THINKING BIGGER
The addition of 6-foot-10 Christian Wood effectively ends the Rockets’ small-ball era
Signing center signals the end of small ball and that’s good thing.
With the acquisition of Christian Wood, the team’s top target in free agency, the Rockets are an improved basketball team.
For one thing, the 25-year-old Wood is 6-foot-10. Granted he is rail-thin, but for a while last season, the Rockets seemed to go out of their way to prove that size doesn’t matter.
They found out how wrong they were when they reached the second round of the playoffs and looked up to see that LeBron James stood two inches above than any of their starters.
In the end, the Rockets’ small ball era was a short one. Trying to win that way was a tall order. Little came of it.
OK, I’ll stop.
More importantly, the Rockets have stopped.
That in itself is an offseason improvement.
While an argument could be made — and, boy did the Rockets’ brass make them — playing that way was their best chance at success last season, they never stood a chance.
Perhaps that is why James Harden has sent out the message that he’d like to continue his pursuit of a championship elsewhere.
It is up to owner Tilman Fertitta, CEO Tad Brown, new general manager Rafael Stone and firstyear head coach Stephen Silas to convince Harden otherwise. That, frankly, is a must.
The Rockets have been all-in on Harden since trading for him eight years ago. They’re not about to give up so easily.
Their time is coming, they think.
Understandably, one might scoff at a request for patience considering the franchise’s titlefree quarter-century.
But the last four years make up the winningest regular season stretch in franchise history. (Crank up the “woe is us” music, please.)
Can the new blood at the top take Harden and Co. to the next level?
How Stone and Silas handle Harden will determine the Rockets’ near future.
Step One in that is convincing Harden that the organization is capable of putting together a championship roster.
Harden has no reason to doubt the Rockets’ desire to do so. They have reshuffled the deck a half dozen times in hopes of putting better cards around their ace.
The Rockets have even gone into the deck to get a specific card for which Harden asked.
Alas, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, were not able to help Harden get the Rockets to the NBA Finals, let alone a championship.
Harden didn’t ask for Wood, but he could make Harden’s life easier.
Woods was a different player last year than he had been in trying to find a spot in the NBA, or anywhere in professional basketball.
He has been on five teams since going undrafted out of UNLV in 2015.
He posted on Twitter that three years ago he was released by the Fujian Sturgeons of the
Chinese Basketball Association without ever playing a game. The team apparently told him it was for, “Not being good enough.”
He certainly seems good enough now. Hungry to be great, with a chip on his shoulder for those who said he couldn’t, Woods will be a fascinating player to watch.
After playing sparingly for years, almost exclusively in garbage time at that, he found a spot in the Pistons’ rotation early in the season. Then, at the end of the year, he moved into the starting lineup and flourished, averaging just under 22 points and 10 rebounds in 35 minutes a game.
Always a decent outside shooter, Wood’s confidence in his range grew last season, plus he got stronger and became one of the NBA’s top finishers in pickand-roll.
This was a perfect time for him to become a free agent. A year ago, he went to camp with Detroit without a guaranteed contract. Now, he will make $41 million over the next three years.
Is he a flash in the pan? Another Jeremy Lin?
Odds are against that because of his size, but don’t discount the Rockets’ bet here.
Fertitta signing off on such a move is in line with what he has always said about his willingness to trust his basketball people to make the best basketball moves and adjust his budget accordingly.
Stone’s first offseason in charge is off to a decent start, on paper, but there are a lot of moves left to be made.
The move that the Rockets don’t want to make will depend on how good those are.