Power Ranking Houston Rockets Players Heading into 2014-15 NBA Season

The Houston Rockets currently have 19 players on their roster, and perhaps more than any other team in the NBA, regular playing time is up for grabs.

With general manager Daryl Morey’s failed offseason gambit to land another superstar like Chris Bosh or Carmelo Anthony, and losing Chandler Parsons, Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin in the process, the Rockets have a revamped bench.

The starting five is set, but the rest of the rotation seems to be a crapshoot. 

Robert Covington and Josh Powell are technically on the team but won’t make the final cut. Therefore, they aren’t included in these rankings.

Here, I rank the other 17 players based on how much they are likely to play, not how good they are. For various reasons such as experience and contract status, those two things aren’t always the same.

Fighting for a Roster Spot

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The NBA roster is limited to 15, so that means three players are going to be contesting for one spot. That could go to any one of these guys. 

17. Tarik Black

Tarik Black has opened some eyes in the preseason. An undrafted rookie out of Kansas, he’s arguably been the team’s best backup big thus far.

In fact, his 17.48 player efficiency rating is 17th among backup power forwards in the league, per RealGM.com.

The 6’8” power forward/center has been strong inside, which is a point of emphasis from coach Kevin McHale. The coach feels that last season a lack of toughness was a big issue against the Portland Trail Blazers in the playoffs. 

Based on play, Black would be in, but here’s the problem: There just aren’t enough roster spots left.

In, fact the Rockets are already carrying 16 guaranteed contracts, which means that they’ll be forced to send one of those players to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, the team’s D-League franchise.

That being the case, it’s going to be difficult to find a way to put Black on the final roster. Instead, he’ll probably be on his way to the Vipers, as well.

16. Clint Capela

So who gets NBA money to play in the D-League? My vote is Clint Capela, who was the Rockets' first-round pick this year. But there’s the issue that he hasn’t played at all. Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle quotes McHale on Capela’s situation:

"

He’s got a groin pull and I’ve seen him work on that foam roller on his back,” Rockets coach Kevin McHale said. “Every once in a while he moves over and does the thigh foam roller, so he’s kind of doing the Jane Fonda workout. I haven’t seen him on the floor yet. But I’m sure it’s been strenuous.

"

Capela didn’t play in the summer league and hasn’t played in the preseason. He played in France before getting drafted, so he’s actually never even played a game in America, much less the NBA.

For that reason, I expect he’ll be the one sent to the Vipers. He needs a chance to adjust to the American game.

15. Nick Johnson

Nick Johnson threw a wrench in the works by outplaying his draft position (42) in the summer league. It was enough for the Rockets to give him a three-year, guaranteed contract. Even first-rounders don’t typically get that third year guaranteed.

Johnson has springs that Tigger would envy. He plays with intensity on both ends of the court. He has the ability to handle the ball, shoot and defend.

The only problem is that he’s a bit of a “jack of all trades, master of none” player. His athleticism, though, suggests he has tremendous potential. All he needs to do is hone his skills.

And that’s where things could be interesting. Johnson might actually have a higher ceiling than Capela, and for that reason the Rockets may feel he’ll mature more quickly playing in Rio Grande than sitting in Houston. I don’t expect him to be the one sent down, but I wouldn't be stunned if he was.

Houston uses its D-League like a Triple-A farm club as well as anyone in the league. If he does go, it won’t be remedial as much as strategic.

The End of the Rotation

14. Ish Smith

The Rockets' congestion isn’t just among the bigs; they also have one in the backcourt. The top of the order is pretty clear. All-Star James Harden and All-Defensive point guard Patrick Beverley are starting. Jason Terry, the most seasoned veteran, will be the featured sixth man (when healthy).

Other than that, though, I expect it will be a volatile situation with players falling in and out of McHale’s favor as the season progresses. Ish Smith will probably bounce around as much as anyone.

The Rockets are flush with shooters, but they are limited in the number of players who can break down defenses and create opportunities for their snipers. There’s Harden and, well, there’s Harden.

