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Houston Rockets: Their offseason will be dictated by the Warriors’ moves

By Brian K. Patterson

Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta and general manager Daryl Morey (Photo by Bill Baptist/NBAE via Getty Images)
Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta and general manager Daryl Morey (Photo by Bill Baptist/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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The Houston Rockets will have a lot of work to do this offseason in tweaking an already competitive roster. But the Warriors will dictate. Why? Let’s look.

The Houston Rockets offseason is fully underway and the drama has already started.  It isn’t even July 1st yet and there’s already signs of the uncertainty of how this team is going to look in the future.

Look, I know it stung quite a bit for the Houston Rockets to fall to the Golden State Warriors in six games of the Western Conference Semifinals — that honestly should’ve been the West Finals — so I know this team is looking to do everything it can to ensure they bring a competitive team back in the fold to try the beat the Warriors next season.

But what if the Warriors disband and Kevin Durant bolts for what he deems as greener pastures?  Then that certainly means the Houston Rockets will have hopefully a better shot at getting to the NBA Finals.

But did you see how well they played even with Durant out of the picture?  Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green were doing their best impression of their 2015-selves and it put the Houston Rockets into a tizzy, looking clueless on how to stop them.  Prolific three-point shooting, excellent ball movement, not to defer to just one player — this was supposed to be the Houston Rockets; but unfortunately, that’s not so.

It was the Houston Rockets that we loathed toward the end of Game 6, sluggish ball movement,

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lots of isolation and guys not being able to knock down their threes.  Ultimately that’s why the Houston Rockets lost that series but I definitely see them making improvements to the bench and bringing most of the band back for next season.

With the salary cap situation, they’ll have to.  More than $100 million will be tied among James Harden, Chris Paul and Clint Capela, who all inked maximum-contract deals over the past two seasons.

Although Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta has said that he’s willing to spend over the luxury cap to keep this team competitive, I’ll believe when I see it.  The same talk was made at the beginning of last season, just after he bought the team but he ended up having to retreat from that notion.  Daryl Morey had to make a series of innovative trades to get the Houston Rockets back down below the tax line.

It’s unfortunate to admonish this but this season will be dictated by likely what Durant, Thompson — who both are free agents — and the Warriors decide to do this offseason.  Morey won’t be resting on his laurels but you better believe he’ll be keeping an eye on what Bob Myers and Steve Kerr doing.

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If they disband, then the Houston Rockets will move forward with what they have but if not, Lord help them because it’s hard to fathom a combination better than this one that can take them down.

We’ll have to see!

Let’s go Rockets!

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