Houston Rockets' Resilience Defines This Year's Team

Turns out Charles Barkley may very well be wrong (yet again, Chuck) in describing the 2009-10 Houston Rockets as “the worst team in the West.”

First of all, Trevor Ariza and Aaron Brooks are turning out to be a lot better than advertised.

In addition, Shane Battier is a born leader and is more than equipped to guide this team through this season and beyond.

When asked about this season’s team’s resilience, Battier noted that it was a testament to the guys in the locker room.

“We have guys who don’t make a lot of excuses—they play to win, regardless of the situation,” Battier said following the Rockets 111-107 victory over Portland in their home opener. “I don’t know if people take that for granted or what, but it’s rare in sports. This is the third year we’ve faced pretty significant adversity and not once have we made an excuse.”

Adding Ariza, subtracting Ron Artest; wondering when Tracy McGrady will join the rest? No problem.

“We just plug in the next guy and play harder,"“Battier said. “It’s been pretty impressive and it’s as impressive as a three-year span that I’ve [experienced] just in terms of team attitude. Usually the attitude can last for a year and then it crumbles the next time you face adversity, but we’ve always had a good attitude here in this locker room.”

Houston played a remarkable game on Halloween night against a very good Trail Blazers team, and Rockets.com writer Jason Friedman (along with a few guys from the team) had a few words for Barkley following the Rockets big victory to move to 2-1 this season.

You know what? I absolutely love this year’s Rockets team.

“We’ve got a pretty young team and we’ve got a bunch of new faces on this team so the scouting report is not that big,” Houston’s Carl Landry said. “We’ve got guys that are hungry who are going out there every night and fighting hard to get us in the “w” column.”

So far, so good.

Keep up the hard work, Houston. You guys are bound to shock the NBA world this season...

Denton Ramsey may be reached via email at [e-mail]