On Tuesday, the Rockets officially opened their new facility, now known as the Memorial Hermann Houston Rockets Training Center. With Jalen Green, Tari Eason, Amen Thompson, Reed Sheppard and Dillon Brooks, as well as Hakeem Olajuwon, Rudy Tomjanovich, Calvin Murphy and Elvin Hayes, looking on, owner Tilman Fertitta shared his optimism for the upcoming season. For him, there is no doubt that the franchise has what it takes to get back to the playoffs.
A medium-term title
“Last night I was looking at our squad.”, he tells. “Whoever our 14th player is, he would be in any team's rotation. There's no team richer than ours in the NBA. But we're still very young. When you look at all the great players, you don't become a great player until your third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh year. I think Michael Jordan waited until his seventh season to win his first championship.”
He could also have cited Hakeem Olajuwon, who waited 10 years before winning his first title.
“We don't want to wait that long… We expect to win more than one or two titles… The most important thing is that we are very young. There are big expectations. But to become a very big team, you have to be a little bit older… We expect a very big year.”
In 2020, the franchise decides to break everything
Listening to him, the Rockets had a four-year plan, and the rebuild is complete.
“We had agreed, when we were eliminated by the Lakers (in the second round of the playoffs in 2020), that we no longer had any draft choices,” remembers Tilman Fertitta. “We had traded everything back then. The first few years, I didn’t know what the draft was because we never had a draft pick. But it was time to start this plan. Patrick (his son) and Rafael (Stone, GM) came to me and said, ‘We can stay in the soft underbelly, which is to be seventh, eighth or ninth with no chance of getting to the second round, or we can turn things around.’ When you look at the seven players we’ve drafted in the last three years, it’s incredible, plus some great veterans. We decided to do something that’s going to pay dividends for the next 12 years.”
ROCKETS SQUAD 2024/25
Leaders: Fred VanVleet, Amen Thompson, Aaron Holiday
Backs/wingers: Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, Reed Sheppard, Jae'Sean Tate, Tari Eason, Cam Whitmore
Interiors: Steven Adams, Alperen Sengun, Jabari Smith Jr, Jeff Green, Jock Landale
