The Houston Rockets Appear To Be The Latest NBA Franchise Up For Sale
BIG time bomb here on what was a quiet Monday in the NBA world. Normally when we would hear rumors about the next NBA team being up for sale, it was mostly shitty teams with owners who weren’t really interested. But this news right here, that the Houston Rockets could potentially be up for sale is drastically different. For starters, Houston is one of the most consistent and successful franchises in the league. Sure they only have two titles (which came right after Leslie Alexander bought the team), but that doesn’t tell the whole story. They’ve made the playoffs 14 times, made four Conference Finals, and six Conference Semis. In terms of wins, they’ve really only had three down years in his tenure.
1999-00: .415 winning percentage
2001-02: .341 winning percentage
2005-06: .415 winning percentage
Even in the other years the Rockets missed the playoffs they won 42+ games (not counting the lockout year in 2011). They’ve also had a winning percentage over .600 nine times during his run. I get that in today’s world it’s all about titles, but to say Houston hasn’t been a model franchise during Alexander’s tenure simply isn’t true.
The timing of this announcement is interesting as well. The Harden Era Rockets have been one of the better teams in the West minus that stupid Dwight year, and they just extended Harden for crazy money a few weeks ago. They just traded for CP3, things are certainly trending in the right direction. If you’re a prospective buyer of this team those are pretty important pieces to be reassured of. It also doesn’t hurt that their GM is extremely good at what he does, and each and every summer they go out and try to improve their team at all costs. I wouldn’t say every franchise does that.
With the recent sale of the Clippers going for $2B, there is little doubt in my mind that the Rockets would command that. I know HOU isn’t LA, but as we’ve seen over the years, it is every bit a free agent destination, and is the 10th largest TV market in the country. Also, people there LOVE the Rockets. I would consider buying them less of a risk than the Clippers, and I can only imagine the line of billionaires that want a piece of the NBA pie. Remember it wasn’t too long ago that the league couldn’t give away franchises. Well now it’s the exact opposite.
I don’t want to tell the big swinging dick at the cracker factory how to spend his money, but something tells me Barstool needs to form a group of some kind to get in on this action. Partner up with a few Rockets legends, hook up the jersey with the Barstool logo and boom, we’re off and running as the first blog to own an NBA team.
Who says no?