Throwing it all away on the Houston Rockets

Excuse me while I get this off my chest.  I just need to get my money’s worth after a season of horribly, ill-advised wagering.  We’ll get to that in a bit.

By no means am I a Houston Rockets fan.  In fact, after the season they had, I’d be surprised if there were any left.

The Rockets were a once proud franchise, winners of back-to-back championships in the mid-90s.  The 2016 Rockets are a laughing stock.  Yes, they made the playoffs but did so with a record of 41-41.  They were the NBA’s solid C-minus student, doing just enough to get by.  It didn’t take long before they were summarily dismissed from the post-season in embarrassing form, losing their four games to the Golden State Warriors by a combined 95 points.

Rockets bad

This was a Rockets team that looked good on paper but absolutely abominable once the ball was tipped.

I guess I should have learned my lesson after the first few wagers but I couldn’t help myself.  I lost a fair amount of money on them this season, thinking eventually, they’d have to put something together, that eventually they’d have to come even somewhat close to living up to their potential.

They never did.

So I’ll be damned if I’m not going to get my money’s worth out of a healthy “Fuck the Useless Piece of Shit Rockets” rant.  You might want to grab your earmuffs if you haven’t already.

This team set all-new standards for dysfunction and disappointment.  Houston had more than just a problem.  They had a whole slew of ‘em.

In their final game of the season in which they played Golden State, agreeably a hearty matchup for any team in the league, the Rockets played their worst and that’s saying something because the Rockets have thrown up some real winners.

Last Wednesday night, they lost 114-81… and the game wasn’t even that close.  What I saw all night long was Rocket players coming down the court and launching bad shots without running any semblance of organized offense.  Down big, on three straight possessions, Rockets players were taking shots as if they couldn’t wait to clean out their lockers.

More bad Rockets

Facing elimination Friday night, with two of their best players lost for the season to injury, the Los Angeles Clippers fought tooth and nail, ultimately losing to the probably worse but clearly healthier Portland Trailblazers.  In defeat, they can hold their heads high.  With two of their best players healthy, the Rockets laid a stink bomb against Golden State losing by over thirty.

The Clippers lost but tried.  The Rockets did no such thing.  They were an abomination of a basketball team.  They were poorly coached, exhibited zero leadership and served as the perfect example of a team with talent not maximized.

With the Warriors’ best player lost to injury, the Rockets, who were still huge underdogs, made no adjustments to take advantage of his absence.  If anything, their shitty play fed right into the Warriors’ hands.  If J.B. Bickerstaff who took over for the fired Kevin McHale is retained as their coach, Rockets fans might want to start looking for the nearest ledge to jump off to save them the agony of watching even another minute of Rocket basketball.

By the end of the first quarter of Game Five, the Warriors were leading 37-20.  James Harden had scored 16 of Houston’s 20 points.  With turnovers and costly shots abound, the game was about as unwatchable as a bloodletting.  The only joy I took in watching them getting boat raced came in knowing I could no longer lose any more money by betting on them.

I gripe not because I care for the Rockets but because I enjoy watching good basketball.  The Rockets and good basketball don’t even belong in the same sentence.  The Rockets and good riddance do.

In the end, Las Vegas took advantage of me.  According to my bookie, we went 3-of-58 betting on them this season which sounds a lot like the team’s shooting percentage.  Clearly Las Vegas knew better than I that there was no way this team could muster up any sort of self-respect.  They also knew that by routinely sending out nice fat money lines, often coming back at eight to one or better, they’d reel in suckers like to me trying to rationalize that this team had talent but didn’t know what to do with it.

Don’t get me wrong.  No one in their right mind gave Houston a chance to knock off the defending champs but with Steph Curry out, one would think his MVP rival, James Harden, would step up his game and present something of a challenge.  That was the furthest thing from the truth.

James Hardly

Houston has some big decisions to make this off-season.  Dwight Howard, Jason Terry and Josh Smith are all unrestricted free agents.  I’m no fortune teller but I’d be surprised if any of those three stayed put. After what I saw this series, I’d be surprised if anyone living within the Houston city limits wanted them back.

My best friend Dwight Howard averaged a near career low in points scored this season (13.7 ppg).  So did Josh Smith (6.6 ppg).  So did Jason Terry (5.9 ppg).   I know Jason Terry has some miles on those legs but he was once a twenty-points a game scorer.  He finished the game scoreless, 0-7 from the floor.

Meanwhile James Harden led the league in both field goal attempts and turnovers.

Laughable.

The Rockets GM thinks the team’s chemistry problems are overstated.  Since you’re cleaning house, you might as well run that guy out of town too for he knows not of what he speaks.

If I were a Rockets season ticket holder, I’d ask the team for my money back, demanding retribution for the steaming pile of basketball they’d subjected me too all season long.  And if I were the Rockets, I’d honor that request just to clear my conscience.

Please follow and like us:
Pin Share

10 Replies to “Throwing it all away on the Houston Rockets”

  1. You bet on the Rockets 58 times this season? Being 3-54 wasn’t a hint? I don’t know whether to put my arm around you and console you or drop you off somewhere to get help lol. Art Schlister salutes you!

  2. Okay, D, so the 58 number was a little misleading.

    That included all parlays, three-teamers and four-teamers we had the Rockets in.

    So let’s just say, when I saw them at +800 or better, I tended to throw them in on some round robins.

    You’d still think though, for a playoff team, the return on my investment wouldn’t have been all that bad.

    Um… it was.

  3. Always bet on black ? I don’t think so ! The Rockets absolutely suck ! Dwight Howard remains a waste of space and money.

  4. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of moves they make in the off-season.

    Clearly they’re going to build this team around Harden but that doesn’t mean he can go around shooting 43%.

  5. Howard is gone. Jason Terry will retire and be an assistant with his buddy Walton in LA. Don’t google it ’cause it ain’t public yet. Harden’s off season problems led to his out-of-shape start and subsequent injuries.
    Chris, to cap off your disgust with this dysfunctionate team let me point out one glaring moment. Game 3 Harden sinks a fall away shot in the paint for a 97-96 victory over GS. The Rocket bench showed little emotion on the late game winner. It was like “wtf we gotta play an extra game.”

  6. Going back to the McHale firing, Bets, I can’t help but wonder if there’s some sort of discord between the old school and the new.

    Look at the whole Karl-Cousins situation in Sacramento.

    Houston wasn’t beating Golden State with McHale with their coach but they sure as hell would have put more of a fight.

    As for Harden, we’ll see if he soon becomes the Carmelo of the league, meaning no one wants to play with him.

  7. No team with simpleton Dwight Howard will EVER win the NBA playoffs. Not possible, he’s just too dumb to win. Harden has talent but too much ego combined with weak coaching which permit him to lead the NBA in those awful stats.

    You were better off betting on the tanking Lakers Chumpy.

    3-55 ehh? … Buddy, I’d of kept my trap shut

  8. As I mentioned to D earlier, the 3-55 is a touch misleading, Tree, as we had the Rockets mixed in with some two, three and four teamers but the point is a) we still included them because of the high moneyline and b) they still suck.

    Dwight was solid in his early years in Orlando under Van Gundy but we all know how that turned out.

    He’s got a few years left of reduced productivity. It’ll be interesting to see where he ends up and whether he can turn things around or continue his ‘legacy.’

  9. Seeing Dwight Coward implode is wonderful.
    He spurned the Magic and Lakers for his own ego only to have his bitch ass nature exposed yet again in Houston.

    That clip of Kobe calling him “soft” will forever be the sum of Dwight in a nutshell.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaZkZQmyJT8

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*