Houston Rockets

• 1. Introduction

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  In their debut season in 1967-68, the Houston Rockets lost 67 games, setting an NBA record for losses at the time. Playing out of San Diego, the franchise had been founded by Robert Breitbard. Breitbard paid $1.75 million to join the NBA as an expansion team. On the 26th of January 1970, he stood on the floor of the San Diego Sports Arena and addressed his fans. "We have been served an eviction notice," Breitbard said. His franchise was in financial collapse. The team was on the brink of being dissolved. Yet within a generation, the same organization would win two NBA championships in consecutive seasons. That same franchise would also change how front offices around the league thought about building a team. What kept this franchise alive, and what eventually allowed it to win?

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• 2. A City in Motion

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  The name "Rockets" came from a public contest that invited San Diego residents to choose a name for their new team. The winning idea honored San Diego's identity as "a city in motion." A nearby General Dynamics plant was developing the Atlas missile and booster rocket program, lending the name added resonance. Jack McMahon, formerly the head coach of the Cincinnati Royals, was brought in to serve as both coach and general manager. Pat Riley was the franchise's first-ever draft pick.

  Three days into the 1967-68 season, the Rockets earned their first win, a 121-114 road victory over the Seattle SuperSonics. Johnny Green led the way with 30 points and 25 rebounds. The very next game, Art Williams recorded the first triple-double in franchise history, posting 17 points, 15 rebounds and 13 assists in defeat.

  In 1968, after winning a coin toss against the Baltimore Bullets, the Rockets claimed the first pick in the NBA draft. They selected Elvin Hayes from the University of Houston. Hayes improved the team's win total to 37 in his rookie year, enough for the franchise's first playoff appearance. The Rockets lost that series to the Atlanta Hawks, four games to two.

  At least 14 private buyers made offers to purchase the Rockets during this period. A contested tax assessment on the San Diego Sports Arena had created debt that Breitbard could not clear. Every offer came with a relocation out of San Diego, which Breitbard consistently refused to accept. On the 12th of January 1971, the Rockets hosted the NBA All-Star Game at the San Diego Sports Arena. The West beat the East 108-107 in front of 14,378 fans. It was, as it turned out, a farewell. On the 23rd of June 1971, Breitbard sold the franchise to a Houston-based investment group for $5.6 million. The NBA approved the sale quickly, fearing the team was about to fold. Coaches, players, and employees first learned of the sale through the press.

  Texas Sports Investments moved the Rockets to Houston for the 1971-72 season, making them the first NBA franchise in Texas. In their early Houston years, the team played in a rotating collection of venues, including the Astrodome, Sam Houston Coliseum, and Hofheinz Pavilion. They also staged "home" games in Waco, San Antonio, and Albuquerque to expand their following. In one Waco game, only 759 fans attended. By 1975, the team had built enough of a local following to sell out every home playoff game. Johnny Egan led them to their first-ever playoff series win, defeating the New York Knicks in the first round. They then fell to the Boston Celtics in five games in the second round. Tom Nissalke was hired as head coach after the Rockets missed the 1976 playoffs. He pressed the front office to find a play-making guard and a rebounding center who could change the team's fortunes.

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• 3. Malone and the First Finals

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  Nissalke found his guard in John Lucas and his center in Moses Malone, whom he had previously coached in the ABA. Both players made an immediate impact. The 1976-77 Rockets won the Central Division and advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they fell 4-2 to Julius Erving's Philadelphia 76ers.

  Rudy Tomjanovich, the team's captain, suffered numerous facial fractures after being punched by Kermit Washington of the Los Angeles Lakers, upending the following season. He spent five months in rehabilitation. The Rockets subsequently traded John Lucas to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for Rick Barry. They returned to the playoffs in 1978-79, and Malone earned the 1979 MVP Award for his dominance as a rebounder. The postseason ended in a sweep, two games to zero, against Atlanta.

