The Rockets are always moving pieces and engaged in trade rumors. Every season with Daryl Morey at the helm has had an acquisition during the season and this year was no different. After another heartbreaking loss to the Warriors in the playoffs, the Rockets shook up their roster by swapping Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook. On paper it didn’t make much sense as Westbrook and James Harden are both high-usage players and the first few months of the year it looked like a downgrade. Instead of watching the ship slowly sink, Morey committed by trading Clint Capela for Robert Covington and things got much more interesting.

Houston is currently the six seed in a competitive Western Conference, but they’re only five games back of the second seed. It’s unlikely that the Rockets would have made a surge for the two seed, but each week the standings in the west looked different from the third seed down to the seventh seed.

2019 Harden

James Harden had an amazing 2019 calendar year. He started off the season strong and continued to play at a ridiculous level for the first three months of the regular season. In fantasy basketball, his durability and high usage make him one of the most reliable picks, and in reality having him on your team guarantees a spot in the playoffs.

In October he averaged 36.8 points and 8.8 assists. In November he averaged 39.5 points and 7.6 assists. In December he averaged 37.3 points and 6.9 assists. The addition of Russell Westbrook did not slow him down at all. During that stretch, Harden shot more 3-pointers than 2-pointers and still made them at an efficient clip. 3-pointers always add a level of variance to the game and the tail end of the variance hit in January.

He hit .270 of his 3-point attempts and his scoring average dipped to 28.6. It was the most brutal stretch for Harden in his Rockets career, especially with the team struggling to find consistency. After the Robert Covington trade, things began to open up again and Harden found his groove, but it wasn’t as dominant as his 2019 stretch.

Even with that slump, Harden is the top fantasy player in terms of overall value in both 8/9-cat and is 1/2 in terms of per-game value. He’s also leading the league with 34.4 points per game and has managed to hold off a substantial dip in rebounds and assists despite the arrival of Westbrook. Must be nice.

Russell Westbrook’s Layup Factory

The elephant in the room when Russell Westbrook joined the Rockets was how he would fit into a system that prioritizes 3-point shots after coming off one of the worst 3-point shooting seasons in NBA history, when he knocked down just 29.0% of his 5.6 3-point attempts per game. At first, Russ continued to jack up 3s and mid-range shots that had many people questioning why anyone thought this move would work out, but as the season went on, he began to abandon the 3-point shot completely.

In December, Russ played in 13 games and shot 57 3-pointers. Over the next 23 games, Russ only shot 54 3-pointers and his scoring average increased to 33.4 points in the month of February. Teams are guarding him like they do with Draymond Green and Ben Simmons, allowing him to have all the space in the world outside of the 3-point line in order to guard the paint, but Russ is still finding ways to get to the rim and score at the most efficient rate of his career. Though Westbrook is hitting just 25.4% of his threes this season, he’s hitting 47.4% of his shots overall. He also learned how to shoot free throws again and is hitting them at a .777 clip after shooting .656 the season prior in OKC.

While the doubters were rightfully skeptical of how Westbrook’s shooting would fit in Houston, those who believed that quality floor spacing could make up the difference look to be in the right so far. Though he’s still not quite elite in 9-cat formats, Wesbtrook’s per-game rankings of 13/37 (8/9-cat) are a lot more in line with his typically lofty ADP. Though he has seen a drop in rebounds and assists (from 11.1 to 8.0 and 10.7 to 7.0, respectively), the spike in field goal percentage has pushed Westbrook back into early-round territory.

Lord Covington   

Robert Covington was a name that was constantly in the Rockets trade rumor mill. Usually when this happens, it means a deal isn’t likely to be done, but a three-team deal was made for the Rockets to finally get the guy they’ve coveted for so long.

