Houston Rockets: James Harden Wants “Olympic” Season
As the Houston Rockets coast through the preseason with four games under their belt, the team has amassed an impressive 3-1 record so far.
I know it’s the preseason but it gives encouragement of what the team can do in the upcoming days, weeks and months ahead in the 82-game NBA season.
It’s evident that the team has bolstered their lineup with acquisition of Trevor Ariza as well as their bench with the signing of Kostas Papanikolaou, Jason Terry, Francisco Garcia and Jeff Adrien.
Two of the team’s three draft picks from the off season will be available to help — that would be Nick Johnson and Clint Capela.
Isaiah Canaan is expected to step into a larger role as the primary point guard backup with the departure of Jeremy Lin to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Donatas Motiejunas will be poised to step into a larger role.
But one thing remains the same.
The two cornerstones — the anchors of the Rockets — will be available to guide this team to hopefully even more success than they had from last season’s abrupt first-round exit from the NBA Playoffs.
Who are they?
James Harden and Dwight Howard of course!
Harden is just fresh off of impressively leading the United States basketball team win the gold in the FIBA Basketball Tourney which is the basketball equivalent of soccer’s World Cup.
He averaged 14.2 points, 3.2 assists and 2.1 steals. He shot 52.6 percent from the field, 41.4 percent from the three-point line and 81 percent from the charity stripe while playing the three-spot for the team.
Harden wants to bring that gold-medal type mentality to the team this season and he so much as said so Tuesday:
"“The idea is to bring to Houston the same mindset,” Harden told NBA.com’s Fran Blinebury. “For us there was one goal — to win the gold medal this summer. Now I say the same thing with the Rockets. Our one goal to win an NBA championship. It can done. If everybody is on the same page, the sky’s the limit.”"
I certainly like the optimism out of Harden but it’s going to be a long road with a lot of twists and turns.
This team has a plethora of youth and they can use that to their advantage by being enabled to take the ground and pound of a full season.
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I hope Harden also has decided to implement another mindset — step up his defense.
The jury is out on that one and although he is a prolific scorer, he does take nights off in that category.
But he makes up for it in so many ways…
We can only hope for the best as the Rockets prepare for liftoff from the launch pad in a couple of weeks.
I agree with Harden — it CAN be done, but will it?
Only time will tell…
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