The Rockets have had a terrible offseason, especially when considering what their hopes were entering free agency.
Houston had planned to attract a third top flight star to play alongside Dwight Howard and James Harden, but overtures to Carmelo Anthony and then later Chris Bosh were essentially ignored, leaving the team in a worse place now than when the summer began.
It becomes even tougher to swallow for the Rockets once you realize that key rotation players in Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik were traded for essentially nothing, and Chandler Parsons was allowed to leave in restricted free agency by signing an offer sheet in Dallas that Houston did not choose to match.
Any reasonable observer knows that the Rockets took one or more steps backward this offseason, even when including the signing of Trevor Ariza at a reasonable price for his two-way skill set. But Howard doesn’t necessarily think so, and is either eternally optimistic or simply believes he’s good enough to cover for the team’s multiple mistakes.
From the Associated Press:“It won’t affect us at all,” Howard said Friday of Parsons signing a three-year, $45-million deal with the Dallas Mavericks. ...
“We have myself and James,” Howard said. “We have the best center and the best two guard in the game on the same team. It’s on us.”
Howard, who spoke at his father’s 10th annual Howard/Howard basketball camp in Atlanta, said he wishes his former teammate well with the Mavericks. But Howard said he and Harden will be able to carry the load without the 25-year-old Parsons, who had career highs with 16.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and four assists for the Rockets last season.
Howard continues to take an unrealistic view about just how much he and Harden can do for the rest of the roster.
A better approach would have been the one taken by Rockets head coach Kevin McHale, who knows the team got worse this offseason, at least on paper. Displaying false bravado in essentially saying, ‘Nah, we’re good’ when losing a player who contributed as much as Parsons without getting anyone to replace him is not only ridiculous, but shows the level of delusion Howard has when it comes to the game of basketball.
As for the Rockets, fans care about winning and getting out of the first round of the playoffs more than they do about acquiring assets like “cap room” and “trade exceptions.” Houston has its two superstars, right Dwight? If that’s enough, then let’s see the team actually win some games in the postseason.