Smith is their best reserve at penetrating, but he seems to be at a loss of what to do with the ball once he’s done so. Unable to find the open shooter, he'll take an ill-advised shot. 

His pure point rating, per RealGM, is minus-4.94, placing him 70th out of 75. Considering the Rockets’ entire philosophy revolves around setting up shots inside the restricted area or finding shooters for the three, that’s an issue.

His driving ability will keep working back him into the rotation, but his decision-making will keep dropping him out of it.

13. Joey Dorsey

Joey Dorsey's most memorable moment in his first Rockets' stint was when he proclaimed himself, “Ray Lewis with a basketball” (see video). Can he do something more than drop a great quote this time?

The Rockets traded the rights to Nicolas Batum for him on draft day in 2008. He played 60 minutes for the Rockets before getting traded in his second year to the Sacramento Kings. They waived him after he played just 52 minutes. The Toronto Raptors signed him for one season in 2010-11, and he played 522 minutes with them.

All told, his NBA legacy includes 160 points, 234 rebounds and 634 minutes. 

Then he went to Europe and played in Spain, Greece, Turkey and then Spain again. While there he averaged 4.8 points and 5.3 rebounds, which aren’t exactly stunning numbers. 

Whether he can do more in the NBA his second time around is a mystery. Due to a foot injury, he hasn't played much during the preseason. He has five points and five boards over 27 minutes in two games.

The thing he has going for him is he’s wide and powerful. He’s a 275-pound man with real muscle. He can impose his will defensively. He’s more like “Ray Lewis without a basketball but on a basketball court.”

That’s enough to get him on the court for a team that is seeking toughness. 

His lack of production will keep that time limited, though.

12. Francisco Garcia

Francisco Garcia could be loosely described as a three-and-D player, but the “three” part of that is kind of streaky.

Last year he played so seldom that it was a bit of a surprise when the Rockets gave him a new contract.

He won’t be a regular part of the rotation, but he does bring enough to the team that he’s worthy of a roster spot. First, he’s quietly one of the locker-room leaders on the team. Second, he is the one veteran wing off the bench. Third, he’s shown he can defend Kevin Durant, which most people can’t do.

He’s not going to be the primary backup to Trevor Ariza or get consistent minutes, but he’ll help mentor all the younger players into the NBA, and he’ll be ready to go whenever the Rockets need him.

11. Troy Daniels

I tried to get Daniels higher on the list, but I couldn't figure out how Houston does it. The problem here is Terry.

Terry is going to take up the minutes at the backup 2, and that makes it hard to find where Daniels gets them. Does he play the 1 or the 3? He’s played some of both in the preseason.

He’s worked on his handles, and that’s showing. He’s creating shots for himself, but he doesn't have an assist yet this preseason. That’s going to make playing the 1 difficult. And at 6'4" he's a little undersized for a small forward.

On the other hand, he’s shooting .529 from three, which is ridiculous. (Small sample sizes and brilliant shooters can combine for some pretty fun numbers.) I can see him playing the 3 when the Rockets go small.

Daniels is too good of a shooter to not get in the lineup here and there, but with his best position being occupied by the most proven veteran on the bench, his minutes are going to be sporadic.

10. Jeff Adrien

Pat Sullivan/Associated Press

Starting with Jeff Adrien, players No. 6 through 10 are likely to be a consistent part of the rotation but not starting.

Adrien is only in his fifth year, but he’s already the quintessential journeyman, having played for the Golden State Warriors (2010-11), Houston (2011-12), the Charlotte Bobcats (2012-13, 2013-14) and the Milwaukee Bucks (2013-14).

He’s also always played for a minimum contract. That’s a run he’d probably like to end, and this year he'll be trying to get enough minutes to prove he's worth more.

Last year, in his Milwaukee stint, he put up some pretty solid numbers, averaging 10.9 points and 7.8 boards in 25.2 minutes.

