by Christian Fann

Created on: May 03, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

The Houston Rockets had quite the 2007-2008 regular season. During the off-season of the 2006-2007 season, the Rockets inquired the services of Rick Adelman as its head coach. This was seen as a very smart move, because Adelman was known for helping to bring post-season success to his franchise's most notably, the Sacramento Kings. Adelman would become the team's 11th head coach. Almost a dozen, wow.

On June 14, The Rockets sent Juwan Howard to the ability-defunct Minnesota Timberwolves for the services of Mike James and Justin Reed. This was seen as a good move overall. They needed some good off the bench scorers, which they would receive with those two players.
During the 2007 NBA Draft, with pick number 26, The Rockets went to the lottery and made PG Aaron Brooks, from Oregon, their pick. Also, they made a deal with the Supersonics to gain the #31 pick, Carl Landry, from Purdue, and with the 54th overall pick, they selected SG Brad Newley from Australia.

On July 12th, guard Vassalis Spanoulis was traded to the San Antonio Spurs. Also in tow, were the the 2009 second-round draft picks. For this deal, the Rockets were sent Jackie Butler
and the rights to Luis Scola, a second round draft pick from Argentina that had no NBA playing experience. Of course, 24 hours after the deal went through, Scola and the Rockets franchise came to an agreement and Scola would begin playing for the organization, effective immediately.

July 20th, Steve "Franchise" Francis inked a deal with the Rockets for 2 seasons, ten days after he accepted the Portland Trailblazers buyout package of $30 million dollars.

This is the foundation that Houston needed. All-Star and one of the best offensive players in recent memory, Tracy McGrady (anyone remember 13 pts in 30 seconds?), and 7'6 Yao Ming, who, himself, is also developing into quite the All-Star (if he isn't considered one already). The Rockets added speed (Francis) and fed their rebounding starvation (Scola) and now were set to run the tables on the regular season. In addition to their new players, remember they were under new coach guidance. The playoffs seemed like a sure bet at the start of the season.

Winning 6 of their first 7 games, the Rockets started off the regular season on the right foot. In the first game of the season they defeated the Los Angeles Lakers in one of the best games of the early season. Neither McGrady nor Ming were the on that provided the theatrics, however, it was Shane Battier who hit a big 3 to help the Rockets

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