HOUSTON — The Rockets are going star-hunting again.
This might seem like a surprise to some, but a team that entered Wednesday 22-24, sitting just outside of a Play-In spot as the 11th seed in the Western Conference, has big aspirations to be buyers and not sellers at this year’s NBA trade deadline. Houston has proven it is capable of quality wins, having beaten the defending champion Denver Nuggets three times as well as the star-studded Milwaukee Bucks. But losses to the likes of the San Antonio Spurs, Portland Trail Blazers and Chicago Bulls represented unwelcome regression and have shown how far the Rockets still have left to go.
Ime Udoka, the head coach in his first year in charge of the Rockets, has been frustrated by the inconsistencies plaguing the team all season long, with this roster still stuck in limbo, somewhere between rebuilding and contending. For the 46-year-old who has won at every stop in his coaching career, and who’s focused on winning at the highest level, his desire to fast-track this promising program has been there since he was hired in April.
In fact, league and team sources say it’s Udoka’s insistence on making the postseason, in tandem with the Rockets front office, that has accelerated the franchise firmly into Phase 2 of its plan. Armed with a profusion of young talent and draft capital, the Rockets have quietly repositioned their internal strategy in recent weeks, and just about everything is on the table in terms of potential moves they can make to go get high-level talent that is ready to win immediately.
Head coach Ime Udoka has been a catalyst for change within the Rockets organization. (Troy Taormina/USA Today)
So, why the sudden acceleration?
Six weeks ago, Houston was 13-9 and firmly settled in the West playoff picture, having won five straight games and thriving as the NBA’s second-best defensive unit. Since then, the Rockets have been hit with injuries at various points to the likes of Dillon Brooks, Jabari Smith Jr. and Tari Eason, and the franchise has dropped 12 of its last 19 games. During that time, Houston’s defensive efficiency has dropped to around league average while its offensive efficiency has plummeted to the bottom 10.
With the Feb. 8 trade deadline a little over a week away, the Rockets find themselves a game behind the 10th-place Utah Jazz. There have been strides made this season, but several factors have contributed to Houston’s slide in the standings — an uptick in schedule difficulty, injuries to key contributors and an offense that is still attempting to find consistency on a nightly basis. But the overarching theme, stemming from Udoka’s mentality and approach, is that the Rockets need to recalibrate and reinforce the aspects of their play that afforded them success early on — even if that means turning their attention to solutions outside of the current roster.
At the beginning of the offseason, Rockets officials outlined — both publicly and privately — their immediate goals: Improving the roster, transforming the culture and pushing the timeline closer toward winning basketball. Within the franchise, the period is commonly referred to as “Phase 2” of a rebuild.
But while it was clear Houston’s brass had been dissatisfied with how the previous regime under former head coach Stephen Silas was unfolding, charting a new course under Udoka still required some patience. No magic wand could be waved to propel their situation into prosperity. The Rockets, even with veterans Brooks and Fred VanVleetadded to the starting lineup and Jeff Green, Jock Landale and Aaron Holiday in the rotation, still would take some time to jell.
Historically, the front office has believed every move or series of moves should be through the lens of winning a championship, and if this new-look team showed signs of legitimate improvement toward that goal, even if it meant narrowly missing the playoffs altogether, that growth would be welcomed.
But Udoka, dating back to training camp last September, made it clear he was ripping out the old floorboards from their foundation and wouldn’t be content with settling for what he perceived as mediocrity. Udoka’s appetite for winning is strong, hailing from the school of Gregg Popovich in San Antonio and carrying that approach in Philadelphia, Brooklyn and Boston. At one point, Udoka was two wins from winning an NBA title. His ambitions weren’t suddenly going to change just because his working location did.
In a broader sense, the whole notion of winning, and the aggressive approach to doing so, starts at the top with ownership, the Fertittas. Having overseen a group that was on the cusp of an NBA Finals appearance during their first season together in 2018, it was clear after three years of languishing at the cellar of the NBA that they no longer had the stomach for it and desired — and demanded — that things turn around quickly. The voracious appetite for success also extends toward the general manager, Rafael Stone, an individual who grew under his predecessor Daryl Morey for years, watching just how desperate he was to make it to the mountaintop.
