For the third season in a row, Houston was a terrible team that was at the bottom of the league rankings on both ends of the floor. They played fast, but most of the time out of control (dead last in TO/rate) and they couldn’t shoot the basketball well. Defensively, they fouled too much and were the worst team in the league on 3pts defense.
Lacking any kind of direction, Houston decided to change and hired Ime Udoka as their new coach for the upcoming season. This move was made in order for Houston to try to gain some structure and cohesion within the team, something that they have been missing in the last few years.
2023/24 OUTLOOK:
The fact that Houston signed Fred VanVleet, Dillon Brooks and Reggie Bullock during the offseason shows that the team wanted to add more experience to their roster. Jalen Green and Kevin Porter Jr. were the team’s main guards over the last two seasons and with fairly poor results. Now, VanVleet will be the player leading the team’s offense and his experience combined with his defensive ability will be greatly welcomed. On the other hand, both Brooks and Bullock will help the team improve defensively, an area where the Rockets should be clearly better this year in comparison with how they were in the last few seasons.
However, Houston is still a young team full of players with unfulfilled talent. Jalen Green has been erratic and inefficient so far in his NBA career. Maybe now at the SG position, things might get better for him. Jabari Smith Jr. had a subpar rookie season but it would have been tough for him to play better than he did when he had to play alongside underperforming guards. On the other side, Alperen Sengun had a breakout season last year and showed that he might be a Nikola Jokic-lite version for the Rockets: a Center who can both post up and be a good playmaker. It will be interesting to see what will be his role on the team now that it is led by Udoka.
Finally, Houston drafted Amen Thompson and Cam Whitmore this season in a move that gave the team two more new players to develop. If Houston had retained the structure that they had last season, it would have been impossible for these two young players to develop accordingly this season. But maybe in this new era of the Rockets under Udoka, they might have a chance to succeed…
