Walking wounded lose fourth in a row
January 11th, 2006by John
WEDNESDAY, 1/11/06 – For the second night in a row, the Rockets only had 9 players suit up in uniform. Stromile Swift missed his second straight game — he is out for about a week with conjunctivitis in his left eye (I think the Rockets have been hit by every injury possible by now). But they still had a chance to beat a team that has been struggling just about as much as themselves– the Sacramento Kings. However, the Rockets couldn’t hit shots near the end of the game — like always — and they lost their fourth in a row, 88-80.
There is really no need for me to go into the gory details. It was a pretty boring game with no superstar action to keep it interesting. The only star that made it somewhat palatable to watch was former Texas Longhorn quarterback Vince Young in attendance and being interviewed in the second quarter during the Rockets’ broadcast.
Other than that, we saw Houston make only 3-of-20 three-point attempts. Where are you, Scott Padgett? Oh yeah, I forgot…the Rockets blew up the chemistry they had last year by letting you go and trading Mike James in the off-season. On October 3rd, I wrote the following about the decision to not keep Padgett:
I know Padgett can easily be overlooked because he isn’t that flashy of a player, but he shot a team-high 39.7% from three-point territory last year. There were several games last year where Padgett was incredible from downtown to pull out victories.
With Padgett gone, (the Rockets) will need to find someone during training camp who can fill the void, or the media will soon be lameting the fact the Rockets are pitiful from long range.
With this season probably a lost cause, the Rockets must look ahead at rebuilding their roster with youth. I think we’ll see more of Luther Head and John Lucas III in the coming weeks. Juwan Howard, Dikembe Mutombo and David Wesley are probably their most tradeable healthy commodities who could help a team on the verge of making the playoffs get over the hump.
I really think the Rockets are going to need to bring in a young scorer who can be the third option behind Yao and T-Mac, and they can build from there. Especially since T-Mac‘s back can flare up at any moment. They need to bring in a scoring ‘insurance policy’ for when T-Mac cannot play. That means no more bringing in old guys like Latrell Sprewell, Van Gundy!
And if I were owner Leslie Alexander, it cannot be a good feeling to see lots of empty seats at Toyota Center. I am a mini-season ticket holder, and I’m losing money on every game I cannot attend. So I can only imagine what it’s like to be the owner of the team and see lots of empty seats, which means less concession sales, parking revenue, etc. The atmosphere at Toyota Center needs to change in a big way since it is obviously affecting Houston in the won-loss column. The Rockets have the worst home record in the league at 3-11!
So we’ll see if the Rockets (now 12-22) make any moves as they approach the halfway mark of this very long season.
To see the boxscore from the game, click here.