‘SUCCESS’ IS RELATIVE
Prediction: There will be plenty of wordplay during the Rockets’ 2022-23 season.
Semantics will be a significant factor when it comes to the question of what is a successful season.
Bad will be good, close will be there, losing will be winning.
Criticism of a team that isn’t going to win a championship is tricky. When a squad isn’t good enough to be good, the positivenegative line is drawn a lot lower than it is for a contender.
Improvement can’t be the only measure.
Better than last year should be easy. The Rockets were the worst team in the NBA with just 20 wins.
Better than two years ago should be even easier. The Rockets were the worst team in the NBA with only 17 wins (in a 72-game season).
If they aren’t better, the season can’t be deemed a success.
Is this group of youngsters capable of contending for a play-in spot, the NBA version of a second chance to make the playoffs for teams that were not good enough to make the playoffs after the 82-game regular season?
The Rockets have 15 players on their roster who weren’t born when Rudy Tomjanovich’s team displayed the heart of a champion.
Hold on. I’m being told that is not an indicator of youth so much as a shot at how long it has been since the Rockets won a championship.
Well, darn. Had I known this column was going to bash the franchise, I would have led with the fact that the last time the Rockets were the worst team in the NBA over a twoyear stretch, they drafted
Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwon.
In the first year with the Twin Towers, Houston went 48-34. Of course, Sampson and Olajuwon were 25 and 23 years old, respectively.
These Rockets might be happy with a flip-flop of that at 34-48, which would be a 14game improvement on last year’s 20-win campaign. Kids today.
And by kids, a better note on how young the Rockets are is 10 players on their current roster were born after Y2K.
As Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.”
The Rockets have one prominent old man, 33-year-old, hot-and-cold shooter Eric Gordon, and a bunch of young men who need to learn from him.
There is no question that the Rockets have high expectations from Jalen Green and Jabari Smith Jr.
The franchise anticipates that Green, the No. 2 overall pick last year, and Smith, who was selected No. 3 this year, will be cornerstones on a championship team.
Recognizing that those title dreams will not be fulfilled this season, should temper expectations.
Green has the game to be an All-Star, perhaps even MVPlevel talent, but at 20 years old, he is far from being the player he will become.
Green started all 67 games he played in last season and averaged 17.3 points per game.
Kobe Bryant started just seven games in his first two seasons, when he was 18 and 19 years old, averaging 11.7 points in 150 games, on almost the same shooting percentage as Green (.426 for Green, .425 for Bryant).
Odds are against Green becoming an NBA icon like Bryant, but the potential for growth for a guy who isn’t old enough to rent a car is substantial.
Smith is a year younger than Green and has as much if not more potential. He is long (610), a very good outside shooter and a willing defender.
What a pair they could be. Green and Smith entered the league as teens. Give them time.
This is not their year for greatness. Not even their year for joining the conversation of the best twosome in the NBA.
But it should be a year where they put the word out that they are coming. A duo and a team on the rise.
That is a definition of success.
Head coach Stephen Silas has served two years of time with a team that was built to lose. It isn’t his fault that the Rockets are what their record says they have been.
Then again, his record and winning percentage (37-117;
.240) are the second worst in NBA history for a coach with at least 150 games.
Silas isn’t the worst. Can’t be. He could be the best, but with the players he has had, there is no way for us to know.
His “success” will be difficult to measure and won’t match the team’s.
His players play better. His team wins more. The Rockets are almost relevant again.
But teams don’t typically go from losing to winning overnight.
The Rockets could have a successful season and Silas not get credit for it.
Good will be bad.