What will the Houston Rockets do with their team?

It’s June 28, 2017 and there are rumours floating around about Chris Paul’s departure from the Clippers.

His options included the San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets, and staying with the Los Angeles Clippers.

All of the sudden Chris Paul opts in to his contract and gets shipped to the Houston Rockets for Patrick Beverley, Sam Dekker, Lou Williams, and a top 3 protected first round pick. Now all of the sudden it looks like Houston is going to be one of the top teams in the NBA. But, there were still some holes they needed to fill.

In the 2016-2017 NBA season the Rockets were not a great defensive team with only one guy, Trevor Ariza, who could guard threes or fours. In the offseason they ended up signing P.J. Tucker and Luc Mbah a Moute. At this point, the Houston Rockets looked like the new and upcoming team to go and challenge the Warriors. The only real question about the Rockets was whether Chris Paul and James Harden could play together and almost anyone would agree that they still looked like they would be one of the top teams in the NBA.

The first game of the season for the Houston Rockets, they were up against the Golden State Warriors. In that game, Chris Paul ended up getting injured and was out for the next few weeks. After Paul’s injury, our attention was drawn to the improvement of Clint Capela. Not to mention James Harden’s historic MVP caliber season leading them to breaking Houston’s regular season win record.

With this new group it looked like things could potentially change in the NBA. We all looked forward to watching a team other than the Warriors represent the West in the Finals.

They looked like the best team in the league. The only problem was that despite the many injuries, Golden State looked like they were coasting in the regular season yet, they still won 58 games and were the #2 seed in the west.

By playoff time both teams only lost two games in the first two rounds. It really looked like a clash of the titans was about to happen. The Houston Rockets pushed this Warriors team harder than they have ever been pushed before. Then in game five, Chris Paul goes down with a hamstring injury. This didn’t prevent Houston from coming out with the win. They went up in the series 3-2.

The last 2 games of the series, the Rockets were going to have to play without Chris Paul. Sadly for the Rockets, that hamstring injury could have been the difference between losing in the conference finals and winning a championship.

The Rockets’ off-season outlook has a potentially scary ending or a very exciting future. They will have many financial decisions to make.

The most glaring is how to get rid of Ryan Anderson’s contract. If they can find a reasonable deal, they will have to attach some assets to his contract for teams to consider taking it. Not to mention, Chris Paul’s contract will be expiring and they will have to give him the max whether it’s for three or five years.

Clint Capela will also enter restricted free agency, so a team like the Mavericks or the Suns could give him a max offer sheet. The only catch would be Clint Capela might also fail to get an offer sheet since few teams have cap space.

With all of the speculation, we still need to look at the fact that there is a path for the Houston Rockets to sign Lebron James who has a player option to become free agent this summer.

There’s a lot going on. A ton to consider. Something we know is that whatever happens, you can trust that the Rockets’ GM Daryl Morey has thought of all these potential outcomes much more than us or anyone else on the outside looking in.