On February 18, Beijing time, most of the schedule has been passed unconsciously this season, and the situation of the two major divisions in the East and West has become clearer, and the West is nothing more than two super dark horses, the Timberwolves and the Thunder, and the Clippers, who have defended the champion Nuggets, and the Clippers with the Big Four lineup. The second echelon is the team that has the opportunity to get a playoff ticket, that is, the fifth to tenth, and now the Warriors have slowly found the right rotation, and the winning rate of the past 10 games has exceeded 80%, completely sitting in the top ten rankings in the West, and gradually throwing off the teams behind them, which means that the Jazz and Rockets, who are closely behind, have no chance to compete with the Warriors, in other words, the Warriors can definitely enter the play-off tickets. And the Warriors and Jazz want to continue to compete, unless it's a winning streak. 28.5 million in four years, joining Houston, the Rockets missed Harden, and Udoka tearfully admitted his mistake.
This season's Rockets are in the spotlight, not only the coach has been replaced, but also sent a 28.5 million four-year salary contract extension to recruit Udoka, and the offseason is a premium contract reinforcement, at the beginning of the season, although it directly ushered in a three-game losing streak, just when all the fans were waiting to see the joke, Houston was caught off guard. In the next game, even if they meet the Nuggets, the favorite team for the championship, and the Lakers, the Western giants, they can easily win. And in the subsequent game, the Rockets can also play back and forth with their opponents, no matter how competitive the opponent is, with the rise of Houston, and even become the top four teams in the West, just when all fans think that the Rockets have been rebuilt and have embarked on the old road of the Thunder, Udoka is also very excited to say that the team wants a playoff ticket and wants to go further in the playoffs.
Unfortunately, the regular season is very long, the winning rate in a short period of time is high, and it does not affect the final result at all, many teams have staged the Northern Expedition this season, whether it is the Clippers and the Suns, or the Warriors, the first two teams have successfully completed the Northern Expedition, and the Warriors have also started their own Northern Expedition journey, and compared to these teams, the Rockets are slowly losing their way, becoming less and less competitive, and the team ranking has plummeted. But then again, there are too many young players on the Rockets, but the Thunder are also young players, the reason why the gap is so big is because the young players on both sides are completely different, the absolute core of the Rockets has certain problems, the cornerstone of the team, Green has no stability at all, Shen Jing is just an offensive titan, Smith has no stability, Whitmore is a rookie, the value has not been fully realized, Amen has not been able to get a chance, and the shooting deterrence is relatively poor, so to speak, These young players still have a long way to go before they get to the point where they are Thunder players.
If you talk about the entire Rockets, only Ethan is a player who has both offense and defense, but unfortunately, Ethan retired from injury during this time. Why is the Thunder team different from the Rockets, the players are the best embodiment, and the reason why the Thunder can completely rise this season is nothing more than that Alexander and Holmgren have completely become star-level players, Alexander was selected as an All-Star, and the two giants of Jalen and Keady are also around the duo, it can be said that the Thunder team has completely stepped on the right track. The Rockets have just rebuilt, and there are still a lot of problems with the team. At least the leader of the Thunder team is Alexander, which player is the leader of the Rockets? Maybe Houston has no answers, whether it is Green or Shen Jing, they are not suitable to be the leader of the house, after all, the shortcomings are obvious to all, and how can the rebuilding team succeed if it can't find the cornerstone of the team.
And this season the city also received some good news, that is, Whitmore and Amen, Whitmore's stability is no problem, not only the shooting deterrent is very large, but the interior scoring ability is also strong enough, when the Rockets are in trouble, Whitmore will always step up and lead the team forward, but he can't get Udoka's trust, and his playing time can't be improved. Amen's situation has just been mentioned, after all, he is a rookie, it is normal not to be trusted, and Udoka trusts Holladay the most, but the latter has lived up to Udoka's trust, and there is no stability at both ends of the offensive and defensive ends. At this time, Amen was getting more and more playing time, and fortunately, Amen cherished this hard-won opportunity very much. Not long ago, when he played against the Grizzlies, Amen completely broke out, once he improved his shooting deterrence, he could even evolve into a supergiant in the future, such a player should be focused on training, and I hope Udoka will not make the wrong choice again.
Interestingly, Udoka also mentioned the team's rotation lineup during the recent interview. And bluntly said that after the All-Star Game starts, he will readjust the player lineup, and he can't always dig a hole in the first quarter, maybe he will directly adjust the starting lineup. More crucially, Udoka also mentioned Amen, who believes that Amen's defensive reading ability is getting stronger. It can be said that there is no problem with Udoka's words, and Houston's starting lineup should have been adjusted a long time ago, and even began to trust Amen. In the games that followed, Amen was even given the opportunity to replace the starters. Next, when mentioning the team's ranking, Udoka tearfully admitted his mistake, and then Udoka realized that the star was very important, and Udoka did not expect that the competition would be so fierce this season.
Is it true that the Rockets don't have a star leader? When Harden defected to the Rockets, because the Rockets first chose Udoka and trusted the latter very much, when the latter proposed to reject Harden, the Rockets naturally would not refuse, and then recruited VanVleet with a larger salary contract, and VanVleet can only be described as a starter this season, and his performance on the court cannot match his big contract at all. It's no wonder that Udoka will tearfully admit his mistake, if Harden really entered the team, at least Harden could raise the Rockets' lower ceiling, the team ranking would not be so bad, and it was even possible to get a playoff ticket. In recent years, Harden has long proven his ability to lead the team. After all, when he was on the Nets, when Durant and Irving were both injured, Harden single-handedly carried the team and went to the first place in the East. And during this time, the Rockets finally saw clearly that they had to make adjustments, and Shen Jing and Green also became bargaining chips, just to exchange for stars, otherwise, relying only on the current lineup of players would not go far.