About Houston Rockets
The team was founded in 1967 as San Diego Rockets and four years later the franchise moved to Houston. It took the Rockets over ten season to finally record a winning season and another few more to reach its first NBA finals in 1981.
The eighties were a period where Houston was continued reaching playoffs but struggling to win them, until 94 when the team won its first NBA Championship repeating the accomplishment year later, as that time, the lowest seeded team in NBA history to win the title and they did by “sweeping” the Magic.
That season Houston set many firsts for an NBA franchise like for example being first NBA team to win the title without having a home advantage in any of the four playoff rounds.
The franchise is a member of young Southwest Division in Western Conference, the Rockets are the current divisional champions having claiming that title for the first time. The team’s colours are red, silver, black and mustard and their mascot, well decorated bear called Clutch the Rocket Bear won NBA Mascot of the Year award twice.
The team is coached by Hall of Famer, Kevin McHale who played for the Celtics as center/power forward and won three NBA titles with them. He’s been coaching the Rockets since 2011.
The franchise’s core are James Harden and Dwight Howard. Harden who was traded to Houston in 2012 has seen his career flourish with the team and he has become one of the best shooting guards in NBA earning himself three NBA All-Star honours, two All NBA First Team and also winning gold medals at Olympic games and World Cup playing for the team USA. It’s not only scoring that makes Harden so dangerous, his passing abilities and some defensive “smarts” make him to be a quite well rounded explosive player with room to grow.
In 2013 the team decided to add Dwight Howard who was looking for a place to rediscover his early success and show his skills again. The experienced center has been named NBA Defensive Player of the Year the times in a row, he led the NBA in rebounds five seasons and also was NBA block leader twice. When he left Orlando Magic he did as an all-time leading scorer of the Magic. With so much defensive skill Howard seems like a perfect addition to Harden’s offensive explosiveness.
