HAPPY CAMPERS
Four new faces bring youth and hope to Houston.
The long, arduous slog had ended, making way for whatever the Rockets could build in its place.
The march through the injuries and defections, through the losing streak 20 games and a month long and the fall to 17 wins, was not dues to be paid as much as a bridge between the end of an era and the fresh start so desperately needed, and now welcomed.
The Rockets could not have imagined how it would feel to have emerged on the other side. They might not have even hoped for a sense of relief, of the charge that comes with youthful exuberance. The change has been unmistakable.
This is all just a start. Where it will lead is to be determined. But the Rockets have happily moved from an offseason almost entirely about departures to one celebrating arrivals.
“From ownership on down, everybody’s excited about it,” Rockets general manager Rafael Stone said, not just of the rebuild but also the refresh. “There’s complete buy-in at this stage about who we want to become. We know it’s not instant gratification. It’s not even a quick journey. But I think that everybody’s embracing every single step along the way. Every game, every practice, every meeting is an opportunity. We’re doing a good job of embracing that.”
In the NBA, summer’s good moods tend to be replaced by winter’s realities. Summer romances fade. The seasons that follow are long, and the Rockets are not so removed from 2020-21 to have forgotten how unforgiving the league can be.
They also cannot help but be invigorated by the infusion of youth and with it, hope.
With a draft haul of four teenagers, headlined by the electric second pick of the draft, Jalen Green, summer league has offered a glimpse of what could come in time. It also allows an organization to move past unhappiness with a group so young, it is still celebrating every moment.
“Let’s give our team, basketball ops, a lot of credit,” Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta said. “All four of these guys are exciting. We would have been excited about any one of them. This is the first time I’ve been to the summer league where we’ve really had a player. We have four rookies. There’s just a chemistry that’s really special. I’m so happy for the fans of Houston to watch this team develop over the next few years.
“You know, you see what happened with Atlanta and Phoenix when you go young. I don’t want it to take that long. I don’t think the future is that long away. It’s exciting to totally start over and build this team for the future that we really feel good about.”
The feeling has seemed contagious with every Rockets player making his way to Las Vegas during the summer league schedule with many pushing through workouts before the summer Rockets take the floor for practices.
“I guess ‘cleanse’ is a good word,” Rockets coach Stephen Silas said of going from last season’s struggles to the summer’s optimism. “We also don’t want to forget what happened last year, either because that is something that motivates all of us.
“So, to have all of the guys here together is great. It’s completely optional for the vets to be here, working out, coming to the summer league games. It’s just a good thing to have the whole group together, pulling in the same direction, knowing that there’s a lot of work we have to put forth to cleanse from last year but also just to play our best.”
Hope and optimism often come with summer league, where firstround picks get their first taste of the NBA, and fans get their first, tangible evidence that their team is getting a fresh start. The Rockets, more than most, needed that.
There seems to be more to it than that with them, and not just because they have more firstround picks than in their previous eight seasons combined.
Beyond bringing outsized potential and ambition, there is an exuberance in the style and play of Green, Alperen Sengun and Josh Christopher. They were joined Thursday by Usman Garuba, who lobbied to play a night after landing in Las Vegas after his travels from the Tokyo Olympics via Madrid.
“It’s great,” Silas said. “Rafael did a good job of drafting good people. The thing that makes this a little bit easier is we have really good people who want to do this the right way and want to succeed. At this point of the season, in August, of course you’re going to have guys who are excited and ready for doing things well. But it doesn’t have to be that well with all 15 guys we have under contract.
“There are young guys who bring that enthusiasm. But we’re seeing that from John Wall. We’re seeing that from Christian Wood. We’re seeing it from Jae’Sean Tate and the rest of the guys. So, it’s good.”
To Stone, however, the attitude adjustment did not begin with the draft, offseason or summer league. Somewhat paradoxically, he said he saw the change in the second half of the season, when the injuries and losses piled up but the Rockets began the full embrace of a transition from what was to what’s next.
“For us, as an organization, as a group, it was a trade deadline thing,” Stone said. “Post trade deadline, we had a group that liked each other and rooted for each other and I think the vibe of the team started taking place then. The culture we were building, the growth of that culture, really started then.
“Last year was an incredibly difficult year, having nothing to do with players, coaches or anything else. The world was just in a tough place. It still is. We’re all getting better at living within it. But there were challenges throughout the year. Our injury challenges were even worse post trade deadline. But I do think what we’ve seen this summer is really a continuation from a culture perspective of what we started building with the group we had post trade deadline.”
Some of the mood change comes just from a taste of normalcy. Though there are still widespread health and safety protocols, games are played with fans in the stands, as Green pointed out moments after the conclusion of his first game. Fully vaccinated players have more freedom than in much of last season. Even holding a summer league after it was canceled last summer represents a change for last season’s rookies.
“It’s fun to be able to go back to a little bit normal and us not having to worry about as much as we did,” second year forward K.J. Martin said. “It’s still going around so we have to stay protected, obviously. But things are kind of going back to normal.”
The summer workouts have also come in contrast to the end of last season when the Rockets were just trying to scrape together enough available players, some playing through injuries, to play the games. Though Green left Thursday’s game with a sore hamstring, he was unconcerned that the injury was more significant.
There is also a sense that the holdovers from the end of last season set a tone for summer workouts. Though much of that group was playing in the hopes to earn a contract, there were few examples of self-centered play treating games as auditions.
“Every day was a new guy, but all those guys played really hard and were fun to watch,” Stone said. “I think that was a preview of what we’ve seen in summer league.”
Rockets assistant coach Will Weaver, who is coaching the summer league team, said that has not only been evident in summer league but a factor in why there has been so much enthusiasm for it.
“Each guy has made such a contribution in that area, some vocal, some in their behavior,” Weaver said. “Collectively, what you’re seeing the most is just an absence of what you normally see in summer league, which is every man for himself. There hasn’t been a single example of that. In this case, maybe more powerful than the most positive things that have occurred is the total absence of anything negative going on in our group.”
It helps that the Rockets won their first two summer league games, even if they are meaningless in ways other than for development. Winning improves mood even in pick-up games. There is not a sense that a team filling its rotation with teenagers will roll when the games do count, but the expected growing pains would be for a purpose.
“We do have a bunch of really young guys, not just our summer league guys,” Stone said. “That youthful energy is infectious and fun. I do think our veterans have enjoyed being in Vegas with them. Everybody is embracing it. And basketball is supposed to be fun. We want to work really, really hard. We’re going to embrace the hard work and the growth, but we’re going to have fun along the way.”
That could not often be said last season. From the departures of James Harden and Russell Westbrook from the roster, to long-time general manager Daryl Morey and CEO Tad Brown from the front office, there was a cloud that hung over the season. After a mid-season bump following the Harden trade, the injuries and losses piled up until the Rockets played more players than any team in NBA history and lost more games than any team in the league.
Though Silas and Stone praised the attitude of those that finished the season, few from the outside could see or appreciate that.
The change cannot be missed now. It is understood that the restart Rockets have not won a game and that in the NBA, teams so young lose. But there has been an infusion of hope.
“We have a great group of young guys,” Martin said. “We’re all friends off the court. We have a solid foundation. We’re going to build on this and see where it takes us.”