All told he’s played just less than 2,000 minutes, which makes him the most experienced big on the bench. Egads! And he hasn’t just played more than his main competition, Dorsey; he’s played better.

Like Dorsey, he’s had some spotty healthy issues during the preseason, so neither has a chance to get a clear edge in the competition. Adrien probably wins based on experience and superior historical play.

The question with him, though, is size. At 6'7", 245 pounds, Adrien is more of a tweener forward. Dorsey has 20 pounds of muscle on him. And remember, toughness is a point of emphasis with McHale. Generally, Adrien should get the time first, but when he’s getting pushed around, look for Dorsey to slide in and take minutes.

9. Isiah Canaan

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Isaiah Canaan was presumed to be the backup to Beverley after Jeremy Lin was dealt, but the continued pursuit of point guards has thrown that theory into question.

Canaan, though, has been having a pretty spectacular preseason, and it may be enough to secure his spot in the rotation. Per RealGM, his PER of 29.79 is fourth among all point guards this preseason. He’s averaging 27.65 points and 6.07 assists per 36 minutes. His true shooting percentage is a stellar .582.

However, he’s only averaging 13.3 minutes per game, which means his status might still be a bit of a question mark. Or, it could mean that there’s such a glut at point guard that everyone is getting minutes. Smith is getting the most (17.8), but Canaan is outperforming him; therefore, you can expect Canaan to keep the backup job—at least for now.

There are two things he needs to work on to preserve it, though. One is his passing. He only averaged 3.1 assists per 36 minutes in his rookie season. That number needs to go up.

The other is his defense. He hasn’t played enough to get much statistical analysis, but the eye test this summer sees him getting beaten more than he should. 

8. Donatas Motiejunas

Layne Murdoch Jr./Getty Images

Donatas Motiejunas is better on paper than he’s been in real life. Ostensibly, he could become to Dwight Howard what Ryan Anderson was in Orlando: a legit big who can play either the backup 5 or beside him at the 4.

He’s a true 7-footer, and he’s entering his third season. He has nice ball-handling skills and, in theory, range.  

But here’s the problem: On the court, you end up with a different thing than on paper. For a 7-footer, he gets pushed around fairly easy. And for a player who has had 32.8 percent of his career field-goal attempts come from behind the arc, per Basketball-Reference.com, he’s not very good at it. He’s made just 26.9 percent of his attempts from deep.

This preseason has been a mixed bag. He's averaging 9.8 points and 3.0 rebounds in 22.3 minutes, but he's also collecting 3.3 fouls in that time. 

This is a make-or-break year for him. He’ll be given the backup job and more playing time, almost by default. He needs to start fulfilling his promise. And if he can’t produce, he probably won’t be around next year.

7. Kostas Papanikolaou

Kostas Papanikolaou (pronounced like what you would say if your daddy were a five-cent coin who smacked you in the head for making a bad pun—“Papa Nickel, oww!”) might be the most intriguing of the youngsters on the Houston Rockets.  

He’ll be the primary backup 3, though when the Rockets go small, he could play some stretch 4 as well. Per Feigen, Papanikolaou is fine with that:

"

I’m here to play and help my team,” Papanikolaou said. “If that means play like a stretch four, that means I’ll play like a stretch four. I want to do the best for my team, what my coaches as me to do and my team wants to get the wins every night out. If that means playing the four, that’s no problem for me.

"

In a left-handed, foreign-born-player-with-creativity sort of way, he has some shades of Manu Ginobili. Not that he’s that caliber, but in the sense that he brings an unusual flair that defenders aren’t ready for. Quicker than you say, “gimmick,” the ball is in the net.

He’s a solid defender. He’s averaging 9.5 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 24.4 minutes per game. Apart from Terry, he’s already the best creator the Rockets have off the bench, and he has plenty of room to grow. He could be the next steal for the Rockets.  

Look for him to be one of the first and most productive players off the bench.

