The Spurs used last season to reveal how motivating a sour defeat could be; they plowed through the league to win their fifth ring, avenging the devastating loss to the Heat in 2013.
On a smaller scale, possibly that same narrative will perform for the Houston Rockets, who bowed out of the postseason against a Blazers club few expected would offer immunity.
The Rockets will expect to do more this season. Unfortunately, they’ll have less to use than they did. Omer Asik and jeremy Lin are elsewhere, thinning a spinning that didn’t have a lot of depth. And, of course, his Texas address has been shifted by Parsons.
James Harden and Dwight Howard remain, and they will be tested more rigorously than ever before.
If Trevor Ariza avoids the post-contract letdown so many anticipate and when Terrence Jones takes yet another step ahead, Houston could be more dangerous than it had been a year ago.
However, when measured against Dallas and Golden State, whose title chances are the like Houston’s–and whose rosters improved after more impressive playoff runs last season –the Rockets seem like the group likely to deliver on those 20-1 odds.
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