Or, if they are intent on finding that star to join the team and lead them to the Finals, they have accumulated so many assets that if any superstars (Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, etc. ) become available this winter, they will be able to put together a trade package that could rival anyone’s. Then they could legitimately be in the conversation as one of the league’s best teams.

Let’s hope that Morey can work his magic to find the Rockets that next star they’ve been needing for so long.