Remember Chandler Parsons’ pre-injury stint with the Houston Rockets?

Chandler Parsons might be known more for his injuries and hefty contracts, but his NBA beginnings in Houston looked to pave the way towards a bright future.

The last four years have not been kind to Chandler Parsons‘ NBA career.

A four-year, $98.4 million contract signed with the Memphis Grizzlies in the summer of 2016 shined an intense beam of pressure his body wasn’t able to withstand. In the four years since that max deal, he’s played in no more than 36 games in a season, and just 100 in total.

A similar combination of games missed and money earned hasn’t been kind to fellow benefactors of the famous cap spike of 2016 like Ian Mahinmi and Joakim Noah. It was a grouping Parsons couldn’t avoid, labeling him injury-prone with fans hurling criticism for a contract brought to him by the Grizzlies organization.

Maybe not more unfortunate than his inability to attempt to live up to such a lofty contract, but the recently developed perception of Parsons career fails to do justice to the early portion of his NBA tenure that got him to this point.

Parsons spent four years at the University of Florida, averaging a modest 11.3 points, 7.8 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game in his senior season, earning SEC Player of the Year honors before being drafted 38th overall by the Houston Rockets.

A 6’9” forward who could handle the ball and stretch defenses out to the 3-point line, the foundation was in place for Parsons to carve out a spot in Houston’s rotation, especially given the route the NBA game was headed down.

Given the depleted state of Houston’s wing depth, it took Parsons just seven games to usurp Chase Budinger in the starting lineup en route to an All-Rookie Second Team selection.

The following season saw the arrival of James Harden, which allowed Parsons to slide into the complementary role his all-around game was better suited for.

With further development and a teammate adept at easing the complexities of the game, he thrived with 15.5 points, 5.3 boards and 3.5 assists while shooting 38.5 percent on 5.2 3-point attempts per game.

Thanks to the efforts of Harden — but certainly not without help from Parsons — the Houston Rockets ended a three-year playoff drought.

For Parsons, the early-career postseason trip was a chance to broadcast his talents to a larger audience. It also meant a matchup with the Oklahoma City Thunder and a positional battle with Kevin Durant.

Under circumstances that would overwhelm many other sophomores, Parsons more than held his own against the reigning Western Conference champions. He shot 40.0 percent on 6.7 3-point attempts, averaging 18.2 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game.

Even in a six-game defeat, Chandler Parsons made himself known among NBA circles, most notably for leading the way to a Game 4 victory with a team-high 27 points along with 10 rebounds and eight assists to avoid elimination.

The 2013-14 season remains the best of Parsons career in part because of the exclusive company his career-high numbers of 16.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game placed him in.

Along with hitting at least 37.0 percent of their long-distance attempts, only three other players matched or exceeded Parsons production that season: Durant, LeBron James and Kevin Love.

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Parsons also became the record-holder for most threes in a single half when he went 10-of-11 from beyond the arc in the second half of a one-point loss to Memphis. Those 10 were his total on the night, marking a franchise record that has since been tied by James Harden multiple times.

A return to the playoffs brought with it more of the previous year’s play from Parsons. This time against the Portland Trail Blazers, he put up 19.3 points, shooting 36.1 percent on 6.0 3-point attempts along with 6.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists a night in a six-game series the Rockets once again fell short in.

A restricted free agent in the summer of 2014, Houston’s pursuit of Chris Bosh paved the way for Chandler Parsons to depart to the Dallas Mavericks on a three-year, $46 million offer sheet that went unmatched by the Rockets.

Despite comparative numbers to his peak years — in fewer minutes — with 14.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game across two seasons, Parsons’ list of injuries began to expand.

He missed 16 games in his inaugural Mavericks season and 21 the next. Despite back-to-back playoff appearances for Dallas, Parsons played one out of a possible 10 games due to cartilage issues and knee surgery.

After opting out of his contract, Parsons signed the Memphis deal. Injuries hit him at every turn and he was traded to the Atlanta Hawks this past summer, where he was then waived in February to make room for Clint Capela.

The timing of Parsons’ steady decline into the NBA’s bargain bin is cruel, coming at a point where the need for point forwards with 3-point range experienced a meteoric rise.

Barring a miraculous return from potentially career-ending injuries suffered in a car crash in January, Parsons won’t ever be able to shed the labels that accumulated over the last few years — not that those matter in the grand scheme of his well being.

He might have been given more money than what he was worth with a record of ailments that could categorize him as someone susceptible to further harm.

But for those things to matter and enrage fanbases, a player has to be at a level that warrants such attention in the first place. Chandler Parsons certainly was during his three years with the Houston Rockets, and it’s important that remains as big a part of his story as what followed.