In keeping with the out of sync, overdue, and out of order goals of this series, here’s a look at Rockets at the halfway point of the 24-25 season.
First, if I had, during, say Vegas Summer League, offered you a record of 28-14 at just about halfway through this season, I daresay most would have jumped on it. This works out to a 55/56 win pace. It’s fair enough to say such things, though by no means certain, as we have a sample of essentially half a season. Let’s be optimistic in the continued growth of the roster, an ongoing Good Green, and slightly better shooting, and say the Rockets finish with 56*.
56 wins is, I daresay, very good.
For some perspective, 56 wins was surpassed once, and equaled once in the best of the James Harden Rockets years.
The Rockets truly good season is being overshadowed by OKC’s absurd run, but make no mistake, the Rockets have the chops of a very good team, though with the misfortune of being in a Western Conference with another team doing historic stuff. You’d hear a lot more about the Rockets without it, but such seems to be the Rockets lot.
(OKC, to me at least, is ironically a sort of perfection of The Harden Ideal, or its evolution from a mathematical formula to actual, clever, basketball. I honestly don’t think that team is much of a threat to do anything special without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as the sun around which the Thunder roll. Sure, they play great defense, and can shoot, and that probably makes them a playoff team without him. But I also believe there’s exactly one player on OKC who can create his own offense, just like the Harden Rockets mostly had exactly one player who could create his own offense. All the cute stuff OKC does, all the rah-rah small ,town stuff, just isn’t as scary without the dire, and persistent, threat of SGA. Also, SGA has a lot of James Harden in his game, but as he’s not actually James Harden, people love him and want to give him MVP awards.)
You can, of course, extrapolate a record as well as I can. While you’re doing it, or not, I urge to take a moment to enjoy this team. It’s very rare to have a team that is simultaneously very good, and also carries almost no expectations. There’s no need to revert back to the frustrations of being so close in the peak Harden years. You don’t need to tear yourself to pieces over narrow margins, bad breaks, and possible malfeasance. Those days are gone. Let them lie in the past.
The Rockets are freewheeling, for at least this season. The expectations, and all the pain, and perhaps joy, but likely not, they bring are in the future. This is a time to enjoy basketball, to hope for the best, and not really worry about outcomes that much.
Most of the things we hoped for with a rebuild are, in fact, happening. It’s slow, it’s not always perfect, and not everything we hope for will come to pass. Today, though, despite a win or a loss tonight, or tomorrow, is a good day to be a Rockets fan.
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*Please assume this is caveated within an inch of its existence. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but is often a useful starting point for analysis.
