Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast discuss the Rockets' potential playoff opponents, their lottery situation and the biggest developments for the team this season.
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00:00The Rockets finished the season 52-30, sailing past their Vegas win total coming into the season of 43.5.
00:08I don't know that anybody saw 52 wins in a two-seed that was clinched a week ago coming, but that's what it is.
00:15Their playoff opponent will be the winner of Memphis and Golden State.
00:20The Memphis Grizzlies will play at Golden State on Tuesday night, and the winner of that game will be the Rockets' opponent in the first round.
00:29The only thing we know about the first round of the playoff, Seth, is that the Rockets will begin the series on Sunday.
00:35If you're a basketball fan, it's a phenomenal weekend of basketball.
00:39The first game of each NBA playoff round, four games on Saturday, four games on Sunday.
00:44TV and time still to be determined.
00:46I would imagine opponent is a big part of that.
00:48Golden State's a huge draw on TV.
00:50I would imagine Memphis, not quite as big a draw on TV.
00:52It's okay, if all you're looking for is name, brand, appeal, and whatnot, the Rockets would play.
00:58If the Warriors win this play-in, the Rockets would play the Warriors, and then the Rockets play the winner of L.A. versus Minnesota.
01:08The L.A. Lakers, yeah.
01:10Yeah, oh yeah, not the Clippers.
01:11Yeah, the Lakers versus Minnesota.
01:14So, potential for just a couple of marquee opponents.
01:18And, look, the thinking man in me should say, well, look, the Rockets are 3-1 versus the Grizzlies, and the loss came in that strat.
01:29They had to play three games in four days on the road or whatever it was because of a rescheduling.
01:35They've done well against the Grizzlies this year.
01:37They're 2-3 against the Warriors, and the Warriors are a different team now.
01:42Despite the fact that the Rockets throttled the Warriors and Steph Curry and Draymond Green very recently,
01:48they're a different team now with Jimmy Butler.
01:51I still want the Warriors.
01:52Yeah, man.
01:52I love them.
01:53Give them to me.
01:54I felt like there was an end yet coming after the Memphis part of that.
01:57Yeah.
01:57Yeah, like I do, too.
01:59Man, this is, I don't know, for me, the expectations change maybe when you're the two-seed,
02:03and if you get knocked out in the first round, it all of a sudden becomes a disappointing season.
02:08But I'm kind of in a house money mode when it comes to who the opponent is.
02:13Like, I would, I don't think this team is going to win an NBA championship this year.
02:17I don't think that's a super bold prediction or anything like that.
02:20A chance to knock Golden State out of the playoffs, the chance for this young group of Rockets to get some measure of redemption
02:28for all those series five, six years ago where the Warriors were, it felt like routinely knocking the Rockets out of the postseason.
02:37Yeah.
02:37If Steph and Draymond are still on this version of the Warriors, I think it would be a whole lot of fun.
02:42And, boy, who do you think would be favored in a Rockets-Warriors series by Vegas?
02:49That's interesting.
02:50I bet there would be a gap between the more objective numbers and then I think the betting public would be on the side of the Warriors.
02:58I do, too.
02:59So that would affect the spread a little bit.
03:01Which means they'll be the favorite.
03:02Yeah.
03:02I think the computers might make it pretty close to a push.
03:06Yeah.
03:07Yeah.
03:07Probably Golden State, the favorite in a series against the Rockets.
03:13I think Memphis and the Rockets, I think the Rockets would be a favorite based solely on having the home court advantage in that series.
03:20So it's two at home, two on the road, and then back in Houston for game five in a seven-game series.
03:27Two, two, one, one, one.
03:27If you can take advantage of as much as you can with those three out of five first home games.
03:33You do have the Jimmy Butler coming back to the Houston area and playing.
03:39He'll be adamant and explain that he's from Tomball, not Houston.
03:42Yeah.
03:43Which always has offended me a little bit.
03:44It's not the way we operate in Houston.
03:46No.
03:46Pretty much.
03:47If you're within short-range missiles distance of downtown Houston, you're from Houston.
