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As has been the case for just about every season since it was sadly determined that Yao Ming couldn’t trust his feet any more, the Rockets have been rolling over assets and wondering if each successive season is The One That Counts. The 2014-15 campaign seemed like the big winner, and with the West as stout as ever been it’s fair to wonder if the team has truly peaked. That’s just fine, though. Peaking as a third-rounder in this era of Western Conference basketball should be considered an accomplishment. Rockets fans, two decades removed from back to back champions, won’t want to hear this – but too much can happen in a Conference that meets a San Antonio first round ouster with a muffled yawn. [ Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball ] Houston whipped up the pace and busted out on the defensive end last season, overcoming a series of injuries that would have wrecked the chances of most championship contenders with the play of MVP candidate James Harden. Harden turned in a killer year. He still bored people to bits with his methodical play, which is probably why he lost the MVP award to Stephen Curry in what was otherwise a coin flip contest, but the hybrid guard still contributed 27.4 points, 5.7 rebounds and seven assists. His four turnovers a game might seem like a lot, but when accounting for the team’s pace, his minutes (nearly 37 a contest) and high usage, they hardly mattered. [ Yahoo Fantasy Basketball: Sign up for a league today ] Harden had to carry this team over the course of his 81 games. The Rockets were and are a deep outfit, thanks to general manager Daryl Morey’s work, but scads of important teammates lost time to injury: Dwight Howard missed exactly half the season and played the Conference finals with two significant knee injuries , Terrence Jones missed even more time, while Donatas Motiejunas and Patrick Beverley both suffered season-ending injuries either late in the regular season, or in the playoffs. Harden just kept churning, and his commitment to defense helped turn around the Rockets’ fortunes on that end. Howard played the capable role of second star. He’ll never get back to the sort of production we saw from him in 2010-11, but just two or three centers per decade ever do. Hampered by knee and back injuries in 2014-15, Howard still managed to offer 16 and 10 in just 30 minutes a game, and given full health he should eclipse those numbers this season in spite of turning 30 in December. The team has been working slowly with Howard in the exhibition season, allowing him to skip games as he readies for his 12th season. The two stars managed to pounce on a distracted Los Angeles Clippers club in the second round, on their way back to the Conference finals for the first time since 1997. Falling to the eventual champs from Golden State was far from shameful, and the team couldn’t help but wonder how things would have turned out had they showed up to work with the full complement of healthy players. Still, these things take time even with Howard’s ticking clock, and there’s no reason why Harden can’t sustain this sort of production in 2015-16 at age 26. He shouldn’t want to, as the team added depth and hopefully a healthier bit of luck in the offseason, but it wouldn’t be the biggest stretch to anticipate an MVP-styled return and, possibly, yet another championship in Clutch City. 2014-15 in 140 characters or less: OK, four to six weeks means he’d be back on March 12th at best. That’s not all that bad. Did the summer help at all? In myriad ways. With the exception of Cleveland’s infamous MASH unit, no playoff team entered the offseason with more cuts and scrapes than these Rockets. The team was without two starters by the time things wrapped up, alongside a pained Howard and the seemingly indefatigable Harden, and a few months away from the court should help everything out as the team prepares for what they hope is an eight-month grind. Houston also secured its enviable depth by re-signing Beverely, swingman Corey Brewer and intriguing shot blocker K.J. McDaniels to three very reasonable free agent contracts. Rookie Sam Dekker struggled early in the exhibition season, but the forward has improved as October has rolled along. On top of that, Daryl Morey’s Merry Band of Revolving Assets struck at the absolute best time yet again in the trade market.
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