In the first chapter, let's start with the Houston Rockets that Chinese fans are most familiar with, about the history of the Rockets, I think the most important part should be the moment when Olajuwon led the Rockets to win two championship trophies, of course, at that time, we are still a little far away, and the current Rockets team I think should be the most booked about the 2008 Rockets, it is no exaggeration to say that because of Yao Ming, we met them, and we met a team that made all fans dream, until many years later, I can still remember those pictures back then, the galloping of the little black bean, the dance steps under the basket of the Argentine diamond ring, the constantly beating basketball in the hands of the street ball king, the extremely funny free throw of the board master, the grinning of the god bird missing a front tooth, the bloody roar of Batman after being elbowed by Vujasic, and of course, Uncle Mu's shaking fingers, Artai and Kobe Bryant face to face, Maddie's arm swinging and roaring after the Spurs scored the winning three points at home, they represent a spirit, a kind of never admit defeat from Texas, The never-say-die spirit of Xiaoqiang represents the fighting spirit of daring to show the sword even if the enemy is strong! It represents a Hemingway spirit that can be defeated, but never allowed to be defeated!

The Rockets lost seven games in the playoffs against the powerful Los Angeles Lakers, and at that time, including now, when a bunch of our teammates talk nonsense, we always say that if Yao Ming is not injured, if Maddy is not injured, if Artai plays smarter, if that ball goes in, if that rebound is snatched, if ...... If...... The NBA doesn't have so many ifs, not so many assumptions, and that's perhaps the biggest charm of sports.

First, let's start with a sentence about what we're going to start with.

In the 2012-2013 season, Dwight Howard, who was then the league's No. 1 center, was impatient to "escape" from Los Angeles and was willing to surrender his price to join the Houston Rockets.

"That guy only dares to go to that kind of small township to play."

Of course, we are not here to discuss the rights and wrongs of O'Neal and Howard, but to reflect most people's views of Houston from O'Neal's words.

Small city, big country, aviation city, and then what? Nope.

In fact, Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States, second only to New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, but Houston is different from the previous three cities, the population composition here is complex, it belongs to the international city, when Yao Ming was not airborne in Houston, it was the largest Chinese city in the United States, the diversity of population composition also makes Houston's economic structure tend to be perfect, oil-based heavy industry, financial industry, manufacturing and so on are also very developed, Houston pays more attention to the output of education, University of Houston, Rice University is a world-renowned institution of higher learning, and it is worth mentioning that the Johnson Aviation Center in Houston once directed the first moon landing in human history, and the museum here is also one of the few museums in the world where visitors can directly touch the rocks collected from space, so it is most appropriate to call Houston the "City of Aviation".

In 1967, San Diego formed a basketball team called the "Rockets", and joined the NBA that season with the Seattle SuperSonics (the predecessor of the Oklahoma City Thunder), and won a forward player named Pat Riley with the 7th pick in the first round in the expansion draft that year. Disheveled hair, unruly beard, but from the perspective of court contributions, Riley's ability is the average level, except for the mid-range shot, the others are lackluster, played three seasons in the Rockets, the highest season averaged only 18.3 minutes per game, an average of 8.8 points, 2.0 rebounds, 2.4 assists and as many as 2.6 fouls per game, if calculated according to 36 minutes per game, Riley is the rhythm of graduation every game.

The Rockets only had a measly 17 wins in their first season, but the Rockets' poor record earned them the No. 1 pick the following year, and as a result, they earned the Rockets the first true star in history, a player who was officially inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame in 1990, and he was Elvin Hayes, nicknamed "Big E".

Hayes is from Revere, Louisiana, a place where there was serious racism in that era, the tall Hayes was always easy to be ridiculed by white children, the quiet, introverted but very strong Hayes found confidence in basketball, he entered the University of Houston, became the first black athlete in the university, and the alumni here were not prejudiced against him because of his skin color, on the contrary, the varsity team determined that Hayes was the tactical core of both offensive and defensive ends, Hayes also lived up to expectations, leading the University of Houston from a fish belly to an NCAA powerhouse in three years, leading the team to the "Final Four" twice in his three-year college career.

In the 1968 rookie conference, Elvin Hayes was unexpectedly picked by the Rockets with the top pick, and in his first season, Hayes took the league's leading scoring trophy with an average of 28.4 points per game, and ranked fourth in the league with an average of 17.1 rebounds per game.

