
The Rockets are going to be a ridiculously oversized team next season. They were already a big, physical team last year. Since then, they've swapped their 6'4 and 6'6 starting wings for 6'10 KD and 6'7 Dorian Finney-Smith, and they've added a third starting quality center – Capela.
The same center they traded away in 2020 to experiment with a zero center rotation. It was just a bunch of wings spacing the floor for James Harden and Russell Westbrook. Obviously, a lot of people really hated microball, and it got absolutely squished by the LeBron-AD Lakers. But the Lakers won the title that year. Microball didn't not work, and it was cool to see a team try something different. Just like it's cool to see the Rockets try something new again this year. Who needs guards anyway?
Funny how Capela has wound up being involved in Houston experimenting with both these outlandish extremes.
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The primary reason microball failed was the lack of forwards who could competently guard LA bigs after House was ejected for non-basketball reasons.
If Silver hadn’t overstepped his authority with a decision to eject Danuel House for opening his door that seems downright facist in hindsight, Houston could have won that series and the title.
The only thing preventing the Rockets from being up 2-0 on the Lakers was literally the worst playoff game of Russell Westbrook’s career.
But after the ejection there was no chance
(particularly with how much the incident distracted Harden, the likely perpetrator of the end-run around Destino security)