So Far, Undefeated Houston Rockets Making Up for Missing Out on Chris Bosh
MIAMI — Patrick Beverley went a bit beyond imagining the possibility. He tried to help the Houston Rockets realize it.
When Chris Bosh was torn about where to continue his NBA career, and when the Rockets were looking to round out their lineup with the perfect complement to their current core, Beverley put in a call to the nine-time All-Star, someone he'd gotten to know during 2010 Heat training camp, and had stayed friendly with since.
The pitch?
"We need you," Beverley said before Tuesday's game against the Heat.
The Rockets' fiesty point guard smiled, before speedily retreating, perhaps due to the presence of the Rockets' current starting power forward, Terrence Jones, leaning back inside the adjacent locker stall.
"Nah, but he's a phenomenal player, man," Beverley said of Bosh. "He can do a lot of things. But everything happens for a reason, and we're happy with who we have now. We got a young 4 who's going out there, T-Jones going out there every night, proving himself and proving a lot of doubters wrong. So, at the end of the day, that's the only thing you can ask for."
Well, that and, after a 108-91 victory in AmericanAirlines Arena, a rousing 5-0 start to the season.
While the first four wins came against soft opponents—the Lakers, Jazz, Celtics and 76ers—the latest came against a fellow undefeated team, one that has also been a bit of a surprise:
Bosh's Heat.
The reigning Eastern Conference Player of the Week turned in his least impactful performance of the young season, even while scoring 21 points on 8-of-14 shooting.
After Bosh picked up two fouls in the first three minutes of the second quarter, Erik Spoelstra gave him the rest of the half off, even with Chris Andersen inactive, letting second-year center Justin Hamilton ride it out. Then, after Bosh scored 11 points in the third quarter and hit a three-pointer early in the fourth, he returned after a brief break to miss a long-range attempt at the top of the key.
That could have cut the Rockets' lead to one; instead, Houston rolled to an 18-5 finish, as Bosh touched the ball too infrequently.
Even with Jones sitting due to a sore knee, forcing Donatas Motiejunas into the lineup and energetic rookie Kostas Papanikolaou into a 37-minute stint, the Rockets played to their style perfectly.
Their two stars (Dwight Howard and James Harden) combined for 51 points, and newcomer Trevor Ariza, the Chandler Parsons replacement, stroked five of eight three-pointers, including one with Bosh bearing down in the corner.
And after finishing 23rd in the NBA in points per game allowed and 13th in defensive rating, last season, Houston held a fifth straight opponent to under 94 points and a fourth in five to under 43 percent shooting.
"There's a lot of areas we can still improve in," Rockets coach Kevin McHale said. "But the grit was something I was proud of tonight. The guys got after it."
About as hard as McHale, general manager Daryl Morey and the rest of Rockets management—and some of their players—got after Bosh, when they believed they had an opportunity to swipe him from South Florida.
This evening alone, or the start as a whole, encouraging as they've been, it won't stop Rockets fans or many NBA observers from wondering what could have been, had the recruiting efforts worked. After all, Morey had given away the first two players off his bench, Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin, to create more cap room to add a third cornerstone to complement Harden and Howard and didn't come up with one.
How would that trio have collaborated on the court?
How strong a contender could the Rockets have been?
McHale, with a tongue still as sharp as his elbows once were, didn't want to indulge the hypothetical exercise Tuesday. He spoke of Bosh as a "tremendous talent up in Toronto," who earned more of his admiration for sacrifices made to win championships in Miami.
How far did he go, in terms of assessing how Bosh would fit?
"I mean, we were hoping to, uh, have Chris come, but he chose Miami, so..."
So that was the end of his pregame media session.
You'd assume that Bosh gave "fit" considerable thought, seeing as how he has acknowledged that he was reasonably close to accepting the offer, before Pat Riley and Micky Arison decided that they would do whatever it took to keep him from leaving, which meant offering him $118 million over five years, as well as a revamped role as the core component of the Heat's quick post-LeBron reload.
That Heat role, thus far this season, has been as promised to him and advertised to the public. No, he's not getting the volume of post touches that he got while with Toronto, but, after four seasons of waiting his turn, he's being asked to initiate, facilitate and finish offense all over the floor, from the wings, corners and elbows, relying on his driving ability as well as his jumper.
He's encouraging his teammates to seize opportunities throughout the first three quarters, and for much of the fourth, moving the ball from side to side, getting everyone in rhythm. And then, down the stretch, "we know, yeah, No. 3 and No. 1, they got to get it where they need to get it," speaking of Dwyane Wade and himself. At the least, he's the Heat's co-closer.
Would that have been the case in Houston?
In a conversation earlier this week with Bleacher Report, he insisted that his study didn't really "get that far," since "it was just very, very early preliminary stuff" with Houston, and then, "by the time we really began talking about it, it was time to make a decision."
