The Houston Rockets have been a major disappointment for some time now. We understood that was going to be the case once they moved on from James Harden, and I think most fans even accepted it for a season or two. This was going to be a rebuild, involving lots of losses, but lots of draft capital to go along with the losses, and eventually this thing would get turned around.
Well, “eventually” has not happened yet. In fact, it still feels like we are light years away from “eventually.” The team went into the All Star break with a 133-96 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, and as of this morning, the Houston Rockets are STILL the worst team in the NBA. Rock bottom, 13-45 with a team that, most disturbingly, looks like they’ve quit on their head coach, Stephen Silas.
Quitting, or more accurately the perception of quitting, in the NBA is a dicey thing. The NBA runs its draft system on a lottery in which all the non-playoff teams have a shot at the No. 1 overall pick, with graduated odds the worse a team is. In short, if the Rockets finish with one of the three worst records in the league, they’ll have a whopping 14 percent shot at the first overall pick.
There’s no way to spin it, 13-45 is a LOT of losing for just a 14 percent shot at the No. 1 overall pick, but this season is one of those rare NBA seasons in which a transcendent player awaits in the draft. Teenage 7-foot-4 phenom Victor Wembanyama, who currently plays in France, is considered the best NBA draft prospect since LeBron James in 2003. He MAY actually be worth all this losing!
You be the judge:
Now, the NBA doesn’t like the idea that teams would actually TRY to put a losing product on the floor to lose games, and thus secure the services of the next LeBron James (an “art” that is labeled “tanking” in sporting circles). TRYING to lose strikes directly at the heart of interiority of the sport and spirit of competition.
Skeptics believe that tanking is rampant, and with some teams, it’s hard to argue, which brings us to the Houston Rockets. On Saturday night, the Mardi Gras parade was going on in Galveston, which happens to be the hometown of Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta. In fact, Fertitta’s family and business had several floats in the parade.
KPRC Channel 2 was covering the parade, and meteorologist Frank Billngsley, covering “man on the street” duties at the parade, caught up with Fertitta for what was planned to be a few jolly, innocuous thoughts on the parade and what it means to Galveston and surrounding areas. What we got was, as we call it in the content generation business, A MOMENT:
“PRAY FOR VICTOR!”
This was a moment that immediately went viral (in no small part, because I was as the first to post the video, so yay me!). It was an NBA owner acknowledging that the most important thing for the team’s future was to pray that the ping pong balls landed the right way for them to get a 7-foot-4 cheat code of a human being that could cancel out some of the developmental issues with this young roster and poor decisions from a first time GM. (To be clear, there have been some good decisions, but, well… I mean, THEY’RE 13 AND FREAKING 45!)
How you feel about Fertitta screaming “PRAY FOR VICTOR!” is probably a good barometer on where you are with Fertitta as an owner (and, let’s face it, as a television character). Best I can tell, these were the four buckets of reaction to my tweet:
The Rockets are in a tough spot right now in this town. The Houston Astros will be darlings from now until who knows when, with two World Series championships. It would take a LOT for the Astros to lose the benefit of the doubt with this town, especially having endured a damn cheating scandal. With the hiring of DeMeco Ryans, the Texans seemed to be figuring some things out, and fans are getting back on board after a miserable three years from 2020 through 2022.
The Rockets have a bunch of teens and early 20-somethings who seem to have quit on a head coach that nobody in town believes in. The only way out of this rut appears to be some combination of hiring a great head coach to replace Silas and serious prayer that the lottery goes their way in June.
It’s too bad Tilman Fertitta didn’t scream out the team’s plans for a new head coach on Saturday. Now, THAT would have been a moment.
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