03:53Yes.
03:53Yes.
03:54For zoning purposes and tax purposes and whatever it may be, you can keep your own little enclaves to yourself.
04:00But when it comes to usurping sports figures, you are all annexed into Houston.
04:04We'll pretty much incorporate every damn county from here to the outer limits of San Antonio and Austin within the next few decades.
04:13So just accept it, okay?
04:15People weighing in, Jim Adler, the Texas Hammer text line, my heart can't take losing another series to the Warriors.
04:20That's been six years.
04:21Come on.
04:22Let's get back on the train.
04:23Let's go.
04:25Warriors will eliminate the Rockets again, all caps on the text page.
04:29Hey, the Warriors got their own business to take care of.
04:32They might not even play the Warriors.
04:33Yeah, Warriors suck in the play-in game.
04:35That's right.
04:35All right?
04:36Yeah.
04:36They've been operating on the fringe.
04:37Yeah.
04:38They don't know what the hell they're doing.
04:39Got that right.
04:40Yep.
04:41Meanwhile-
04:42The last time they were in the play-in, they didn't have Draymond because of multiple suspensions or whatever.
04:48Yeah.
04:49Yeah.
04:49The Rockets have a 17% chance of landing in the top four in the lottery.
04:56The Rockets are the rare team that has – has there ever been a team that has had a play-in game, like looking forward to who's going to win a play-in game to see who their opponent is, and in a few weeks looking forward to seeing where the ping-pong balls land in the lottery?
05:11Yeah, I know.
05:12It's nice.
05:12It's kind of fun, man.
05:13It's kind of – yeah, and it's a special little irony that it's – if you're thinking about potentially trading for Kevin Durant, the fact that the Suns completely just blew it and peed down their leg gives you a better chance of using the Suns pick that you own to trade for Kevin Durant.
05:32Yeah, the irony is delicious.
05:33Well, it's Braddo on Twitter, at BraddoNBA.
05:38Brad does a great job.
05:40He – you know, that Suns pick is an extension of the James Harden trade because they took some of the Brooklyn draft capital and flipped it over with the Suns.
05:50So, the James Harden trade, because of what the Rockets have ended up doing with some of those picks, is not going to have fully played out until 2029.
06:00Out of that trade so far, they've gotten Tari Eason from one of the Brooklyn picks, Reed Shepard from another one of the Brooklyn picks.
06:08They've got this Phoenix pick that we're talking about right now that is at worst case going to be ninth in the draft, could be a top four pick.
06:15And then they still have the Suns' first rounder in 27, a pick swap with the Nets in 27, and then either the Suns' or Mavericks' first round pick in 2029.
06:28Off from the James Harden.
06:29I tell you what, man, everything that's worked out from that trade still.
06:33The thing that annoyed me at the very beginning of it was how many people were just convinced that the Nets were going to be an awesome team for the next 10 years.
06:40Yeah.
06:40And you're looking at it, and you're looking at the guys involved, and you're like, all right, I see three dudes who have all forced themselves off of and out of various situations at various times,
06:54and are not looked at as guys that are there for the long haul.
06:57Yeah.
06:57And it just, it's worked out very.
07:00That trade is, that trade's been a master stroke in a lot of ways.
07:04Oh, yeah.
07:04I'm excited for this playoff round.
07:06What's the biggest development, I was thinking about this yesterday, as the Rockets were getting destroyed by the Nuggets, didn't really care.
07:14Biggest developments for the Rockets this year, I was trying to kind of stack rank them, and I think number one for me is just the development of Jalen Green.
07:25Like, statistically, Jalen Green looks like a very similar player to who he was last year.
07:30He actually averaged fewer points a game this year than he did last year, but when they signed him into that contract extension before the season,
07:39my thought was, all right, well, they signed him into an extension, so he's not getting traded during the season.
07:43You're not allowed to by rules.
07:45But I thought after the season, without any clue that the Rockets would end up being the two-seed in the West,
07:51I still felt like Jalen Green wasn't long for this team.
