10 Reasons the Houston Rockets Won't Make the Playoffs

Coming off a big victory over the Knicks last night, the Rockets have to feel pretty good about where they stand right now.

Houston currently sits at 12-12 and is just on the outside looking into the playoff hunt. They have one of the most explosive offenses in the NBA, and hold victories over Utah, the Lakers, Boston and New York this month.

However, the Rockets are destined to be one of those fringe teams in the Western Conference when it comes to making the postseason. 

Houston certainly has plenty of reasons to feel optimistic going forward, but when it comes down to the last two or three teams who sneak into the playoffs the Rockets will come up just short.

Here are ten reasons why the Rockets will fail to make the postseason this year. 

10. Too Many Three-Point Shot Attempts

Houston attempts 9.6 three-pointers per game, through their first 24 games, the second highest total in the NBA only behind the New York Knicks.

Part of the reason Houston scores so many points is that they attempt so many threes, but the problem is this team does not have the shooters to maintain that type of offensive strategy.

Of the Rockets that attempt of three, three-point shots a game, only Toney Douglas is currently shooting above 40 percent, and he has not been that consistent in his career.

Carlos Delfino is a capable shooter off the bench, but he is not a knock down guy that you would want taking six three's a game.

For as good of a scorer as James Harden has been, one area he has struggled is shooting the long ball. Harden is connecting on under two of his 5.7 attempts per game.

Chandler Parsons, Marcus Morris and Jeremy Lin also take a high volume of three's, but they do not make them consistently. Houston is currently 13th in the NBA in three-point percentage despite being second in attempts.

The Rockets simply do not have good enough shooters to keep up their amount of long ball shots. They should look to penetrate more if they want to keep their point value as high as it is now throughout the season.

9. The Rockets Are Just One Injury Away from Losing Their Season

Although this sentiment may be true for a lot of teams in the NBA, it seems particularly true for the Houston Rockets.

Houston is just one injury away from their entire season going down the drain.

The Rockets rely so heavily on their core players, James Harden, Jeremy Lin, Omer Asik and Chandler Parsons, that if any one of the four of them were to go down with an injury, they would struggle immensely trying to replace them and likely topple down the standings.

Houston has been able to avoid the injury bug for the most part so far this season, but if it strikes they could find their playoff dreams slipping away. 

8. Lack of Experience as a Team

When fighting for a playoff spot in the loaded Western Conference, one factor that cannot be ignored is experience.

While several of the players on the Rockets have playoff experience as individuals, they do not have that experience as a unit to come together. They do not know what it takes to make a push towards the postseason.

Houston has only four players that were on the roster last season. The team is relying heavily on new additions this year.

The Rockets are still trying to figure out how to play together, and have also had the unfortunate disadvantage of having to play a portion of their season without their head coach.

Teams like Memphis, San Antonio, the Clippers, Oklahoma City and Denver have the advantage over the Rockets of having the chemistry of playing together for the last several years, something the Rockets will have to make up for if they are going to make it into the playoffs. 

7. Youth

To go along with their lack of experience playing together, the Rockets also have a lack of experience overall, being one of the youngest teams in the Western Conference. 

The oldest player on the Rockets roster right now is 30-year-old Carlos Delfino. All the other players on the Rockets are in their twenties. Compare that to the New York Knicks who have five players on their roster pushing forty. 

The Rockets stars are also young and relatively inexperienced. James Harden is only 23, put does have some mileage on him from playing with the Thunder. Patrick Patterson is also 23. 

Lin and Parsons are 24, and Asik is ancient at age 26. 

Being young does not necessarily mean the team cannot still come together and make a run at the playoffs, but to not even have one veteran on the roster who can control the locker room when things get rough may come back to haunt the Rockets later in the season.

6. Too Many Turnovers

As of right now, no NBA team turns the ball over than the Houston Rockets.

Houston, despite having 12 wins, is dead last in the NBA for turnovers, averaging 16.5 per-game.

Inexperience and chemistry issues are a large part of why that number is so high, and logically you would expect it only to go down by the end of the season.

