Houston Rockets: 5 Keys To Saving The Season
By Duncan Smith
The Houston Rockets have been a disaster for much of the 2015-16 season, but here’s how they can get back on track.
The Houston Rockets have struggled mightily much of this season with a record of 18-19 after 37 games. The Rockets have benefited from a surprisingly weak middle section of the Western Conference and are extremely fortunate to find themselves in the seventh seed, but there is an element of fool’s gold to their place in the standings.
They’re just two games ahead of the injury-riddled Utah Jazz who have missed four of their top five guys for weeks, and have played a juggernaut of a schedule over that span.
Holy God.
— Hardwood Paroxysm (@HPbasketball) January 7, 2016
In the 34 days Gobert's been out, the Jazz played the Thunder twice, the Spurs twice, the Clippers and the Warriors.
The Rockets are lucky that other than the Jazz, who are still firmly in the eighth seed, there are no teams in the West who look capable of making a run and pushing them down in the standings. The Sacramento Kings are ninth with a 14-21 record, and every team below them is surely lottery-bound.
That said, the Rockets aren’t a team that was built to back into the playoffs with a sub-.500 record.
They aren’t supposed to be a squad with the end goal of being first round fodder for the Golden State Warriors or San Antonio Spurs, but that’s exactly what they look to be if they keep playing like a disinterested and disconnected group of individuals, devoid of leadership and direction.
There are a number of things that the Rockets need to get right if they want to climb the standings, but we’ll narrow it down to five essential key points — things that if they don’t get right their season is sure to be an unmitigated failure.
Next: Effort