But, even as he tried not to get ahead of himself, yes, his brain did "go there" a bit. He said he suspected his role would have been roughly the same as what it is now in Miami and that he would have been been asked to "spread the floor, of course let the big fella (Howard) go to work, let everybody do what they do."
Two scouts who spoke to Bleacher Report believe that Bosh would have been even more lethal as a floor-spacer for Howard.
"In Miami, he never really had a true post-up guy next to him, all the years (there) with the Big Three," one scout said. "He had LeBron, who drew a lot of those double-teams, but from different spots on the floor. But they probably would have used him as a spacer from 17 to 18 feet, from the opposite side from where Dwight was operating. Whatever they did with him, though, he would have been great."
That scout also thinks Bosh would have been of locker-room value: "He would have been good for Dwight personally, just to have another professional in there with him. He would have been a good influence."
Neither scout, however, believes that Bosh would have had the frequency of opportunities, or license for variety, that he now has with the Heat. For one, he would have been playing power forward, not center, next to an established All-Star rather than another stretch 4 in Josh McRoberts or Shawne Williams.
There's also the matter of Harden, whose usage rate was roughly the same as Wade's last season according to Basketball Reference, but who, at age 25 compared to 32, isn't as ready to relinquish control.
Then there's the issue of familiarity, or lack thereof, which might have kept him from stepping into a primary scoring and leadership role immediately. He admitted this week that learning a new program, a new system and new teammates wouldn't have been easy on the fly, and "learning isn't always fun." That's especially true under pressure, with a Howard-Harden-Bosh trio likely to encounter extreme expectations.
"It would have been growing pains," Bosh said. "Absolutely."
Rockets players may not have been as deferential as his Heat teammates are, and Rockets coaches may not have been quite as trusting. In Miami, he's proven himself inside the organization, for his part in two rings.
"Right, right," Bosh said. "Yeah, being a champion and everything. And with the group we have in, it's like, all right, I told the coaches I'm ready to step up and be the leader that you need me to be. You know that. You know I'm comfortable with everything. And I'm in the locker room. And I'm in the city that I like."
So there's comfort in Miami.
"I know the system," Bosh said. "And I know what Spo is gonna bring. I know what the assistants are gonna bring. You know what's gonna happen. And that's good."
The Heat have been good so far, better than expected: "I have faith that success is coming. We know that if we do the work, it's gonna be good. We just got to keep doing what we're doing, and everything else will fall into place. We still expect to win. We're still gonna win. And we believe. You got those two things, man..."
The Rockets have been even better, and they were on Tuesday.
"I'm happy with the nucleus we have on this team now," Beverley said. "And I think with this nucleus, we can go against anybody."
That nucleus does not include a third star and doesn't even include someone who seemed to be becoming one—Parsons, whose Dallas offer sheet may have been matched had the Rockets signed Bosh.
It does include Ariza, who signed a four-year, $32 million contract to rejoin a Rockets team that had completely turned over since it traded him following a so-so 2009-10 season. He shot 33.4 percent from behind the arc that campaign, but he has evolved since and was instrumental in Washington's run to the second round of the 2014 postseason.
Tuesday, new teammate Jason Terry called Ariza "the most underrated two-way player in the league. He's progressed on the offensive end to become a knockdown shooter, where before he was a great slasher, and he's always been a great defender."
McHale called Ariza's defense a "big, big pick-me-up for our team." And Ariza keeps picking up three on the other end, making 60 percent of his attempts (21 of 35) through five games, playing at about half the price that Parsons is in Dallas.
"We came in together, and we played together in Orlando, and to see the way he's shooting the ball now, it just amazes me," Howard said.
"When you've got two studs like (Howard and Harden), you've got to double them," Ariza said. "So, somebody's got to be open. So far, I've been the one that's been left open, so I'll take advantage of it."
The Rockets have taken advantage of some weaklings early. But they showed something against Miami. They play the Spurs and Warriors next. We'll know much more about them soon.
And we already know this:
McHale is who he's always been.
Asked whether he thinks people are "sleeping" on the Rockets, he replied that the only sleep he cared about was what he'd get on the plane, in 45 minutes.
Does he believe people disrespected the additions the Rockets made, since they were focused on the ones they couldn't?
"You know what, I don't know, man," McHale said. "Let me tell you something. This is the truth here. I don't care what anybody thinks. When I played, I didn't care—why did I care what you thought? I don't care. I care about what we do in that locker room with our guys.
"I have no idea about that stuff. Never worried about that. Because you know what you do. All that caring goes away when you step on that floor. Then you and somebody are getting it on. And that's all that matters. You've got to go out there and compete."
With the guys you have.
Not all the ones you wanted.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
