Goodbye Houston Rockets

I'm done with this NBA season. I don't think the Rockets can come back. The Rockets' best shot at a title is NOW and it's now gone. Game 3 loss to the Warriors was humiliating and once again called into question James Harden's mental fortitude. You can have all the offensive skills but without the mental edge you ain't going nowhere.

The regular season has been thoroughly gratifying and I watched all 82 games. But it's the playoffs that count. Maybe all the pundits said all along about Harden and CP3 are true and it's just me unable to handle the truth. The truth is that they choke when the stake is high. In game 3 blowout, they played scared on offense, hesitant to shoot and made mental mistakes.

I've been with the Rockets through thick and thin and officially I'm retiring as a Rockets fan. Looking back now, Harden's disappearing act at game 6 of Spurs series last playoff wasn't just fatigue physically, it's mental surrender. Michael Jordan never had a game like that in his career (OK I'm setting the bar high), you fight and you go down swinging.

Very very disappointed but the truth is a lot of times inconvenient.

On a side note, the Golden State Warriors collectively as a team might be this era's Jordan, in the sense that a lot of great players won't get their championship rings because of them. Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Carl Malone/John Stockton, Reggie Miller, Shawn Kemp didn't win a title because they played against the GOAT. Similarly, Harden and CP won't get theirs because they played against the Warriors, which I would argue have the greatest collection of talents in the history of the NBA.

Goodbye, Red Nation.