A season that started out with so much promise is closing with a mere whimper for the Houston Rockets. At one point, the Rockets looked like they were on track to challenge 50 wins. The Rockets are now 25-32, seven games under .500 and sitting in 12th place in the Western Conference. They are one game back in the win column of the Utah Jazz. The tenth seed Los Angeles Lakers are 31-28 and now rolling, winners of seven of their last ten games. The same goes for the ninth seed Golden State Warriors who are 29-26, winners of three in a row, and 8-2 in their last ten games. It’s beginning to look highly unlikely that the Rockets’ season will extend into the play-in tournament.
The Rockets are now 1-2 after the All-Star break following Sunday night’s loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. They lost on Thursday to the New Orleans Pelicans, 127-105, before beating the Phoenix Suns on Friday, 114-110.
This upcoming week signifies quite the oddity from the schedule makers with the Rockets set to travel to Oklahoma City on Tuesday for a rematch against the Thunder before traveling to Phoenix for two consecutive matchups with the Suns, on Thursday and Saturday. The Rockets will be heavy underdogs in all three games and could be completely buried in the standings by week’s end.
If the season ended today, Houston would be conveying the ninth pick in the draft to the Thunder as payment for the ill-fated Chris-Paul Russell Westbrook trade from 2019. That conveyance is top-four protected; with the way the Rockets are freefalling in the standings, activation of the protections are not out of the question. Houston currently has a 17.3% chance at one of the top four picks.
The Rockets would also stand to receive the eighth pick in the draft from the Brooklyn Nets as a result of the 2021 trade which sent James Harden to Brooklyn.