2025 Playoffs Showing the Houston Rockets Are Not Far Off

The Houston Rockets were one of the best teams in the NBA during James Harden's tenure. The Rockets were a team in purgatory for three or four seasons before Harden was traded to the Rockets. When the Rockets traded for Harden in 2012, they were hoping they could go from an average team at best to a championship contender.

Every season, the Rockets would get closer and closer as Harden was an MVP candidate year after year. The Rockets finally were able to put a team around Harden good enough to compete for a championship in the 2017-18 season. They came within a Chris Paul hamstring injury away from possibly winning a championship.

After that 2018 Western Conference Finals loss to the Golden State Warriors, the Rockets started to go backward. That would be the closest the Rockets would get to a title with Harden, as he would be traded to the Brooklyn Nets in 2021. After the Harden trade, the Rockets would suffer through their worst three-year stretch in franchise history.

During that time, the Rockets accumulated multiple lottery picks and started to turn it around after the hire of Ime Udoka. The addition of players like Fred VanVleet and Dillon Brooks brought veteran leadership to the team. Alperen Sengun and Jalen Green have continued to get better each season.

Two years later, the Rockets made their first playoff appearance since 2020 and, despite the loss, are in a great situation in the future with multiple high-value draft picks and several players under the age of 23.

The NBA season is close to its conclusion, as the No. 1 overall seed, the Oklahoma City Thunder, is facing off against the surprise team of the NBA playoffs, the Indiana Pacers. Despite the Thunder's dominance during the regular season, the playoffs have shown just how close the playoff teams are to each other.

It has become even more evident after Game 1 of the NBA Finals. The Pacers shocked the NBA world by taking Game 1 over the Thunder in OKC, a game the Thunder led for all but 0.3 seconds, as Tyrese Haliburton hit a 22-foot game-winner.

The Rockets showed during the regular season that they could compete with any team in the NBA. The Rockets were the only team to defeat both the Thunder and the Cleveland Cavaliers and were one of the few teams to have a winning record against the league's top six teams.

The Rockets will only get better as they are still one of the youngest teams in the NBA and have the assets to improve the team in the future. The NBA has not experienced this much parity in a long time, and that parity will play a significant role in the Rockets' decisions this offseason, particularly when it comes to trades or selecting the No. 10 overall pick.

The Rockets showed this season they are one of the better teams in the NBA, and despite having several players under the age of 23, with the right moves this offseason, we could be watching the Houston Rockets in the NBA Finals in the near future.