  In 1979, George Maloof, a businessperson from Albuquerque, New Mexico, purchased the franchise for $9 million. He died the following year, and his 24-year-old son Gavin stepped in to run the organization. Charlie Thomas and Sidney Shlenker eventually bought the team for $11 million in 1982.

  Before the 1980-81 season, the arrival of the Dallas Mavericks triggered an NBA realignment. The Rockets were moved from the Eastern Conference to the Western Conference. They finished that season 40-42, a losing record. Still, Houston beat the Los Angeles Lakers, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Kansas City Kings in sequence. Only the 1959 Minneapolis Lakers had previously reached the NBA Finals with a losing regular-season record. In the Finals against Larry Bird's Boston Celtics, the Rockets blew a late lead in Game 1 but won Game 2 at Boston Garden. The Celtics took the series in six games.

  Malone was chosen as MVP for a second time in 1981-82. But a declining regional economy had made his contract unaffordable for the franchise, and the Rockets traded him to the Philadelphia 76ers for Caldwell Jones. The season that followed produced a league-worst 14-68 record. Bill Fitch was brought in from Boston to replace the outgoing Del Harris as head coach. With the first pick in the 1983 NBA draft, Houston selected Ralph Sampson from the University of Virginia. Sampson won the NBA Rookie of the Year award in his first season. Finishing last overall again the following year, the Rockets held the first pick in the 1984 draft as well.

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• 4. Twin Towers

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  In the 1984 NBA draft, the Rockets selected Hakeem Olajuwon from the University of Houston. Olajuwon finished second only to Michael Jordan in Rookie of the Year balloting. He improved the team's win total by 19 games. Paired with Sampson's 7-foot-4-inch frame, Olajuwon gave Houston a frontcourt pairing that other teams struggled to match. Fans and commentators settled on a nickname: the Twin Towers. In the 1985-86 season, the duo led Houston to a 51-31 record and the Midwest Division title. In the playoffs, the Rockets swept the Sacramento Kings. They then won a hard-fought six-game series against Alex English's Denver Nuggets. They then defeated the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. It was the only playoff series the Showtime Lakers would lose during that era.

  The 1986 NBA Finals brought a second matchup with the Boston Celtics, who featured Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish. The Celtics won the first two games in Boston. They handed Houston their only home playoff loss of the season in Game 4. Bird scored a triple-double in Game 6 to clinch the title for Boston. Celtics coach K. C. Jones afterward called the Rockets "the new monsters on the block," suggesting they had a bright future. That future arrived later than anyone expected.

  Early in the 1987-88 season, Sampson was traded to the Golden State Warriors. Chronic knee injuries shortened his career, forcing his retirement in 1991. The five seasons that followed produced no deep playoff runs. Don Chaney replaced Bill Fitch as head coach. In 1990-91, Chaney guided Houston to a 52-30 record despite Olajuwon missing 25 games due to injury, earning the Coach of the Year award. The roster of that era included Kenny Smith, Vernon Maxwell, Robert Horry, Mario Elie, and Sam Cassell. All of them would play a significant role in what followed. Midway through the 1991-92 season, with the record at 26-26, Chaney was let go. His replacement was his assistant, Rudy Tomjanovich, a former Rockets player. On the 30th of July 1993, Leslie Alexander purchased the franchise for $85 million, and a new chapter began.

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• 5. Clutch City

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  The 1993-94 season opened with the Rockets tying an NBA record by winning their first 15 games. Their first loss arrived on the 3rd of December 1993, when Dominique Wilkins scored 27 points to lead the Atlanta Hawks to a 133-111 victory. Olajuwon drove what had become an exceptional team. He was named both the regular-season MVP and the Defensive Player of the Year. The Rockets finished with 58 wins, a then-franchise record.

