Biggest Offseason Priorities and Targets for Houston Rockets
The Houston Rockets could hardly have suffered a more stunning end to their 2016-17 season.
First, they followed up a blowout home win in Game 4 against the San Antonio Spurs with a heartbreaking overtime loss in the Alamo City. Then, the Rockets came out flatter than tap water in Game 6 en route to a 114-75 blowout at Toyota Center, despite hosting a Spurs squad that lost Tony Parker to a ruptured quad in Game 3 and Kawhi Leonard to a sprained ankle in Game 5.
Now, Houston heads into the offseason with seven of its top eight players returning. That group includes James Harden, who bowed out with a season-low 10 points to go with seven assists and six turnovers before fouling out of his team's finale.
The Rockets, though, aren't nearly as broken as that last bitter taste may suggest. Racking up 55 wins—the third-most in the NBA—and sprinting into the second round in Mike D'Antoni's first season on the job counts as serious progress following the squad's debacle in 2015-16.
What can Houston do to not only maintain what it's built, but take another sizeable step forward? Read on to find out.
Extend James Harden Again
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Normally, players aren't allowed to sign extensions in consecutive offseasons. James Harden will be an exception to that rule this offseason, along with fellow MVP candidate Russell Westbrook.
According to The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski, the Houston Rockets, who renegotiated-and-extended Harden's contract for $118 million last July, can tack another $171 million over four years to the deal starting in 2019.
Why the exemption for Harden? As Woj explained:
"The league and union worked together on the Harden/Westbrook arrangement with the belief that neither player, nor the Rockets or Thunder, should be punished for honoring the spirit of the rules: encouraging players to remain with current teams on contract extensions.
"When those deals were negotiated to raise the players' salaries and add extra years to the contracts, the teams and players were unaware that the new CBA would offer such substantial financial rewards for waiting another year."
That doesn't mean Harden is guaranteed to jump on the money now. He'll be eligible for a similar sum come the summer of 2018, and as Woj added, he may be inclined to wait and see what the Rockets do to improve around him before committing to the team long-term.
Houston, though, has every reason to push for those assurances sooner rather than later. With Harden locked up, the team's front office can rest easier knowing it will have one of the world's best basketball players for years to come and sell that certainty to prospective free agents.
Keep Searching for a Second Star
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Time and again—including on a recent episode of Bleacher Report's Full 48 podcast—Rockets general manager Daryl Morey has said his goal, above all else, is to bring in as much talent as possible to help his team compete for a title. Houston's success around Harden's singular brilliance this season doesn't figure to dissuade him from that approach.
To be sure, the Rockets didn't lean quite as heavily on Harden as, say, the Oklahoma City Thunder depended on Russell Westbrook. According to NBA.com, Houston outscored the opposition by 2.8 points per 100 possessions when Harden sat during both the regular season and the playoffs.
Still, without another playmaker capable of tilting the court and drawing double teams, the Rockets' offense too often became one-dimensional when opposing defenses committed to bottling up Harden. And when he rested against good teams—like, say, the San Antonio Spurs—Houston frequently resorted to a fruitless game of hot potato among its remaining three-point gunners.
Having someone else who can get buckets (and offer some resistance on the other end) would help to keep Houston moving during the playoffs. The Rockets, though, aren't exactly in a strong position to snag that second stud. They can cobble together about $13 million in cap space by declining qualifying offers and non-guaranteed deals for players at the end of their bench.
That's not nearly enough to nab a big name in free agency. It's also not enough of a deterrent to keep Morey from finding other creative ways to add talent, as he has throughout his tenure in Space City.
Add Another Big Man
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Second star or no, the Rockets could use another big body up front. Nene's injury against the Spurs made that much clear.
Clint Capela can't pick-and-roll for 48 minutes a night. Ryan Anderson can stretch the floor with the best of them but offers even less resistance at center than he does at power forward. Montrezl Harrell, while effective as a finisher, is undersized for the position and not particularly effective outside of, say, five or six feet from the cup on either end.
