With their unexpected hot start to the season, the Houston Rocket's front office may be a little too high on their young core.
I'm not sure there are many who would have predicted that the Houston Rockets would be 11-5 and just one game back of the top seed in the Western Conference standings at roughly the 20 percent mark of the season. Nevertheless, that's exactly where the Rockets find themselves as they're being led by their young core. Despite their strong start to the season, we should still be taking a wait-and-see approach with the team.
As we saw last season, it's one thing to get off to a hot start, it's an entirely different thing to carry that momentum throughout an entire year. Last season, the Rockets were 13-9 on December 15. They were right in the mix to finish as a top 4 seed in the Western Conference. However, over the last few months of the season, the Rockets quickly faded after their strong start. Houston would end up finishing with a 41-41 record and outside of the top 10 in the West standings.
With relatively the same core this season, the Rockets still have a ton of proving to do. The last thing they need to be doing is getting ahead of themselves. Interestingly enough, that does seem exactly what the front office may be doing. In addition to their hot start, it was recently reported that the team has "no interest" in breaking up their core even if it meant landing Giannis Antetokounmpo via trade. For a team that at one point was all about landing a superstar, this may be the exact definition of overreacting to a hot start.
Has the Houston Rockets' young core been undervalued?
Just a few months ago, there were rumors that the Rockets were open to trading one of their big-name young players, Jalen Green or Alperen Sengun. The recent reporting suggests that has changed in a big way. To be quite honest, I'm not sure if I buy that completely. For as good as Green and Alperen have been this season, I'm also not certain they've made the jump to superstar status in the league.
And in an NBA where finding or developing a superstar is generally the first step toward contention, that still should be the goal for every team. The Rockets may love their young core but I still don't see a superstar or even a potential superstar on their roster. It leads me to believe that this team's hot or encouraging start may be polluting the front office's ability to discern what their next step should be.
In theory, you can't blame the Rockets for wanting to see their young core continue to develop together, especially with how well they've been playing this season. At the same rate, if the Rockets were offered Giannis in a hypothetical scenario and they would be like, "No thanks," that would be equally insane.
The Rockets should feel good about their hot start but at this point, I also don't believe it should dramatically alter their goal of still trying to find a superstar to add to their roster, even if it does have to come via trade. The Rockets theoretically not being interested in Giannis would be shocking.