6. Jason Terry

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Terry is a former Sixth Man of the Year (2008-09). He’s also an NBA champion (2010-11). The Rockets are hoping he can bring his off-the-bench scoring and postseason experience to the team. That can help fill a void both on the court and in the locker room.

While he’s been bringing that veteran presence by attending practice, on the court is a different story. He’s done almost as little as humanly possible. Just 20 minutes into his first practice of the preseason he pulled a hammy. Per Feigen and Jenny Creech of the Houston Chronicle, Terry has the explanation: "I’m 37 years old, 15 years in. You don’t want to go out here and go full speed in the first week. It’s a little maintenance, nothing serious. Frustrating, but I am taking it easy and using my veteran leadership to talk to those guys."

In one sense, that’s all well and good. It can be viewed as a bit of a “veteran move” where he’s “saving himself” for “when it counts” and all that.

But, here’s the problem. He played 570 total minutes last year. To put that in perspective, if you include his FIBA World Cup time, Derrick Rose has played more competitive basketball than Terry in the last year.

That means lots of rust—like left your bike out in the rain in Seattle for six months kind of rust. And that’s the best-case scenario. At worst, he’s genuinely hurt and trying to gloss over it.

Terry has 36,956 minutes played in his career. Everyone else (including Garcia) has a total of 17,970. That means Terry has more than twice as everyone else combined.

So while it’s good for him to bring that veteran leadership, hopefully he can bring some of that real-game experience with it sometime soon.

5. Terrence Jones

Bill Haber/Associated Press

Of the five starters, Terrence Jones is probably the weakest. But that’s partly an indication of how well the Rockets are set. Jones is a good player but incomplete.

Offensively, he is promising, but defensively, he leaves a lot to be desired. There’s a reason McHale says he wants to see more toughness from the power forward spot.

During the playoffs LaMarcus Aldridge decimated Jones to the tune of 29.8 points and 11.2 boards. Jones’ opponents garnered an 18.7 player efficiency rating on the season. And his defensive real plus/minus was a minus-1.90, placing him 80 out 88 power forwards.

He’s a defensive liability, and he needs to turn that part of his game around. 

But there is also a reason give him the chance to do that. RealGM’s Jonathan Tjarks writes:

"

Jones is a textbook case for the importance of internal improvement to a team’s success. If you lose a guy like Chandler Parsons in free agency, one of the most cost-effective ways to replace his production is to redistribute his shots to a younger player ready for a bigger role. Jones played 27 minutes a game last season and had only a 18.3 usage rating, but he was awfully productive in those minutes and he seems more than ready for a bigger role.

He had a 19.1 PER and per-36 minute averages of 16 points, 9 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.5 blocks on 54% shooting. Jones is big, fast and very skilled for a guy his size – he can handle the ball like a guard and finish at the rim like a big man. Because he wasn’t taken in the lottery and he started his career as a role player on a good team, most people don’t realize how high his ceiling is. If given the chance to create his own offense, he could make a huge leap this season.

"

4. Patrick Beverley

GREG WAHL-STEPHENS/Associated Press

Patrick Beverley is sort of the opposite of Jones. He’s excellent on defense, but his offense lags behind. Last season he averaged just 10.2 points and 2.7 assists. His effective field-goal percentage of .509 was slightly above the league average of .501. His PER was a below-average 12.4.

Defensively, though, he’s one of the best in the league at the point guard position, as evidenced by his All-Defensive second-team nod.

This preseason he’s averaged 7.5 points and 2.0 assists in 17.0 minutes with a PER of 14.76. That doesn’t seem very “point guardy,” but bear in mind Harden is actually the one who runs the offense. Kobe Bryant ran the Lakers offenses that won five championships. Michael Jordan led his Bulls to six as his team’s floor general.

In a role similar to Derek Fisher or Steve Kerr, Beverley can be a pseudo-shooting guard to Harden’s faux point guard. In some ways, we get caught up too much in what “kind” of guard a player is. What matters is your backcourt can give you points and defend. Harden gives the Rockets one of those things, and Beverley provides the other.

