Daily Rocket Science: Diagnosis and Prescription

There were many problems with the Houston Rockets this past season, and the accuracy of the diagnosis is of upmost importance to assure the correct prescription is filled.

This management for the Houston Rockets have a wide-open offseason in front of them, and the decisions made this summer could cure or harm the team. To properly understand what moves to make and what players to pursue, the decision makers must first understand the extent and specifics of the problems they’re trying to solve.

Houston Rockets news and notes from around the web

Rahat Huq of Red94 has been trying for a couple of weeks to accurately diagnose what went wrong this year in Houston, and has provided some clarity amongst the confusion. In part 7 of his current series, he wonders what caused the Rockets’ offense to improve despite not having a specific “scheme.”

"From my point of understanding, for our purposes here, my hypothesis was false: while the Rockets did smoke some of the league’s worst teams, as everyone does, they didn’t inflate their numbers just by beating up on bad teams.  Their performance was pretty scattered across the spectrum."

Joshua Cornelissen of HoopsHabit.com tried his hand at diagnostics, spreading the blame for the Rockets’ disappointing season out, including everyone from management to players to West coast rappers. I can’t say I agree with this assessment, but I can’t say Cornelissen didn’t do his homework.

"Pictures of Harden napping on a couch next to Kanye West or hitting up the beach scene with his new girl circulated the Internet. No pictures of Harden “hitting the weight room with  ” or “at Starbucks reading ‘Defense for Beginners’” surfaced. Players trying to date the Hollywood scene are going to be distracted. Harden went for the pinnacle of distracting offseasons, and it showed. K.J. McDaniels"

More from Space City Scoop

• Why Tad Brown is the Rockets’ biggest loss to date
• Rockets legend in awe over Stephen Curry’s level of play
• Rockets fiasco shows importance of Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook
• Houston Rockets: Evan Mobley worth a look at No. 2 in NBA Draft
• Houston Rockets: Ranking the top-five 2021 NBA draft prospects 

Houston’s management has surely been performing their own diagnostic tests, trying to figure out how exactly to get this team back on the right track. According, Ethan Rothstein of The Dream Shake, this offseason will be the Rockets’ most important summer in over a decade.

The Rockets were not good last year. Just because they managed to make the playoffs doesn’t discount the reality that they were 41-41 and were one of the most dysfunctional, unpleasant teams on the court in the league. Most NBA watchers would have chosen Timberwolves games, a far worse team but in a different head space, over watching Harden and Howard.

This is not a matter of “how good will the Rockets be next season?” question. This is now a much more fearsome proposition: “Will the Rockets be good next season?”

Let’s hope that, after all the trades, signings, and hirings have taken place, that the Houston Rockets will have filled the right prescription and can get back to playing good, healthy basketball next season.

Send our Editor any Rockets-related article/video/tweet/gram/vine that we may have missed via Twitter direct message to @TTOTambz.

Next: End of Year Player Reviews: Clint Capela

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