Houston Rockets - 11W in Last 12. They are legit.

[picko]

Legit in the sense of this year? Nope.

But they have an exciting core of young players who now have an opportunity to grow together. Late season surges by a young team can sometimes give that team a lot of momentum heading into the off-season. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if they were a 45 to 50 win team next season as the likes of Sengun, Thompson and Green mature further.

[Dr Aki]

Too legit to quit?

[Up-And-Coming]

Jalen Green has that extra soon-to-be father motivation. Good little run, maybe next season they'll make the playoffs

[jokeboy86]

Not surprising to me because of the coach. There's a reason that Udoka was a hot commodity as a coaching prospect while he was on the Spurs bench to the point that when Boston hired him I figured it was when not if the Celtics would win a title with him. I still think the Rockets are probably one player away from making an OKC type jump cause I'm still not sure if I believe in Smith, Sengun, or Green being the #1 option on a contender.

[sunskerr]

I don't know but it's crazy the Nets turned down that trade offer for Bridges

[RollingWave]

It's a mixed bag but generally speaking even before this current run, they actually had basically an even Net Rating, so their actual play was already a lot better than their record suggested even before this recent run. (there's like 3-4 teams in the playin / playoff now with a worst net rating than the Rockets. ) right now their net rating is 1.1 which usually translate to a team that's more like a team that's more like a 45-47 win type somewhat above average team.

Obviously playing a lot of Wizards make almost anyone look good though.

Could they catch the playin teams? ehhh. statistically it's not impossible but unlikely, though their over/ under before the season was set at 31.5, clearly they're going to blow by that. And they ended up being at least somewhat unlucky in terms of health.

Development wise I'd say it's obviously a successful season, there's a clear defense identity, one of the big reasons why their net rating looks good is that they consistently try hard, basically they been blown out only a couple times this whole season, and even against very good teams they manage to generally hang around. Offensively it's more mixed but trending in the right direction. I think Sengun can play better than this, especially as a facilitator / play maker, the team generally didn't play super well off each other offensively, it's hard to feel like that many guys were really magnifying each other's talent this year.

Some of it is just Jalen Green's continued erratic plays often swinging violently between great to terrible (though he's generally improved in most other aspects of his game, the one thing that people thought was a sure thing in his scoring has not been nearly as sure so far.) some of it seems like Ime Udoka's scheme being either conservative and slant very hard towards transition defense (aka they don't crash / cut nearly enough and often keep their best shooters out of the corners so they don't get caught without enough guys back going the other way.) or he's slow walking it with a relatively new group that hasn't played a lot with each other and some pretty unique pieces.

Among their kids, I think the question they need to answer really is the trio of Jalen / Sengun / Amen, both individually and together, Tari and Jabari and to a lesser extent Cam seem like fairly easy to fit pieces, but these 3 has been the bigger issue that determines where the Rockets go, part of the reason why there is a recent surge (though not the only one) is that being Sengun being out and especially with Jalen also hitting his shots they really made the puzzle less complicated, Amen basically plays the Westbrook on the Rockets / Bruce Brown on Denver sort of role of being a screen and dive big in the half court that can also make great decisions, on top of being a terror in transition, having Jabari Smith helps a lot at least against teams without a huge center.
(they're also pretty darn good at doubling and rotating during switches. ) especially since outside of mayyybe Dillon Brooks every one they play actually rebounds pretty well for their position.

But the Jalen + Sengun part of it, especially with Amen also on the court is a real tricky mess, for all their talent the spacing just looks terrible when that happens and Jalen's also not shooting well, Amen and Sengun both being great passers does help to some extent but at this point not quite enough against the best teams. The Rockets almost all season, the problem has been that teams just double Sengun and he pass it to a open whoever and they'll brick it, for some reason they just all collectively suck on catch and shoot out of a Sengun pass (in the games they don't double Sengun he usually just lit up the other team.) and they also don't have anyone (except a late surge by Amen) that really play well as a cutter off Sengun, last year Sengun had a ton of easy lob / backdoor to KJ Martin, and they just didn't have that element almost all year.

Ultimately I feel like unless one of Sengun or Amen really gets much better as a shooter, or they have at least one more specialist that's just gonna bomb 3s. (Jabari does play like a spacing big and teams to respect him there but he rarely gets off a lot of 3s.) AND Amen has to get a lot better on the ball in the half court, that pairing is going to be rough on offense in the half court at least.

BUT defensively, this group if everyone is right might be enough to win a ton of games already, if you told anyone last year that the Rockets top 3 minutes went to Sengun and Jalen, AND they were basically a top 5 defense all year occasionally looking more like top 3, you'd be laughed out of the room. It's hard to overstate how much Amen and Tari is a defensive disruptor, and also how damn solid Fred Vanfleet and Jabari Smith is, Dillon is a bit more extreme in that he does some things extremely well but can also sometimes get into trouble though the net effect is obviously quite positive.

Given the contract issues, they can afford to just play Amen more like a 6th man for a couple more years, but if it's time for the next Amen contract and it still looks like this they'll need some harder decisions but by then I'd think plenty of things would be clarified including most importantly, how good exactly can Sengun / Jalen get.

[AussieCeltic]

After reeling off a 6 game win streak and 8 of their last 9, the Rockets are all of a sudden in play in contention.

