by John Roberts

Created on: October 30, 2009

Yao is gone. T-Mac is gone. Artest is gone. The season for the Houston Rockets is gone. Management can start looking toward next year's draft lottery and begin scouting prospects. The Rockets have proven a resilient team in recent years with that long winning streak in 2007-08. Last season, Houston shrugged off Yao's injury to take the Los Angeles Lakers to the brink in a seven game Western Conference semi-final. Not this season unless coach Rick Adelman performs the greatest coaching job the NBA has ever known. The Rockets might have survived center Yao Ming's devastating injury requiring a full year to recover from if they had others like Tracy McGrady and Ron Artest still around to pick up the slack. But T-Mac is out from the get go instead of his usual mid-season exit. Artest left for free agency and a Lakers uniform. The Rockets have to view this season as a rebuilding years to bring along their young talent and an opportunity to get into the draft lottery.

Making the playoffs is not in the team's best interests. Remember when the San Antonio Spurs suffered the blow of losing both David Robinson and Kenny Smith together for a whole season which led to the Spurs being in the lottery. They got the number one pick who was Tim Duncan. Furthermore Houston needs to commit to rebuilding and somehow unload T-Mac's large contract as well as entertain offers for Yao. The Rockets have not even gotten close to the finals with them anyway. Houston has a terrific building block in Aaron Brooks who took over the starting point guard position mid-last season. He is quick and a scorer and will eventually join Chris Paul, Deron Williams and Derrick Rose as the league's best.

The major free agent signing of the off-season was talented Trevor Ariza who blossomed as part of the championship Lakers and without Yao, T-Mac and Artest, it falls to Ariza and Brooks to carry the scoring load. Shane Battier is a fine defender now starting which weakens the bench. Luis Scola is solid and can pick up some of the scoring slack. In the absence of Yao, Chuck Hayes is starting at center. The Rockets picked up young forward-center David Andersen from the Atlanta Hawks. Scola can also slide over to the middle. Houston had no draft picks so trades were made with the Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards to bring in rookies Chase Budinger and Jermaine Taylor. Pops Mensah-Bonsu signed as a free agent and the Rockets inexplicably picked up Brian Cook's option. he bench is very weak. Adelman is a good coach getting a lot out of his players and this will require all his coaching skills.

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