11/12/2022 0 Comments Houston rockets roster 2014 2015The bottom line is this is the end of the floor where improvement needs to happen. This needs to be a team thing, not just one guy, and the scheme needs to fit the personnel. Harden is Harden but says he’s going to work on being more focused on defense. #Houston rockets roster 2014 2015 upgrade(Howard isn’t as explosive as he was back in Orlando but he’s still a very good rim protector.) They have Patrick Beverley out top, and Ariza should be a defensive upgrade over Parsons. Their defense didn’t really improve last season over the season before despite bringing in Howard to patrol the paint and glass. They were 12th in the NBA in points allowed per possession. And so on down the line, the Rockets need to find depth and rotations that can work when Harden and Howard sit.Ĭan they improve defensively? The Rockets offense was top five in the league last season, they put up plenty of points (although Howard/Harden need to reduce their turnovers), but their defense was pedestrian. Jason Terry needs to show he still has some game left. Trevor Ariza got paid after a big season in Washington, can he put up similar numbers again? Donatas Motiejunas has to take on a bigger front court role. The Rockets lost quality role players this summer and some lesser known guys are going to have to really step up for the Rockets to even match last season’s success. James Harden and Dwight Howard are elite players, but that alone doesn’t win you games, especially come the playoffs. In their place comes Trevor Ariza, Jason Terry, rookies Clint Capela and Nick Johnson, Ish Smith, Jeff Adrien, Joey Dorsey, and Kostas Papanikolaou.ĭepth behind their stars. Gone is some key depth: Omer Asik, Jeremy Lin and Chandler Parsons, as well as Omri Casspi and Jordan Hamilton. But then Bosh took the big payday to stay put and all the moves Morey had made to clear out cap space became holes. Key player changes: It was almost a monster off-season for the Rockets, GM Daryl Morey was going to move them into contender status by grabbing Chris Bosh out of Miami to make his own big three. Signature highlight from last season: There were some James Harden game winners and great blocks by Dwight Howard, but was there any play more fun than Patrick Beverley dunking on Chris Bosh’s head? Again, the Rockets had a good team and a good season, but they need to hope it’s a first step. This all came to a head when the Rockets lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Portland Trail Blazers in about the most painful way possible. While statistically Harden and Howard were good together (+9.3 per 100 possessions when on the court together) they seemed more to play next to each other than with each other. Make no mistake, the Rockets were a good team - 54 wins, which tied them for the four seed in the West - but the team never really seemed to form an identity. Which felt like a first step or a disappointment, depending on your point of view. Last season: There were high expectations with James Harden and Dwight Howard being paired in Houston, and the Rockets were good, but not great.
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