The Dream Shake

The pre-draft trade rumors are kicking into high gear, and of course the Rockets are involved in one. With the 2018 NBA Draft just hours away and the Houston Rockets holding only the 46th overall pick in the second round tonight after trading away their first-rounder for Chris Paul last summer, the team is reportedly interested in moving back up into round one. According to USA Today Rockets writer Kelly Iko, the target of Houston GM Daryl Morey’s affection is Duke guard Grayson Allen. After a phenomenal sophomore season at Duke in which he averaged 21.6 points per game and shot over...

Woj expects CP3 to be back, and Paul’s doing a little recruiting as well. As we’re getting through our season recaps, Jeremy talked about how important Chris Paul was to the fortunes of the Houston Rockets this season. We all know that once he went down against the Golden State Warriors, he took the Rockets’ title hopes with him. He’s that important to Houston’s success. Which is why it became a little disconcerting earlier this month when reports surfaced that CP3 was going to seek the max for his pending unrestricted free agency this summer. According to ESPN’s Adrian...

How did CP3 do in his first season in Houston? On June 28, 2017, the Rockets made one of the biggest trades in franchise history, trading eight players for future Hall-of-Fame point guard Chris Paul. The trade came with a lot of praise, but a lot of criticism as well. How will he make it work with James Harden? He’s never made it to the Conference Finals. He’s not a playoff performer. I think it is safe to say that Paul disproved all three of those criticisms this season. Despite missing a good chunk of the first quarter of the season with a hamstring injury, CP3 turned the Rockets from...

Will the asking price be too much for the Rockets? Former TDS Contributor and current Rockets Wire journalist Kelly Iko has reported that Trevor Ariza will be seeking a 4-5 year contract worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-60 million. It is safe to say that Ariza, the longest-tenured Rocket except for James Harden, is third on the Rockets’ priority list in their free agency agenda. Chris Paul is an unrestricted free agent seeking a max contract and Clint Capela is a restricted free agent who will likely receive a maximum deal as well. With CP3 and Capela needing to be taken care...

Let’s talk about the King. There’s an elephant in the room, and his name is LeBron James, let’s talk about the elephant. It’s no secret that LeBron might not be the happiest camper in Cleveland and that he might be looking elsewhere for a new home for the 2018-19 season. After leading the Cavaliers to four straight Finals appearances and coming up short in the last two, it’s very likely that the elephant may decide to march on from Cleveland, and perhaps take his talents to Clutch City and play for the Houston Rockets. The Rockets are a rumored destination for a couple of reasons,...

We’ve been watching a young man grow right before our eyes. What a year for the young man from Switzerland. He was just as big a part of the success for the Houston Rockets as James Harden and Chris Paul. Even if he wasn’t scoring as much as Houston’s two stars, the mere threat of his presence and the possibility of his thunderous alley-oops opened things up for Harden, Paul and others. And when he did try to score, he was virtually impossible to stop. Capela led the NBA in field goal percentage, shooting 65.2 percent from the floor. And he also improved his free throw stroke as...

The Draft is a little more than a week away and the Rockets have a decision to make in the second round. Over the past several weeks, mock drafts have flooded the internet, but you will usually see chatter about the top picks, or the lottery, or the first round. However, few actually go into the deep end and conquer the second round, simply because it’s so unpredictable. Recent history has shown that the second round picks might be just as important as the first round picks. Both Trevor Ariza and P.J. Tucker were prominent pieces of a Rockets team that went deep in the postseason despite...

Trevor Ariza might not be back next season, but if he is, I’m begging one final time for a drop in minutes. For three straight seasons now, I’ve been clamoring for a reduction in Trevor Ariza’s minutes. Ariza was over or near 35 minutes per game in each of his three years since rejoining the Houston Rockets, and though he seemed to handle it fine during the regular season, it resulted in some dead legs that caused Ariza to under-perform in the postseason in two of those three seasons. And though his minutes were cut a little this season with the arrival of forwards P.J. Tucker and Luc...

He lived up to his expectations. Eric Gordon ended his first year in Houston as the Sixth Man of the Year, and while he isn’t likely to nab the award for the second consecutive year, he was an extremely important part to Houston’s success in 2017-18. Gordon will likely finish as a runner-up to former Rocket Lou Williams for the Sixth Man of the Year only because Williams had a career year and was his team’s best player. Smart teams usually start their best players, but what can you do? Gordon and Williams were the only two players in the league this season to average 18 points per...

We recap P.J. Tucker’s campaign. After the season ended, P.J. Tucker appeared on the Stephen A. Smith After Dark podcast to discuss the end of the season and the future for the team. When talking about the season, this is what he had to say about joining Houston: "I couldn't be happier to be in Houston. I took less money to come to here. The #1 priority in FA was winning. [Stats] don't matter to me, what matters to me is doing what the team needs every night. Houston was the perfect situation, and this year proved me right." - PJ Tucker— Rob Kimbell (@RobKSports) June 8,...

A look inside Ryan Anderson’s 2017-18 season. Ryan Anderson is now halfway into a 4-year, $80 million contract he signed in July 2016. It seemed like a hefty burden of a contract at that time, and the burden has never felt heavier at the end of his second season with the Rockets. This is not because of the play he had early in the season, but the second half of the year was a dud for Ryno, and that’s putting it lightly. Throughout the season, Anderson averaged 9.6 points per game, his lowest since the 2009-10 season when he was an NBA sophomore and a minor figure of an Orlando Magic...

A look inside LMAM’s season. Throughout most of the season, Luc Mbah a Moute was deemed one of the biggest bargains of last year’s free agency period when he signed a veteran’s minimum one-year deal with the Houston Rockets. And despite his lackluster playoffs, it should not take away from the solid year he had overall. LMAM’s lack of health in the playoffs, specifically against the Warriors in the Western Conference Finals, hurt the Rockets tremendously. Had the Rockets gotten the Luc that had shown up early in the season, the Rockets might be playing in Game 4 of the NBA Finals...

The Rockets got more than they could’ve hoped for with this mid-season signing. Every good team needs a microwave man, a guy they can look to off the bench that heat things up with a hurry and in a pinch. The Houston Rockets got their microwave man, and some might say their heart and soul, almost by accident back on December 28. The team was dealing with a plethora of injuries and signed Green, who up until that point had been playing pickup games in his driveway (god, how many times have we heard that line this year? I had to put it in here), to a 10-day deal. It didn’t take long for...

We review the seasons of Joe Johnson and Nene. If this were ten years ago, having Joe Johnson and Nene on the same roster would nearly compare to a superteam. However, in today’s NBA, both played small roles on a team with a lot of success, very little of which was because of the two of them. Their veteran leadership definitely contributed to the success of the team, but when you are the oldest team in the league, how valuable is that leadership? Nene As one of the few players who declined from a year ago, Nene went from an incredibly necessary part of Houston’s success and a huge loss...

Looking back on the season for Chinanu Onuaku, Tarik Black and Zhou Qi. With the Rockets now in full swing in the offseason, it is time for the Rockets to evaluate the players currently on the roster and see where improvements can be made. In this multi-part series, we’ll take a look at the past season for every Rockets player. Tarik Black Black, 26, made his return to Houston in July when he signed a one-year deal with the Rockets. When he was signed, Black was seen as a backup for Nene and possibly a valued bench piece for the Rockets when Nene would sit for rest. Black saw action in 51...