3. Trevor Ariza

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

After Houston struck out on Bosh and Anthony and then lost Parsons in free agency, Trevor Ariza was the consolation prize, but as consolation prizes go, you can do worse.

In fact, I like the starting five better with Ariza than with Parsons. That’s not to say that I think Ariza is a better player than Parsons, but he is a better fit, and here’s why.

Previously, I wrote how last season there were seven teams with three plus defenders and one elite one. Those teams accounted for seven of the top-nine defenses in the NBA. Ariza, Beverley and Howard give the Rockets a Big Three on defense (Big Threefense?) and the potential to be a top-10 defense.

The expression “defense wins championships” is not an idiom without cause. Only two teams in the last 20 years have won the championship without a top-10 defense. At the same time 12 of the last 20 offenses were among the league’s 10-most efficient. So offense isn't unimportant, but offense is not where the Rockets needed the most help.

Ariza is a big improvement on defense but only a slight hit to their scoring. He’s still going to be giving Houston 40 percent shooting from deep. He won’t be able to create as well as Parsons, but that’s the only drawback to this exchange.

2. Dwight Howard

Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press

One beneficiary of the Ariza trade is Howard. With the most defensive help he’s ever had, Howard could return to Defensive Player of the Year form.  

He has the help, and he has the health.

In fact, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo reports that Ariza feels Howard is better than he was in Orlando: 

"

Trevor Ariza, who played three seasons with Howard on the Magic, walked into Rockets training camp and found himself mesmerized with Howard's re-transformation. "To be honest, he looks more athletic to me now," Ariza told Yahoo Sports. "He's always been big and strong, but he seems stronger to me, looks like he's jumping higher than he did.

"

Hakeem Olajuwon agrees: "After watching Howard in training camp, Rockets icon Hakeem Olajuwon told Yahoo: 'He's a different animal this year. His physique, his spirit coming together with his talent and skills and health; he has an aura about him here. It's like he's gotten his youth back.'

There was a time not that long ago that you didn't even discuss who the best center in the league was. It was understood to be Howard, and the debate was over second best. If Howard is back to being the kind of player he was in Orlando, but with more maturity, this team could be in for a deep playoff run.

As an elite second option in scoring and the league’s best defender when healthy, Howard is a pretty good second-best player to have on your team.

1. James Harden

Daniel Ochoa de Olza/Associated Press

When Harden was in Oklahoma City, he was most known for his beard.

When he came to Houston and revealed himself to be one of the league’s best scorers, he became known for his offense.

Last year, with viral videos demonstrating his lack of defense, he became known for that. And it’s not just people finding a few plays, either. You really can’t just slap together 12-minute montages of any player in the league that show nothing but ambivalence on the less sexy end of the court.

According to Feigen, Harden is aware of the criticism:

"

I hear it, but I don't pay attention to it. I know I can be a really good defender. Obviously, there's times my defense is pretty bad. There's a lot of stars whose defense is pretty bad sometimes. That category, I know I have to be better...

It's just (about) me being focused. It's not whether I can do it. It's me losing track of my man or small things like that that can easily be corrected.

It's not the fact that I can't do it. I'm a pretty good defender. It's me being able to focus on small things that I kind of lose track of. I know that.

"

Harden had similar comical moments in the FIBA, but he also had some good moments. Learning to stay focused on defense isn’t a singular decision; it’s one that requires constant reinforcement. So yes, he’s going to have some stupid moments.

Ariza can guard the better wing and leave Harden to take care of the lesser one. That means he only has to be average. 

He's historically good on offense. Last year he averaged 25.4 points on .618 true shooting and added 6.1 assists. Per Basketball-Reference.com, the only other players to ever do that are Michael Jordan, LeBron James and Larry Bird.

Harden has Hall of Fame ability. And people forget that he's still just 25. He has room to develop his defense. If he can do that this year, he can legitimately compete for the MVP. 

The preseason stats for this article were obtained from RealGM.com and are current through games of Oct. 15.