They’ve got some easy games in their next 5 (Bulls, Blazers, Jazz x2) and they could really start to put some pressure on the Lakers and Warriors.

Do they have a chance to make the play in? 3 games behind the Warriors and 3.5 behind the Lakers.

[Stealth1]

Yep legit .800 team. One piece away from going 74-8.

[Godymas]

lol they played a bunch of trash teams, including the Suns

[Frankie]

After reeling off a 6 game win streak and 8 of their last 9, the Rockets are all of a sudden in play in contention.

They’ve got some easy games in their next 5 (Bulls, Blazers, Jazz x2) and they could really start to put some pressure on the Lakers and Warriors.

Do they have a chance to make the play in? 3 games behind the Warriors and 3.5 behind the Lakers.

I don't think we get there. A 3.5 game gap is quite big when you consider the amount of games left of the season. It would be cool to at least make them both sweat though.

[Kiss of Death]

I don't know but it's crazy the Nets turned down that trade offer for Bridges

Because it didn’t exist.
The Rockets never offered Jalen Green and all of the Nets picks and swaps back.
They offered expiring contracts (Oladipo/Landale/Jeff Green) and some of the Nets picks and swaps back.

[firedavidkahn]

Jalen Green 27/6/3 on 48/40/83 in the same period.

Granted they did face the Wizards and the Spurs twice each and the Blazers once, it still seems pretty damn good?

No

This year they are not legit.

Give them another year or two before we start to take them seriously. They got some talent but they aren't their just yet. Good future though

[HadAnEffectHere]

Jalen knocked up Draya and ever since he's been going crazy.

No, they're not legit. But I do wonder how Jalen and Sengun fit together.

(the issue is the fit between Sengun and Amen as both are natural centers)

[God Squad]

Jalen knocked up Draya and ever since he's been going crazy.

No, they're not legit. But I do wonder how Jalen and Sengun fit together.

(the issue is the fit between Sengun and Amen as both are natural centers)

Admittedly I've watched maybe 7 Rockets games this year, all when Amen wasn't playing. So I can't speak on him being a center or not.
In terms of Jalen IMO him and Sengun don't mesh very well from what I saw earlier. Almost like he feels freer out there without Sengun. But again, this is from very limited viewing and mostly boxscore watching.

[Frankie]

Jalen knocked up Draya and ever since he's been going crazy.

No, they're not legit. But I do wonder how Jalen and Sengun fit together.

(the issue is the fit between Sengun and Amen as both are natural centers)

Admittedly I've watched maybe 7 Rockets games this year, all when Amen wasn't playing. So I can't speak on him being a center or not.
In terms of Jalen IMO him and Sengun don't mesh very well from what I saw earlier. Almost like he feels freer out there without Sengun. But again, this is from very limited viewing and mostly boxscore watching.

Amen is a swiss army knife. You can slot him in anywhere in the line up and he'll do a pretty great job there.

The Jalen/Sengun misfit is overstated because it is purely based on Jalen's inconsistency and not playing well. People forget that Sengun has been injured 4 games and yes the Rockets are 4-0 since he's been out of the team and Jalen has been fantastic but this winning run started before that. Rockets are on an 8-1 run, Sengun was there for 4-1 of that run and Jalen hit 34 points in both games vs Suns and 27 vs Spurs while Sengun was on floor alongside him.

On the surface it does seem like their styles clash but having watched every minute of their NBA careers so far, I think they actually compliment each other pretty well.

[HadAnEffectHere]

Amen can only play with four perimeter players because he's the worst shooter in the NBA.

Definitely not a "slot anywhere" guy.

There's a reason he's blown up ever since Sengun got hurt.

[magee]

Loved their game against the Cavs. It's starting to click for them.

[God Squad]

(the issue is the fit between Sengun and Amen as both are natural centers)

Admittedly I've watched maybe 7 Rockets games this year, all when Amen wasn't playing. So I can't speak on him being a center or not.
In terms of Jalen IMO him and Sengun don't mesh very well from what I saw earlier. Almost like he feels freer out there without Sengun. But again, this is from very limited viewing and mostly boxscore watching.

Amen is a swiss army knife. You can slot him in anywhere in the line up and he'll do a pretty great job there.

The Jalen/Sengun misfit is overstated because it is purely based on Jalen's inconsistency and not playing well. People forget that Sengun has been injured 4 games and yes the Rockets are 4-0 since he's been out of the team and Jalen has been fantastic but this winning run started before that. Rockets are on an 8-1 run, Sengun was there for 4-1 of that run and Jalen hit 34 points in both games vs Suns and 27 vs Spurs while Sengun was on floor alongside him.

On the surface it does seem like their styles clash but having watched every minute of their NBA careers so far, I think they actually compliment each other pretty well.

Maybe, but fans are also blinded by the obvious because it'd be bad for business. It could be like you say, all Jalen inconsistencies. But it could also be two ball-dominant players wanting to either score or make a play. Thus potentially getting diminished results from one.

At the end of the day they're playing good atm, but I think it's something to monitor moving forward.

[ChipotleWest]

Just like a week ago they looked completely out like 6.5 back from 10th, but now they're 3 games behind GS for 10th and 3.5 behind Lakers for 9th with about 14 games to go for each team. Definitely possible but they'll need to keep winning games.

[Harry Palmer]

9-1.