When the trade was announced, every NBA fan and analyst had a strong opinion about it. Small-ball has been played in increments with great success, as seen by the Warriors during their dynastic run, but no one has ever committed to not playing a traditional center for all 48 minutes. In the first game after the trade, the Rockets played one of the biggest teams in the league, the Lakers. There were plenty of alley-oops and dunks for Anthony Davis and LeBron James and at halftime the TNT crew and all of Twitter had a field day clowning on the Rockets’ microball approach. Then the Rockets won the game and the newly acquired Lord Covington hit two clutch 3-pointers in road win against the No. 1 seed in the West.

Russell Westbrook had 41 points and the critics were rightfully skeptical about whether a team could run P.J. Tucker at center for 48 minutes for an entire season.

As for Covington, he’s been a nice fit with the Rockets from a fantasy perspective. His 12.8 points per game for Houston is the same that he averaged with the Wolves this season, but his rebounds are up from 6.0 to 7.9, his 3-pointers are up from 2.3 to 2.9 and his blocks skyrocketed from 0.9 to 2.5. The block numbers are obviously not sustainable as we’re looking at a 14-game sample, but you can also expect Covington to regain his form in the steals department — he’s gone from 1.7 to 1.1 per game after the trade. As a true frontcourt player, more rebounds should be headed Covington’s way, and the threes will always be plentiful in Houston. It’s a great fantasy match and Covington should maintain his status as an under-the-radar early-round guy.

Microball

Covington was the new shiny toy that hit the big shots to end the game, but the real story was Russell Westbrook scoring 41 points on .607 shooting. I did a quick breakdown with some images of how the halfcourt sets are run for the Rockets and it all starts with James Harden.

Because of his ridiculous play in the first three months of the season, teams began to double him before he even crossed halfcourt. He’d have to get rid of the ball, because that’s the correct play to make, and it would become a 4-on-3 opportunity for the Rockets with Russ having the ball. The issue with this set before the RoCo deal was that Clint Capela was in the paint and the defender guarding Russ was camped in the paint as well, clogging the lane and leading to pull-up jumpers or 3-pointers from Westbrook.

When Covington arrived, the paint became clear and Russ could take advantage of this with his elite athleticism and downhill speed. Microball was off to a better start than most people would have expected, but the variance in playstyle showed when the Rockets hit a four-game losing streak that started off with the lowly Knicks taking advantage of their five power forwards and saw Houston hit rock bottom when the team lost to the Hornets and Magic by a combined total of 29 points. The last game the Rockets played was a six-point win against the Wolves to end their skid and the break in play is actually a positive for the Rockets due to their shaky play.

Even on the fringes, the Rockets declined to add a traditional center even as emergency depth, filling out the roster with switchier forwards like DeMarre Carroll, Jeff Green and Bruno Caboclo.

Injuries

James Harden has one of the heaviest workloads in the league, but he’s one of the most durable players as well. The subject of load management came up a lot during the Rockets offseason as Harden always seems to get fatigued towards the end of the playoffs, but he’s had zero load management days off this year which is a bit bizarre.

Russell Westbrook has sat one game in every back-to-back set this season, which is interesting as he plays fewer minutes than Harden and is the same age, but he’s had a knee surgery and his playstyle is a lot more explosive which is probably why he rests and Harden doesn’t. Harden has also been very vocal about wanting to play if he’s healthy and doesn’t like the idea of load management.

Eric Gordon had some knee issues which kept him out of a good chunk of the season and when he returned to action, he aggravated the problem within a few games. Gordon’s inability to stay on the court really hurt his ability to get in any sort of a rhythm and it’s one of the reasons why the Rockets were slumping.

Clint Capela also had a heel spur and dealt with plantar fasciitis before he was traded and those types of injuries to big men usually linger. The injury issues with Capela definitely played a part in Morey’s decision to commit all in on small-ball.

With Gordon’s lingering knee issues, Harden and P.J. Tucker’s extremely heavy workloads, the break in play and rest is something that benefits the Rockets greatly. Coach D’Antoni was running a tight rotation and if the season resumes, the Rockets should come out looking much better than they did prior to the break.