However, the playoffs seem to be the limit of Hayes's strength alone, and in the next two years, the Rockets under the leadership of Hayes can also reach the playoffs, but they just can't go one step further, and in 1971, the same year, the Rockets moved from San Diego to the big city of Houston, intending to create more revenue. However, the atmosphere in Houston was not good, and the team not only did not make a profit after moving to a new city, but continued to lose money, which led to the fact that Hayes still could not recruit good teammates, and Hayes was disheartened and left the Baltimore Bullets (the predecessor of the Washington Wizards) after three seasons with the Rockets.

After Hayes left, the Rockets mainly relied on a few young players to take the lead, and Rudy Tomjanovic, the No. 2 rookie in 1970, became the team's biggest discovery. He averaged 19.3 points and grabbed 11.6 rebounds per game, the No. 7 rookie guard in the second round in 1971, Mike Newlin, averaged 17 points, 4.1 rebounds and 5 assists per game, veteran point guard Jalen Walker (the father of Jalen Rose, one of the famous Michigan Five Tigers) also averaged 18.8 points, 3.3 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game, not only that, but the Rockets also sat on the bench with a stable and efficient scorer, future Hall of Fame player Calvin Murphy, Murphy is short, only about 180 centimeters, but he has great talent on the offensive endIn the thirteen seasons of his career, Murphy averaged more than 20 points per game in five seasons, and this year's Rockets dropped significantly because of Hayes's shooting effectiveness, and the team finally failed to enter the playoffs, but it is undeniable that the Rockets team at that time had enough talent and enough depth, and they had the ability to carve out their own era in the league, and sure enough, the Rockets next season ushered in an outbreak, and Murphy was the starter, He averaged 20 points and 7.4 assists per game, and Rudy Tomjanovic averaged 24.5 points and 9.0 rebounds per game, both of whom shot over 52 percent from the field! In the 1974-1975 season, the Rockets were driven by the "twin stars", and reached the playoffs for the first time since moving to Houston, and went all the way to the second round before being unfortunately eliminated by the Boston Celtics. This drawback was vividly demonstrated next season, the team's starting center named Kevin Kunett, was the 13th rookie in the first round in 1973, this handsome, melancholy young man contributed an average of 12.9 points, 9.8 rebounds and 3.3 rebounds per game has been the most representative season of his career, with his strength, at best in other teams is a second-tier player, the Rockets have no one inside, had to catch ducks on the shelf, but the result is to see a team, was blown up once.

This weakness, of course, caught the attention of the Rockets' top brass, so they gave the Buffalo Braves two future first-round picks in exchange for future Hall of Fame inductee Moses Malone.

Malone is 208 cm tall, serving as a power forward, has been playing in the ABA league before, this year the ABA and the NBA merged, Malone joined the Portland Trail Blazers, and then was traded to the Buffalo Warriors, after playing two games on behalf of the Warriors, Malone settled in Houston, the high school debutant Malone in the early days of entering the league offensive skills are still relatively rough, there is no reliable and stable offensive means, but he is very good for rebounding, especially the frontcourt rebounding competition, this seems to be his talent - In the first year of his NBA career, that is, in the first season of the Rockets, Malone was able to grab an average of 13.4 rebounds per game, including 5.5 frontcourt rebounds, and contributed 16.9 rebounds per game in the playoffs, including as many as 7 frontcourt rebounds! This season, the Rockets made a historic run to the Western Conference Finals, losing six games against Julius Irving, who has the title of "Dr. J".

In the 1977-1978 season, the Rockets relied on the combination of Rudy Tomjanovich, Calvin Murphy and Moses Malone, showing strong combat effectiveness at the beginning of the season. Rudy was able to score 21.5 points and 6.1 rebounds in the game, Murphy averaged 25.6 points and 3.4 assists per game, Moses Malone averaged 15 rebounds per game while also scoring 19.4 points, and what is even more incredible is that all three of them shot more than 48.5% from the field! In addition, in the point guard position, the 1976 champion John Lucas II also began to prove himself, he can deliver 12.4 points and 9.4 assists per game, the powerful hardware configuration makes the Rockets invincible, this is the Rockets in the team so far the most promising team to win the championship, the whole city is proud to have such a Rockets team, but all this, was ruined by a player named Kermit Washington.

Kermit was the No. 5 rookie in the first round in 1973, averaging 9 points and 8 rebounds per game in his career, but he created the bloodiest brawl ever since the founding of the NBA, and no one has ever come since.