Recapping the Rockets’ 2019-20 season through 64 games

Rockets in the News

The Rockets were in the news quite a bit this season, which isn’t surprising in the slightest. We all know how much the national media loves to bash the Rockets, even though a large majority of their headlines involving the Rockets are false narratives.

The Rockets have been involved in the biggest sports story up until the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, as GM Daryl Morey found himself at the center of a political issue. As we all know, Morey made tweets involving China, which has had a long-term effect on the entire league, as the NBA lost a considerable amount of revenue, and the Rockets did as well.

The Rockets also got themselves involved in a league protest, as San Antonio Spurs official James Capers incorrectly determined a James Harden dunk was not a basket, which obviously took points off the board. For as egregious of a missed call that was, the more egregious thing is the fact that the Rockets led by 16 points in the fourth quarter and allowed the Spurs to outscore them 34-18. This resulted in a 133-135 double overtime loss.

Afterwards, we’d heard rumblings of how the Rockets expected to be granted the win, since they were winning at the time of the brown call, and/or that they expected to be able to replay the final 7:55 of the game, which is when the missed call took place. The league ultimately decided against both options.

The Rockets were in the headlines for a speculative reason, as ESPN’s Jay Williams claimed he observed trust issues between Harden and Westbrook, which was far from the truth. Williams cited a specific play in which Harden actually passed the ball to Westbrook, which made it even more blatantly fictitious.

The Rockets were also in the news as reports leaked that they wouldn’t be bringing back coach Mike D’Antoni, without a championship. This hasn’t seemed to affect the team much, as MDA decided to innovate his offense to maximize the strengths of Russell Westbrook, who the Rockets were reportedly open to trading as well (depending on what/who you believe).

The most recent newsworthy Rockets item has been the small ball strategy, as the national media outlets jumped all over the schematic change. We’d heard how the Rockets wouldn’t be able to win while employing such a scheme, however the Rockets have gone 18-7 without Clint Capela in the lineup this season.

For as much negativity as the Rockets have been in this season, they’ve largely been able to bounce back and brush it off, which shows how they’re battle-tested. Hopefully that’ll come in handy during the postseason.