  The playoffs began with a four-game sweep of the Portland Trail Blazers. The next round, against the defending Western Conference champion Phoenix Suns, brought near-catastrophe. Suns MVP Charles Barkley's team took a 2-0 series lead after Houston surrendered large leads in both games. Local newspapers branded the city "Choke City." The Rockets won the next four games, including the deciding seventh on their home court. The label that stuck was "Clutch City." Houston dispatched John Stockton and Karl Malone's Utah Jazz in five games and then faced the New York Knicks in the Finals. The Knicks opened a 3-2 series lead. The Rockets won the final two games at home and claimed the franchise's first NBA championship. Olajuwon earned the Finals MVP award, averaging 27 points, nine rebounds, and four blocked shots per game across the series.

  Otis Thorpe was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers at mid-season of 1994-95, with Clyde Drexler, Olajuwon's former college teammate, coming to Houston in return. With only 47 wins, Houston entered the playoffs as the sixth seed in the Western Conference. The Rockets defeated the Jazz, the Suns, and the Spurs, the conference's top three seeds. Their Finals opponent was the Orlando Magic, led by Shaquille O'Neal and Penny Hardaway. Houston swept Orlando in four games. It was the first time in NBA history that a sixth-seeded team had won the championship. The Rockets were also the first team to eliminate four opponents, each with at least 50 wins, in a single postseason. Olajuwon won the Finals MVP for the second consecutive year, making him only the second player after Michael Jordan to earn that distinction back-to-back. Celebrating with his team on the floor of The Summit, head coach Rudy Tomjanovich proclaimed: "Don't ever underestimate the heart of a champion!"

  The Rockets acquired Charles Barkley before the 1996-97 season. The trio of Olajuwon, Drexler, and Barkley won 57 games that year but fell to the Utah Jazz in the Western Conference Finals on a last-second John Stockton shot. By 2001, each member of that trio had left the team. In the 2002 NBA draft, a new centerpiece was on its way.

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• 6. The Ming Dynasty

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  In the 2002 NBA draft, Houston selected Yao Ming with the first overall pick. The Chinese center stood 7 feet 6 inches tall. He missed the 2003 playoffs by one game. The following season, the team moved into Toyota Center and won its first playoff berth since 1999. Jeff Van Gundy had taken over as head coach after Rudy Tomjanovich resigned following a diagnosis of bladder cancer. Before the 2004-05 season, the Rockets acquired Tracy McGrady in a seven-player trade from the Orlando Magic. Steve Francis, a three-time All-Star with Houston, was among those sent to Orlando in the deal. McGrady had won the NBA scoring title. Together, Yao and McGrady formed a pairing that looked capable of challenging for a championship.

  In the 463 regular-season games they were teammates, Yao missed 146 and McGrady missed 160. Despite those absences, the tandem's peak season came in 2007-08, when the Rockets won 22 consecutive games. At the time, that ranked as the third-longest winning streak in NBA history. Yao was selected to carry China's Five-star Red Flag at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. After the 2007 playoff elimination, Rick Adelman replaced Van Gundy as head coach.

  The 2008-09 season produced the pair's best record: 53 wins and 29 losses. Houston beat the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round of the playoffs, four games to two. It was the franchise's first playoff series win since 1997. During that series, center Dikembe Mutombo suffered a knee injury that ended his career after 18 seasons in the NBA. The second-round matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers ended in a 4-3 series loss, with Yao suffering a hairline fracture of his left foot. Seven games into the 2010-11 season, Yao's body gave out once more. He retired during the 2011 off-season. General manager Daryl Morey had built a reputation for applying advanced statistical analytics to team construction. He now turned to a complete rebuild.

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• 7. The Harden Era

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  Daryl Morey's approach to assembling a roster drew comparisons to sabermetrics, the statistical revolution that had reshaped baseball. His front office evaluated players through advanced metrics rarely used in professional basketball at the time. After the 2012 off-season overhaul, only four players remained from the 2011-12 roster. The centerpiece acquisition was James Harden, the reigning Sixth Man of the Year, whom Morey publicly called a "foundational" player. In the season opener against the Detroit Pistons, Harden delivered 37 points, 12 assists, 6 rebounds, 4 steals, and a block. He averaged 25.9 points per game across that full season. The Rockets led the NBA in scoring for the majority of the year.

