After the Thunder lost to the Chicago Bulls by one point in their previous game, the Weak West team has swallowed a wave of six straight losses, and their Western Conference ranking has fallen to 15th. You should know that not long ago the Rockets have been the bottom team in the West, but in recent days the Rockets have not played much, except for today's game with the Spurs, the Rockets have not played at all in the first 3 days, plus the Rockets have won 3 wins in recent games, far better than the Thunder who have lost 6 consecutive games, so the Rockets have risen to the 14th place in the West.
Looking at the record of 30 teams in the league, the Magic and pistons are the two teams with the worst record in the league, and after the Thunder came to the bottom of the West, their record was already lower than that of the Rockets, which also means that before the Rockets and Spurs played, the Rockets had risen to the bottom 4th in the league - temporarily missing from the bottom 3.
That's not what the Rockets wanted, why? We know that the league's previous draft reform clearly stipulates that the team with the worst record no longer has the highest probability of winning the title, but instead, the 3 teams with the worst record in the league have the highest probability of winning the championship, which is about 14%.
That is to say, if the Rockets can't become one of the top 3 teams in the league this season, the probability of winning the lottery will drop further. The Thunder surpassed the Rockets with a wave of "Jedi Strike Back" to become the worst team in the West, and if the Rockets do not respond further, the Rockets' series of rotten efforts this season will be completely abandoned!
The Rockets' Jaylen Green's performance this season is really how people can't see the potential of "upper Jordan, lower limit Kobe". Overall, if the Rockets continue to cultivate Green, future reconstruction may come to a standstill. So considering Green's performance, the Rockets will definitely continue to pick up high picks in the draft. At the offseason draft after the end of the season, there are many talented players from the inside and front lines for the Rockets to choose from, and if the Rockets' draft pick is low, it will naturally not be in line with their plans.
So what the Rockets need to do now is to "don't face" completely rotten, whether it is against the weak Spurs, or in the near future to fight the Warriors, the Rockets will not win again. Otherwise, the league's bottom 3 positions will completely say goodbye to the Rockets! The Rockets' plan to win the lottery this summer cannot be said to be a complete failure, but at least in terms of the probability of winning the First Round No. 1 pick, it will be much lower than that of the Thunder, Pistons and Magic.
The Rockets probably understand their situation, so when they played against the former loser San Antonio Spurs at home today, the Rockets played weakly throughout the game, had no intention of winning, and even fell behind by more than 30 points at most. The loss did make the Rockets face-hanging, but the Rockets can really benefit from the loss, and that's enough. Unless the Rockets have identified themselves as one of the 3 worst teams in the league, they can't consider winning.