When expectations meet reality, they can make for strange bedfellows.<\/p>\n
As a child, you expect to be the president, or an astronaut, or, in the case of my late uncle, a donkey (true story). As an adult, you become a policy analyst who reports to the man who reports to the woman who reports to the man who reports to the president. Or\u2026not a donkey.<\/p>\n
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The Houston Rockets had certain expectations heading into 2025-26. At 21-11, it would be an overstatement to say they\u2019ve failed expectations. Yet, it feels equally reductive to say they\u2019ve met them.<\/p>\n
These haven\u2019t been the Rockets we envisioned. This team was going to play big wings as 2s. They were going to run the biggest lineups in NBA history. There\u2019s been some of that, but not as much as anticipated. Perhaps there\u2019s a simple reason:<\/p>\n
The Rockets\u2019 big wings haven\u2019t been available until recently.<\/p>\n
Rockets have received a facelift<\/p>\n
Now, the whole crew is on board.<\/p>\n
Forget about Saturday\u2019s gruesome loss to the Mavericks. Alperen Sengun had to leave the game early. That\u2019s the whole story.<\/p>\n
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Over the Rockets\u2019 last five games, they\u2019re 4-1. More significantly, their 109.2 Defensive Rating lands third in the NBA over that stretch.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s not confuse correlation with causation. The competition has not been strong. The Rockets\u2019 best win during that stretch came against a Lakers team whose record (21-11) far outpaces their Net Rating (-0.4).<\/p>\n
Moreover, it would be a stretch to attribute too many wins to the presence of Dorian Finney-Smith, who\u2019s scoring 2.4 points per game while shooting 30.8% from the field. Though one could take the other side of that argument. The Rockets\u2019 ability to win with Finney-Smith still shaking off rust is either indicative of the strength of the roster or Finney-Smith\u2019s ability to contribute beyond the stat sheet. Based on the eye test, I\u2019d take the latter position: Finney-Smith defends with vigor.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, Tari Eason has picked up an excellent season where he left off. He\u2019s shooting 47.4% from deep over those last five contests. Eason has also returned to being a menace on defense, averaging 2.0 steals per game over that stretch.<\/p>\n
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It could be a harbinger of what\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n
Rockets\u2019 real identity is being revealed<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s talk some more about some big lineups and some small sample sizes.<\/p>\n
Per CleaningTheGlass, the lineup of Alperen Sengun, Jabari Smith Jr., Kevin Durant, Tari Eason, and Amen Thompson is +47.8 over 104 possessions. It\u2019s their fourth-most used lineup, but there\u2019s certainly still meat on that bone.<\/p>\n
How about Steven Adams, Sengun, Durant, Eason, and Thompson? They\u2019re +55.8 in just 15 possessions. That\u2019s too small a sample to say much about, but it\u2019s an intriguing group.<\/p>\n
The broader point is that Eason, as a jumbo off-guard, seems to unlock something. With his elite catch-and-shoot numbers (51.4% on those three-point attempts this year), the Rockets don\u2019t lose anything by playing him out of position, and gain plenty.<\/p>\n
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Conceptually, the same could hold for Finney-Smith. When Eason needs to miss time, he can plug into that role, or the Rockets can mix-and-match them at will. The Rockets finally have their full roster at their disposal, and the possibilities are exciting:<\/p>\n
I, for one, will not bother trying to manage my expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When expectations meet reality, they can make for strange bedfellows. As a child, you expect to be the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1307,883,7,374,194,1346,938,300,6,962,873],"class_list":{"0":"post-518184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-alperen-sengun","9":"tag-amen-thompson","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-dorian-finney-smith","12":"tag-houston-rockets","13":"tag-jabari-smith","14":"tag-kevin-durant","15":"tag-lakers","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-steven-adams","18":"tag-tari-eason"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115842893291425344","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}