Could the Rockets Provide a Glimpse of the Trail Blazers' Future?

📍 PORTLAND, Ore. — Not too long ago, the Houston Rockets were the current-day Trail Blazers.

A messy breakup with their franchise player gave way to a few years of misery. Last season, they weren’t a playoff team but they weren’t one of the worst teams in the NBA, either.

Now, the Rockets, who beat the Blazers 125-103 on Saturday, have the second-best record in the Western Conference, an identity as a tough defensive team and an emerging group of young players that are improving and fitting well together.

And, as good as fourth-year center Alperen Şengün has become, they’ve done it without landing a clear superstar in the draft to build around.

The Blazers are a ways away from being a play-in team, let alone a top-four team in the west. They’re closer to the 2022-23 Rockets that went 22-60 than they are to the team that’s currently 28-13. They still have moves to make to clean up their rotation. But the Rockets provide hope that the Blazers won’t be where they are forever.

“It’s the stage Houston was in before I got there, where they were trying to figure out who is who with a stockpile of lottery picks,” Rockets head coach Ime Udoka said before Saturday’s game. “They’re in that same mode right now, with some of those young guys.”

Şengün dominated the boards Saturday against a decimated Blazers frontline. With Donovan Clingan still out with an ankle injury and Deandre Ayton a late scratch with lower back soreness, Portland started Robert Williams III, whose minutes are still being managed. They were outrebounded 61-40 on the night and didn’t make their threes.

But it was a more respectable and explainable loss than the final score indicated, and certainly less dire than any of the first three games of this homestand.

“I thought we played right today, I really did,” Chauncey Billups said afterwards. “We shared the ball, we played together. By and large, we didn’t make shots, but to have 28 assists on a night that we didn’t make them … We missed so many layups, wide-open threes. But I thought our intention was really good tonight.”

Saturday’s loss was the Blazers’ 41st game of the season, the exact halfway point. At 13-28, they’re on a 26-win pace, but you can bet there will be things done to get that number lower as they chase the lottery.

The Rockets never won big in the lottery. Their highest pick, Jalen Green (No. 2 overall in 2021), is just now starting to play at that level consistently, in his fourth season. Şengün was a mid-first-round pick that same year. Tari Eason was the 17th pick a year later and has been more impactful than their No. 3 pick in 2022, Jabari Smith Jr. Amen Thompson, the fourth pick in last year’s draft, has a hard ceiling offensively but is All-Defensive team caliber on the other end. Smith and Thompson didn’t play on Saturday due to injury.

The Rockets made the jump into playoff contention by signing Dillon Brooks, Fred VanVleet and Jeff Green in free agency in 2023 and hiring Udoka to replace Stephen Silas, but the foundation that will keep them in the playoff picture are their own draft picks, and not highly heralded ones.

In an ideal world, the Blazers do get one of those guys, Cooper Flagg, in this coming draft and their ceiling becomes something completely different. But there’s an alternate path where Shaedon Sharpe, Toumani Camara, Deni Avdija, Donovan Clingan or Scoot Henderson goes up a level. The Rockets are showing that path is viable, too.

“The most important part of it is the development piece,” Billups said. “You need a couple of guys to go up to that All-Star level. Obviously, Şengün has done that. Jalen’s done it, he’s been incredible. That development has allowed them to speed it up and skip some steps. We’re still in that process. But they’ve done that, and then they’ve added some veteran pieces around, to speed the process up. They’ve done it right.”