Brian Windhorst

I think the derailment of the Rockets season began right before the year started when Fred VanVleet tore his ACL.

They were, you know, you lose your franchise point guard, who happens to be a guy who is also a leader, before the season, and you're kneecaps.

But not only that, they didn't really have a backup.

Like, they were probably in the worst position in the league to lose their starting point guard, and they lost him, like...

in a spot where they couldn't really replace him because of where they're... I won't bore you with the details of the cap position, but it was really unfortunate.

But the decision to go through the entire season and not address it because eventually they had the ability to make a trade, to try to do something about it, that is what's biting them.

The reason the Rockets are underachieving is because they cannot get into anything resembling organized offense.

Part of that is...

I think Ime Udoka hasn't done a great job.

He's a brilliant defensive coach, but he's not been a great offensive coach this year.

But part of it is their franchise point guard got hurt in a terrible time.

Yeah, so when the discourse comes to LeBron's career, so many people want to pull it right to him versus Jordan.

I go all over the country, all over the planet.

This is what they want to ask.

And I get it.

I totally get it.

But really what LeBron's career is, the richness of his career is the sub stories of each of these eras and each of these seasons, you know.

The concept of getting to eight straight finals is preposterous, but I won't focus on that.

There were so many things that happened in these individual years.

And the story of this individual season is very interesting in the LeBron landscape.