MAPPING PARADE ROUTES
October brings another chance for Astros, along with growing opportunity for Rockets
This is gear-changing week for the city’s major sports franchises.
The Astros go from the regular season to the playoffs, when they host Cleveland in Game 1 of an American League Division Series on Friday.
The Rockets begin preseason play with arguably the most promise they have had — on paper at least — since their 1995 NBA title squad.
And the Texans? Well, they travel to Indianapolis looking to jump-start a season that to this point has them as one of only three teams without a victory.
But don’t let the Texans’ depressing performances ruin what should be a fun time for local sports fans.
While H-Town’s NFL entry is slopping around like rotary dial phones, tethered to the wall of mediocrity, few organizations operate at a higher level than the Astros and Rockets. They are smart, innovative and they win.
The Astros are a couple of weeks of good fortune from becoming the second team to win back-to-back World Series titles since interleague play began in 1997.
Baseball playoff series are coin flips, but these resilient Astros, finishing off a historic season with a run differential that ranks among the greatest in MLB history, will be a tough out. Since 1970, just four other World Series champions have won 100 games the following season, and the Astros could end the weekend with a franchise record for wins.
Jim Crane brought in Jeff Luhnow, Luhnow hired A.J. Hinch, and the Astros are winning in a way that many oldschool baseball people said could not be done. They are a couple of weeks of good fortune from being the Golden State Warriors. Were it not for the Warriors, the Rockets would be the Warriors.
Under general manager Daryl Morey and now coach Mike D’Antoni, the Rockets are on a short list of teams at the forefront of a movement that has revolutionized the NBA.
Changed the game
Many of us miss the days of nasty, low-post scorers who overpowered defenders and dominated games, but for now those days are over. Basketball is about versatile, long-range shooting teams like the Rockets, whose approach is a seamless mesh of skills and numbers.
Making and taking more 3-pointers than ever, the Rockets put together a record-breaking year that was the kind of season that most often ends in a championship. Since the 3-point line was added, 12 of the other 16 teams to finish with 65 or more wins claimed the title that season.
The Warriors got in the Rockets’ way. The NBA title still goes through the Bay Area, but if any team can put enough together to topple Golden State, it is the Rockets.
“Anything less than the Western Conference finals would be a disappointment,” owner Tilman Fertitta said.
The conference finals isn’t the goal, of course. Fertitta started there as a means of allowing for the role luck often plays in championships.
Thing is, the Rockets might not need to get lucky to win it all. Last year, Fertitta’s team needed to avoid bad luck more than it needed good luck.
After the Rockets took a 3-2 series lead against the Warriors, Chris Paul went down with a hamstring injury and Golden State beat Houston in Games 6 and 7. Had Paul not gotten hurt, Fertitta probably would have won a championship in his first season as owner.
“He’s here to win championships, and that’s what we aspire to do,” Rockets CEO Tad Brown said. “We haven’t had a parade here in a long time, but that doesn’t mean that we’re going to shy away from the obligation to bring that expectation every single day to work. That’s what our guys believe in.
“The one thing that we’re missing in this organization right now is another title and that’s what we’re going after.”
Title aspirations
Championship talk is coachspeak. Every team claims to be in it to win it. Most know they won’t.
Parade talk is telling. Generally, only those who believe a citywide celebration is a realistic possibility go there.
From day one, Crane and Luhnow talked about their championship aspirations. A couple of days before the start of the 2017 season, Luhnow sat in the dugout with me and went the parade route. It wasn’t a prediction. It was an acknowledgement that his team was good enough.
I heard similar sentiments coming from the Rockets as they prepared to leave for a week-long training camp in Lake Charles, La.
It is what Carmelo Anthony says most impressed him when he spent time around his new teammates in a minicamp in the Bahamas, and when he talked to Fertitta about expectations in coming to Houston.
Anthony impressed
While on a family vacation in South Africa, the 10-time All-Star received a call that wasn’t a typical wooing.
Fertitta cut right to the championship chase.
“I tell you exactly what I told him: ‘We couldn’t win a championship without you last year. And if we win a championship with you this year, you’re gonna to be the guy that got us over there. So, it’s all up to you,’ ” Fertitta said. The perfect touch. Anthony hasn’t been in a championship parade since he led Syracuse to the NCAA title in 2003.
“We know what we’re here for,” Anthony said. “I don’t think anybody is thinking anything differently than trying to win a championship.”
The Astros have a preferred parade route. At least the Rockets are close enough to talk about it.