07:54Like, he was a guy who could – Jalen Green always felt like me, Seth, that he was going to be a guy who would score 23 points on bad teams for the rest of his career.
08:02Right, right.
08:02Well, yeah, you bring up the points scored and how it's actually a little bit less, but it's because those came in bunches against teams that weren't trying all that hard because the Rockets were awful.
08:14And it's the consistency this year that's been the huge leap forward.
08:19He's just a better player at both ends of the floor, and especially at the offensive end of the floor, he's become so much better at looking to involve his teammates.
08:27He just – I feel like he just – he sees all 94 feet just way better than he did last year.
08:34So that to me – and I say the biggest – that's the biggest development of the regular season.
08:38Now he's going to be tested in the postseason.
08:42You know, the game slows down in the postseason, and what I mean by that is a lot more half court.
08:49So, I mean, it's going to be harder to go get buckets in these games in the postseason against better teams, better defenses, things like that.
08:58So as far as rounding out to be a better regular season player, which is all we've ever seen.
09:02We've never seen Jalen Green in the postseason, so we don't know what that looks like.
09:05But I feel like for the future of the team and for the – you know, just for purposes of this season,
09:10that to me was the biggest development of the year for the Rockets.
09:12Yeah, yeah, no, and a lot of that too is – I think it comes to one of those things where people argue about it for no good reason.
09:19If you always believed in Jalen Green, that's great.
09:22But, gee, I have to also concede in the fact that he did have to make those improvements.
09:28He's a different player now.
09:29So credit him – instead of being so eager to heap praise on yourself for saying you always believed in Jalen Green,
09:35give him credit for actually improving and becoming the guy he is now.
09:40Because he needed to do that.
09:41If he kept playing the same way he was playing last year, you wouldn't – there wouldn't be such a near-unanimous feeling about Jalen Green.
09:49Yeah, I believe Jalen Green, and I've become a much bigger believer in Jalen Green.
09:52Now the postseason will be – you know, the postseason is going to play a huge part in how – not just me,
09:58but I think how a lot of people feel about Jalen Green moving forward.
10:00I think probably a very close number two is Amin Thompson went from being a rookie who showed some promise to –
10:08I mean, I'd say a future star.
10:09I think he's in that category already.
10:12I don't know if I've seen a player who didn't make the All-Star team get more love in the second half of the season around the NBA.
10:18And I understand my timeline is curated to feed me Rocket stuff.
10:23So there's probably some other young player on some other team that was getting a lot of love from the Zach Lowe's
10:29and the Kevin O'Connor's of the world and whatnot, but Amin Thompson, future star, future perennial defensive player of the year candidate.
10:37No, and I think, too, it's – there's always a lag with getting the respect for players and in terms of just cementing their reputation.
10:46And I think for the first half of this season, for the most part by and large, people around the league weren't really giving Amin Thompson credit
10:53because it just felt like another – like, okay, scrappy team, playing defense, nobody's taking them seriously as a team, et cetera, et cetera,
11:00where now he's done it for an entire season, and he's done it under increasingly important circumstances.
11:07And, yeah, they just – you know, his minutes per game have gone up by several minutes this calendar year as opposed to last.
11:14Yeah.
11:15You know, and, like, they just – it's bona fide now.
11:18I think next year it'll be a more fair race.
11:20He went from being a guy off the bench to, you know, like a sort of a Swiss Army knife off the bench to –
11:26I forget who it was who went out with an in-starting line, whether – it was either Tari or Jabari, one of the two.
11:34And it was probably Jabari because Jabari was a starter.
11:37And then you start realizing all of a sudden Amin Thompson's playing 42 minutes, 41 minutes, 40 minutes.
11:44It's like, ooh, we are very different when this man is not on the floor, you know.
11:47You kind of stumbled into it because of injuries.
11:50But the flip side to that is you are a deep basketball team.
11:54And I know one of the things I was saying at the beginning of the year, Seth, when they got off to a so-so start,
11:59because they had talked about their depth in the preseason, like, boy, we have nine or ten guys we can trot out there.
