In the 1998-1999 season, the Rockets lost 1:3 to the Los Angeles Lakers in the playoffs and were eliminated, only Barkley played a stable value in the Rockets' old "trident", Scott Pippen played an incomparably inefficient one-round series, averaging 18.3 points per game in five games and shooting a miserable 32.9% from the field and 27.3% from three-point range! How low is this three-point shooting percentage? Even Charles Barkley, who averages 1.8 three-pointers per game, has a higher shooting percentage than Pippen! The most important thing is that Pippen and Barkley are naturally incompatible, and the two of them even used to almost do it on the bus! At the end of the season, the Rockets traded Pippen to the Portland Trail Blazers for a bunch of good role players, just nine months after Barkley tried to take a pay cut to bring Pippen to his side......

Some of these chips were still good in exchange for Pippen, including Shanton Anderson, who was the starting small forward, and Kevin Cato, who was the team's starting center two years later, and of course, Brian Shaw, who is now in the coaching staff, was also one of the participants in this trade, he was traded from the Trail Blazers to the Rockets, but he was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers before he could wear the Rockets jersey.

In the 1999 NBA Draft, the Vancouver Grizzlies selected Steve Francis from the University of Maryland with the second pick in the first round, but the latter clearly stated that he would not play a game for the Grizzlies.

For the first time in NBA history, a rookie who hadn't played a game was forced to trade him, so when Francis entered the league, he got a very domineering nickname, "Franchise."

In his rookie season, Francis proved with his outstanding performance what a wise decision the Rockets management made, he averaged 18.0 points, 5.3 rebounds and 6.6 assists per game in the new season, shooting 44.5% from the field and 34.5% from three-point range, Francis is not tall, 191 cm in official registration, but in fact it may be 188 cm, he plays with a very strong street ball style, low and fast dribbling, and strong physical fitness, In the game, the abnormality can be dunked through the opponent's big man, the mid-range shot is accurate, and the stop-and-go jump shot after the rapid dribble is a killer move, which is invincible in the game.

Second-year rookie Cardino Mobley continues to grow, he has earned a rather playful nickname for the first three letters of his name "CUT" - "Old Cat", the new season "Old Cat" is still played as a substitute, he can average 15.8 points per game can be the most points on the bench of any team in the NBA, but because of the poor record of the Rockets, Mobley finally fell to second in the Sixth Man of the Year selection and missed the trophy.

The Rockets have only won 34 games this season, and after the end of the season, Charles Barkley, who had been injured for four months, announced his retirement.

In the 2000-2001 season, Francis and Mobley, who was promoted to the starting lineup, both scored 19+, and Morris Taylor, who defected from the Clippers, performed well, and finally the Rockets' record this season was fixed at 45-37 and won the lottery. This season, Francis was selected for the All-Star slam dunk contest, and this year's slam dunk contest is recognized by fans all over the world as the most successful slam dunk contest, Francis with his explosive physical fitness all the way to the finals, and finally lost to Vince Carter, known as the "human UFO", who is known as the "human UFO", the latter is accomplished in dunk without saying, although Francis is still honored.

In the 2001 draft, the Rockets selected the physical Richard Jefferson with the 13th pick in the first round, the 18th pick in the first round chose the interior defense big man Jason Collins, and the 23rd pick in the first round selected Brandon Armstrong, but none of the three young people were in the Rockets' future plans, the draft was not over, the Rockets made a trade for the New Jersey Nets, and the three rookies were also the seventh pick in the first round of the Nets, Eddie Griffin.

Eddie Griffin became famous in the United States when he was in high school, and was named the best freshman in the United States by the authoritative American magazine "Sports News" in his freshman year, and was predicted by many experts to be the favorite for the top pick in the draft, but then, Griffin changed people's opinions about him because of some miscellaneous things, drugs, alcoholism, brawls with teammates, speeding, these off-court troubles made the managers of the teams waiting to choose their favorite players in the draft stop every minute, and in the end, Griffin fell to the seventh pick, And was traded by the rocket with great effort.

In fact, judging from the trajectory of the development of the Rockets, at that time they needed a qualified or even excellent interior player, Kevin Cato was simply powerless when he met stars like O'Neal and Duncan, but the Rockets coveted Griffin's talent, and after missing Joel Pulzbilla and Jamal Magloyl in the 2000 draft, he missed Zach Randolph, Brandon Haywood and Amuel Delham Porter in the 2001 draft. This ultimately cost the rocket.

Griffin, who first joined the Rockets, exposed his character flaws, he was withdrawn and difficult to contact, and the atmosphere in the Rockets locker room was more tense, because the Rockets already had Francis and Mobley, and Griffin in the new season was mainly played off the bench, averaging 26 minutes per game, and was able to score 8.8 points and 5.7 rebounds.

This season, Francis and Mobley are both 21+, but the team record is only 28-54, which was originally a team that is rising rapidly and suddenly falls, which makes some people speculate whether the Rockets want to copy the Spurs in 1996, they were crazy about that year, and then won the first pick, and selected Duncan, the Rockets who had a good lineup this year don't know what the reason is, anyway, the result is that they finally achieved their hopes. The Rockets' lottery representative Steve Francis was selected with an ultra-low probability of 0.5%, and finally the Rockets used this pick to select Yao Ming in the 2002 NBA Draft.

Yao Ming became the first non-American champion in NBA history, which is an honor, but also mixed with a lot of curiosity and misunderstanding, Americans look at China, just as Chinese look at the United States as opaque, everyone does not know what level this extremely tall Chinese is, what level of Chinese basketball is. When someone mentioned that Yao Ming scored 49 points on 21-of-21 shooting, grabbed 21 rebounds and made seven blocks in the final game of the Chinese domestic league, everyone's mouth opened wide and turned into an "O" shape.

