NBA Draft 2012: Why Rockets Were Biggest Losers

After completely decimating its roster of size, Houston drafted three players who hardly hold the presence of a power forward. Jeremy Lamb is a terrific shooting guard. Royce white is a tweener, though he tends to favor a small forward style and Terrence Jones, while 6’10” lives and dies from the outside.

But what about the inside? Samuel Dalembert is in Milwaukee and Marcus Camby is an unrestricted free agent, leaving Houston without a true center. Perhaps most importantly, though, it has left the Rockets with Luis Scola as their most competent player in the low post.

Why is that saying something, because Scola is hardly an inside scorer. Even he prefers to faces the basket or take aim from mid range. While such attributes are passable when there’s at least one bona fide center in a team’s midst, tendencies to play smaller are become major flaws without one.

While there’s still free agency to consider, as well as the possibility of a Dwight Howard rental, the Rockets were in position Thursday night to draft one of two solid big men in John Henson or Tyler Zeller—multiple times. While neither is expected to be an All-Star out the gate, they’re both sizable inside presences who can make a two-way impact. There’s no guarantee Houston finds its starting center in free agency, and drafting either Henson or Zeller would have, at the very least, provided some much needed insurance.

Instead, the Rockets continued to be a source of chaos. A flurry of pre-draft trades left their roster wafer thin on the inside, but with a collection of first rounders to fill such voids. They opted to stay small and draft dynamics their lineup already boasted.

And that’s not indicative of a fringe-playoff team trying to climb over the postseason hump, but rather an organization without any clear direction, or rhyme or reason to what they’ll do next.