Still, that number is inexcusable, especially for a team who has legitimate playoff aspirations. 

No player (including Jeremy Lin) is near the league worst in turnovers per-game, so it is a collective issue that the team is having with taking care of the ball.

Limiting turnovers has to be one of the top priorities for coach Kevin McHale for the rest of this season because if it is not, it could cost the Rockets a playoff spot. 

5. Too Much Reliance on James Harden

As you would expect, in order to be a top five scorer in the league, James Harden averages in the top ten in the NBA in shot attempts per game at 17.3.

The issue with the Rockets offense is not that Harden takes too many shots, it is that there is no one else on the roster who takes even close to make up for it when Harden has a bad game.

Chandler Parsons is second on the team in shot attempts per game at 12.5, almost a full five shots less than Harden.

In fact, the Rockets are just 2-7 this season in games where Harden shoots under 40 percent from the field.

Harden is still growing into his new role as a dominant scorer and he is bound to have off nights. The issue with the Rockets is that they rely so much on Harden to put up his 20-25 points a night and be the go-to scorer, that when he does not do that they don't have a guy that can step up and fill the role.

4. Inconsistency

As I mentioned before, the Rockets are one of the youngest teams in the NBA with all but one of their players under the age of 30.

With youth often comes inconstancy and it is no different with the Rockets. 

Houston's .500 record seems very appropriate for just how inconsistent they have been this year.

The Rockets have had three separate three-game losing streaks this season, and have also had a three- game winning streak and three two-game winning streaks.

To go along with impressive wins over the Knicks twice, the Lakers and the Jazz, they have lost to the Trail Blazers twice as well as the Raptors.

The Rockets have just not been able to get more than two games over .500 this year, and that lack of consistency may leave them around the .500 for the remainder of the season.

3. Depth of the Western Conference

Unfortunately for the Rockets, being around .500 simply may not be good enough to get into the playoffs in the Western Conference this season.

The Thunder, Spurs, Clippers, Grizzlies and Warriors seem like legit contenders for the NBA finals. 

The Nuggets, Jazz, T-Wolves, Blazers and Suns also seem like they could be in the mix by the time it is all said and done.

The Lakers and Mavericks are hanging around while they wait for former NBA MVP's to return to their lineup and boost their playoff chances.

The only two teams out west who seem out of it at this point are the Hornets and the Kings.

If the Rockets are going to emerge from the top eight out of the rest of that group, they will have to play their best basketball for the remainder of the season.

It seems unlikely that many of those teams will finish with a losing record, so Houston will need to win at least 45 games or so to feel safe in the Western Conference this year. 

2. Lack of Depth off the Bench

One of the major problems with the Rockets roster this season is their lack of consistent play off the bench.

I stated earlier that the Rockets are just one injury away from falling out of it, and that is largely because their backup players leave much to be desired.

Carlos Delfino and Marcus Morris are valuable assets off the bench, but the rest of the Rockets bench is severely lacking.

Toney Douglas is turnover prone and does not shoot well from the floor. Neither Royce White (for much different reasons) or Terrence Jones have panned out in their rookie years. The rest of the team, Cole Aldrich, Daequan Cook and Greg Smith are medium level role players at best.

The Rockets moving forward in this season and beyond, simply must improve their backups to a solid starting five if they are going to be competitive. 

1. Bad Defense

Simply put the Houston Rockets are bad defensive team at the NBA level.

The Rockets give up the second most points in the NBA, only behind the Charlotte Bobcats at 103.7 per-contest.

As well as Houston scores the ball, they only have a +0.3 point differential from their opponents because they lack the intensity to be competitive on the defensive side of the ball.

There is no doubt the Rockets are fun to watch, but being fun and scoring a lot of points only gets you so far. The Rockets will be competing for playoff spots with great defensive minded teams and if they do not start stopping teams they will have a hard time surpassing them in the standings.

Omer Asik holds the fort down well inside, but it is their perimeter defense that needs work. Neither Jeremy Lin, James Harden or Chandler Parsons are above-average defenders, and as a unit there simply is not enough emphasis on defense from the coaching staff.