Finding a big man who can set screens, roll to the hoop, defend around the rim and grab rebounds (the Rockets ranked 21st in defensive rebounding during the regular season, per NBA.com) shouldn't require a full-blown search party.
If there's any market inefficiency to be exploited in today's NBA, it's up front. The league is flush with bigs whose value has declined in a game that favors skill and shooting over size and strength.
Perhaps the Rockets can pluck Dewayne Dedmon off of San Antonio's bench or have Harden work his L.A. connections to land Taj Gibson or Amir Johnson. If that falls through, maybe Houston can target a bona fide pivot already under contract whose low-post skills are atrophying on a shelf somewhere.
Operating on the block may be anathema to how Morey and head coach D'Antoni want to play. But if the Rockets' flameout was any indication, having someone who can create scoring opportunities inside the arc might come in handy when the offense bogs down against good defenses.
Don't Mess (Too Much) with Success
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After seeing how the Spurs spanked them, there may be some temptation to shift away from the style of play that worked so well in Houston for most of the 2016-17 season.
The Phoenix Suns suffered a similar crisis of confidence a decade ago after falling short of a Western Conference crown in three straight seasons while committing to their D'Antoni's Seven Seconds or Less style.
Prior to the 2008 trade deadline, Steve Kerr, then the general manager in Phoenix, acquired Shaquille O'Neal, the very antithesis of D'Antoni's stylistic vision, in a deal that sent Shawn Marion, the Suns' small-ball power forward, to the Miami Heat and moved Amar'e Stoudemire to the 4.
"We blinked, and we shouldn't have," D'Antoni told ESPN's Tim Keown.
That spring, Phoenix suffered a "gentleman's sweep" against San Antonio in the opening round. D'Antoni fled to New York shortly thereafter, leaving behind a Suns squad that subsequently slipped into the lottery.
It wasn't until Alvin Gentry replaced Terry Porter on Phoenix's bench and reinstated D'Antoni's spread pick-and-roll during that ill-fated 2008-09 campaign that things turned back around. The Suns went on to win 54 games in 2009-10 and crack the Western Conference Finals.
Conventional wisdom doesn't figure to affect these Rockets like it once did with those Phoenix teams. After all, Houston's identity aligns quite closely with the paradigms of modern basketball: shoot threes, get to the free-throw line, avoid mid-range jumpers like the plague.
A few tweaks on defense and, perhaps, someone who can score inside the arc could help—just not at the expense of the same formula that sparked this season's stunning turnaround.
Get Ahead of 2018
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The Rockets may like their core, but they shouldn't get too comfortable with it just yet.
Trevor Ariza will be an unrestricted free agent in 2018. So will Lou Williams. Capela and Harrell are both set for restricted free agency that same summer. Surely, Morey is already mulling what to do about those potential defections when they come due.
That may be the time for Houston to strike in free agency. The Rockets are slated to have considerably more cap space available for what could be a star-studded class. Russell Westbrook, Harden's childhood friend and former teammate in OKC, may well headline a group that includes Paul George, DeMarcus Cousins and native Houstonian DeAndre Jordan.
In the meantime, the Rockets can extend Capela and continue to plumb the depths of the basketball world for sleepers. Their 2017 first-round pick belongs to the Los Angeles Lakers as recompense for Williams, though they will have two second-rounders—Denver's and Portland's—to spend after sending their own to the Knicks.
Beyond that, Houston can do its usual song-and-dance digging up diamonds in the rough, be it from their D-League club in Rio Grande Valley, among what would be a potent pool of undrafted free agents and just about anywhere else in the world basketball players can be found.
That complete commitment to multimodality in team building has gotten the Rockets pretty far, albeit with a ways still to go in pursuit of another Larry O'Brien Trophy.
All stats via NBA.com and Basketball Reference unless otherwise noted.
Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and listen to his Hollywood Hoops podcast with B/R Lakers lead writer Eric Pincus.
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