The Rockets may only be the sixth seed in the Western Conference, but they have the talent to take home a title in 2020.
Daryl Morey has done everything in his power to assemble a roster capable of winning a title in Houston. The Rockets won’t enter the playoffs as the favorite to conquer their Western Conference foes, but counting them out of contention would be a serious mistake.
Predictably, the Rockets offense is significantly ahead of their defense. The team averaged 113.4 points per 100 possessions before the season was shut down due to the current pandemic. That was good for second place in the league.
The team’s defense wasn’t bad, roughly league average, but it wasn’t worthy of title contention either. Building a lockdown defense may not be a specialty of head coach Mike D’Antoni, but there is hope for improvement for this team. The addition of Robert Covington ahead of the trade deadline gives the team’s starting five a lot more punch than they enjoyed previously.
Nonetheless, the Rockets have more than a puncher’s chance to win a title in 2020. Read on to discover the top five reasons why Houston is a threat to win it all.
5. Eric Gordon may wake up
Gordon was having one of the worst seasons of his professional career before the season was halted. The team’s offense was succeeding in spite of Gordon just shooting 31.9 percent from distance.
The coaching staff is hoping that a solid few weeks of rest will allow Gordon to get his shooting legs back. It’s hard to exaggerate how helpful that would be for the Rockets offense. The space he can free up for Houston on the wing would only make James Harden and Russell Westbrook more dangerous in isolation. If the Rockets made a deep postseason run then Gordon will need to rediscover his shooting stroke.