12:04And when you get off to a bit of a slow start, it's like, all right, well, you can trot nine or ten guys out there.
12:10If none of them are great, then really, how deep are you?
12:12You know, you can be deep.
12:13Any team can go trot nine or ten guys out there that are along the same, you know, equal level of player.
12:20But if they're all mediocre, then you're a mediocre basketball team.
12:23They are truly a deep team.
12:25You know, Ben, pull up J.J. Redick here if you could.
12:29Here's J.J. Redick on the depth of the Rockets.
12:33You know, really specifically, with Reed Shepard and Cam Whitmore, both those guys would be rotation players on nearly every team
12:42and potential starters on a lot of teams.
12:45And those guys, they're thirsty to play and they're thirsty to prove themselves.
12:50And they're both really good players, really good players.
12:54So, you know, we didn't know which direction they were going to go.
12:59We prepped as if they were playing everyone.
13:01We even, you know, I had a pre-coaches meeting with the scout pod leader and Bob, our defensive coordinator this morning.
13:10All those guys were out, and so we pivoted.
13:13Yeah, okay.
13:14So he's talking about the game, the Lakers game, where they sat some guys.
13:17But that's – it's funny, that lottery pick they have from Phoenix, Seth.
13:22If I'm a player coming out in the draft, it sounds counterintuitive because, hey, I want to win.
13:28I'm a young player.
13:28I want to win.
13:29I don't know if I want to get drafted by the Rockets.
13:32Oh, yeah.
13:32You're going to get held down there in purgatory, yeah.
13:35Rich Shepard, Rich Shepard's the third overall pick in the draft.
13:37He never – he only sees the floor in garbage time and in games where they're not playing guys.
13:42And when he does see the floor, he shoots four for eight, six for ten from three.
13:47Like, Rich Shepard – I totally agree with what J.J. Redick is saying.
13:50That would be fascinating.
13:52Rich Shepard – I'll put Rich Shepard aside because he's just a rookie.
13:55Cam Whitmore is two years in.
13:57And when he does get on the floor, there is an element to Cam Whitmore, a little like I described Jalen Green.
14:02Like, all right, if I plunk Cam Whitmore down on one of these non – on one of these lottery teams, he'd probably go get you 19 points a night, you know?
14:09Cam Whitmore has played well enough in watching how this team has developed.
14:13I've kind of softened on Cam Whitmore's disgruntlement.
14:17I have, too.
14:17I wish he would handle it differently.
14:19Yes.
14:19And yet –
14:20I get it.
14:20I'd like – hey, keep it in-house, you know?
14:23Don't be – don't just – just be a good soldier.
14:26Let your agent take care of the dirty work.
14:28And yet, yeah, I understand Cam Whitmore's frustration to a certain degree.
14:31This – him being drafted by the Rockets could be costing him millions of dollars.
14:36Yes.
14:37Yes.
14:37Yeah, the way they operate their contracts.
14:39Yeah, yeah.
14:40It does.
14:40It has a little bit of a feel of the Astros back when guys like – there was no place for some of the guys down in AAA and AA.
14:49Yeah.
14:49These guys are – I don't know.
14:51What do we do with them?
14:51There's no room for them.
14:52Free Cam Whitmore.
14:54There is the – the depth and the breadth of the Rockets depth chart right now is encouraging also because of Udoka.
15:00And I think when it comes to the playoffs where rotations matter so much and everything becomes outsized in terms of the impact you can have with the right personnel selections.
15:12Yeah.
15:12That for some of their weaknesses and their poor shooting, they do have guys who can score across the board in various different ways.
15:21So, the chess match between Udoka and other coaches is going to be fascinating.
15:25And then, like, that J.J. Redick dynamic that he just talked about is, okay, exactly how do you prepare for these guys?
15:31We might not be – we're not terrified of any specific sniper, and yet any of these guys can really do some damage to us on any given night.
15:39Yeah, Udoka should be an advantage in some of these series, man.
15:42You're playing the same team for seven games, you know.
15:44It's a real chess match.