  Dwight Howard officially signed with the team on the 13th of July 2013, giving Houston a prominent inside-outside combination. In 2017, Mike D'Antoni was named Coach of the Year and Eric Gordon won the Sixth Man of the Year award. Harden took home the MVP the following year. Houston reached the Western Conference Finals twice during his tenure, in 2015 and in 2018, both times losing to the Golden State Warriors. The 2017-18 season was particularly difficult to absorb. The Rockets finished with 65 wins, the best record in the league and the best in franchise history. In the Conference Finals, they held a 3-2 series lead over Golden State. Chris Paul had been acquired from the Los Angeles Clippers in a seven-player trade. He left Game 5 with a hamstring injury. Houston lost the final two games without him.

  Tilman Fertitta, a Houston restaurant entrepreneur, purchased the franchise for $2.2 billion in 2017. That price set a record for the purchase of an American professional sports team at the time. On the court, Russell Westbrook arrived via trade for Chris Paul. Harden and Westbrook became the first pair of teammates in NBA history to each average more than 30 points and more than 5 assists per game in the same season. Their combined scoring averaged 61.5 points per game, breaking the record for the highest-scoring duo since the ABA-NBA merger, previously held by Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal. During one stretch, Harden scored at least 30 points in 32 consecutive games, the second-longest such streak in NBA history. He averaged 41.1 points per game during that run. On the 7th of April 2019, against the Phoenix Suns, the Rockets became the first team in NBA history to make 25 or more two-pointers and 25 or more three-pointers in the same game. The Warriors still eliminated Houston in the 2019 playoffs, the fourth time in five seasons they had done so. Before the 2020-21 season, both D'Antoni and Morey departed the organization. Harden requested a trade and was sent to the Brooklyn Nets in January 2021.

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• 8. New Foundations

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  The 2020-21 Rockets finished 17-55, the worst record in the league. In the 2021 NBA draft, Houston selected Jalen Green with the second overall pick, out of the NBA G League Ignite program. The same class brought Alperen Şengün and Josh Christopher in the first round. Progress was slow. The 2021-22 Rockets went 20-62. Green averaged 17.3 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 2.6 assists per game, earning a spot on the NBA All-Rookie First Team. The 2022-23 season produced a 22-60 record, tying the San Antonio Spurs for the worst mark in the Western Conference. Head coach Stephen Silas was dismissed. Ime Udoka, formerly the head coach of the Boston Celtics, was hired as his replacement.

  Fred VanVleet signed a three-year contract worth $130 million in that off-season. Dillon Brooks joined on a four-year, $86 million deal. The 2023 NBA draft added Amen Thompson with the fourth overall pick and Cam Whitmore with the 20th. In 2024, Kentucky guard Reed Sheppard was selected with the third pick. The focal point of the rebuild was Şengün. In 2023-24, he averaged 21.1 points, 9.3 rebounds, and 5 assists per game before an ankle injury ended his season in late March. He made his first All-Star Game appearance the following year.

  The Rockets finished 52-30 in 2024-25, secured the second seed in the Western Conference, and made their first playoff appearance in five years. They fell to the Golden State Warriors in a seven-game first-round series. On the 6th of July 2025, the franchise traded Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks to the Phoenix Suns. The deal was part of a seven-team trade that brought perennial All-Star Kevin Durant to Houston. Durant became the fifth all-time leading scorer in NBA history on the 21st of March 2026, during a home game at Toyota Center. The crowd's response moved him. "It is great to be cheered and not booed in Houston," Durant said afterward. On the 29th of April 2026, the Rockets achieved something rare in playoff history. Trailing three games to zero, they forced a Game 6, becoming only the sixth team in NBA history to do so. They accomplished it without Durant, who was unavailable for those wins. They lost that game and were eliminated by the Los Angeles Lakers. By the end of the 2025-26 season, Şengün had made two consecutive All-Star appearances, in 2025 and 2026. Durant, in his first full season with the franchise, was named to the All-NBA Second Team.

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