On October 31, 2002, Yao Ming ushered in his NBA debut, the Chinese giant officially debuted in the NBA, he played eleven minutes in the whole game, missed a shot, only grabbed 2 backcourt rebounds, an assist, a block and three fouls, and the performance was very unbearable.

After the game, Yao Ming's face was depressed, his imaginary NBA and the real NBA are two worlds at all, this is the first person to come over to comfort Yao Ming is the team boss, Francis, he said to Yao Ming with a very gentlemanly sentence,

"There are so many people behind you looking at you, it's a man, just fight the next one!"

This sentence was firmly remembered by the young Yao Ming.

Yao Ming's first six games were 0 points, 2 points, 8 points, 0 points, 3 points and 7 points, as a champion who attracted the attention of the world, such a performance was obviously a failure, for a while, just by virtue of these games, someone arbitrarily put the title of "the most watery champion in history" on Yao Ming's head, and the pressure on Yao Ming can be imagined.

The first person to jump out to question Yao Ming was Charles Barkley, a star player who once played for the Rockets, at this time Barkley, who has retired, is the commentator of the American ace sports program TNT, and his partner is Kenny Smith, the Rockets legend, Charles Barkley has a famous broken mouth, and his wise saying is "As long as my mouth can speak, other back pain, leg pain and stomach pain are not a problem!" "To add up, Barkley's style of play is to be outside the three-second zone, pouting his ass and attacking into the three-second zone, so he often gets hurt in the butt.

When Yao Ming first entered the league, Yao Ming, who knew etiquette, also had great respect for Barkley, claiming that his favorite three stars were Olajuwon, Sabonis and Charles Barkley, but the latter did not give Yao Ming face at all, on November 15, 2002, the Rockets challenged the Suns away, this ball was broadcast by TNT, Barkley threatened before the game that if Yao Ming scored more than 19 points in any game in his career, he would kiss Kenny Smith's ass, at the press conference before the game, Immediately, a reporter told Yao Ming about it, and Yao Ming said with a smile,

"Then I'll get 18 points every day." In a word, it amused the reporters in the audience, averaging 18 points per game, which will not embarrass Barkley and cannot be underestimated.

Although Yao Ming used his alertness and wisdom to cleverly comical this embarrassing interview, Yao Ming was a young man with strong blood after all, and he was looked down upon, so he was naturally unconvinced.

The game between the Rockets and the Suns went on in the third quarter, Yao Ming and Francis crossed defense, Marbury deceived Yao Ming's center with a large cross dribble, Yao Ming was anxious to keep up with Marbury's footsteps, but as a result, his left foot tripped and his right foot fell to the ground, and the Suns' bench laughed, especially Yao Ming's rookie at the same level, Amare Stoudemire, who was given by the media to be Yao Ming's lifelong enemy, Barkley sitting in the TNT studio was naturally happy to spend, and he couldn't stop laughing, that feeling, It's like O'Neill is losing Big McKey every day. Yao Ming actually played well in that game, playing 14 minutes and scoring 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting, while Stoudemire only scored 5 points on 1-of-4 shooting in 20 minutes.

On November 17, 2002, Houston challenged the Los Angeles Lakers away, at that time, the Lakers sat on the league's first center, known as the "big shark" Shaquille O'Neal, this season O'Neal was unstoppable on the inside, With an average of 27.5 points and 11.1 rebounds per game, Yao Shark duel became the highlight of the NBA for the first time, but until before the game, the Lakers announced that O'Neal would not play because of a toe injury, and power forward Samaki Walker replaced O'Neal, Yao Ming faced Walker, who was only 206 cm tall and was temporarily brought up to play the starter, it was a good beating, Yao Ming was five shots in the first three quarters, and in the crucial fourth quarter, Tom Janovic, who was the head coach of the Rockets at the time, let Yao Ming, who performed well, replace Cato on the court, and it turned out that Tang Shuai's decision was extremely wise, and Kobe Bryant played extremely crazy in this game, scoring 46 points in the whole game, but in the end the Rockets won, The game fought to a critical moment, Yao Ming won the game twice in a row 2+1 scores, Yao Ming played 24 minutes and shot 9 of 9 to score 20 points, after the game, Yao Ming waved his fists, and vented all the anger and resentment in his chest, that is, from this game, Yao Ming completely won Tang Shuai's trust.

And Barkley had to pay for his big mouth again, because Kenny didn't want to undress in front of hundreds of millions of people, so he spent $500 to rent a donkey from the Atlanta farm beforehand, it turned out that the English word "ASS" has the meaning of ass, and it also means donkey, and Kenny Smith also hung a sign around the neck of the donkey, with the word Kenny written on it.

After this TNT hype, Yao Ming's reputation grew, and he also replaced Carney as the team's main center forward after two games.

Yao Ming averaged 13.5 points per game, 8.2 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.8 blocks per game in his first NBA season, shooting 49.8% from the field, but the final trophy for the best rookie was taken away by Stoudemire, who followed the team to the playoffs, and the latter's statistics were 13.5 points, 8.8 rebounds per game, and the shooting rate was 47.2%. The Rockets, on the other hand, have a 43-39 record, the highest winning percentage of any team in the league that didn't make the playoffs.

It is worth mentioning that in Yao Ming's rookie season All-Star voting, Yao Ming was voted into the All-Star by 1.3 billion Chinese fans, squeezed out O'Neal and became the starting center of the Western team, and the powerful Chinese power broke out for the first time in the NBA. He secretly decided in his heart that one day, he would enter the All-Star with his own strength!