Houston Center disappeared in Game 1 after saying he wanted the Warriors

Capela Needs to be Big for Rockets to have a chance

Capela Needs to be Big for Rockets to have a chance
Clint Capela. Getty Images

Clint CapelaJason Miller

Clint Capela wanted to meet up with the Warriors in the playoffs this year. He said as much when he spoke to the media after the Rockets eliminated the Utah Jazz. He also was the one who said that the Rockets were the better team after Golden State eliminated Houston in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals last season. You have to love the confidence the young center has in his team, but with that boastful and cocky attitude must come performances that back it up, or at least contribute to his team's success.

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You most certainly wouldn't want to be a -17 while on the floor with only 4 points and 6 rebounds in 27 minutes on the floor, while the combination of Andrew Bogut and Kevon Looney combined for 2 more points and the same amount of rebounds in 6 fewer minutes of game time.

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Clint Capela needs to dominate down low if the Rockets have any chance of making this a long series, let alone winning it. When you compare these two teams that know each other so well and look at matchups where Houston should have an advantage, you immediately point at the center position. Golden State lost their all-star big man in the first round against the Clippers when DeMarcus Cousins went down with a serious quad injury. He was a force down low for the defending champions, and once he recovered from his torn Achilles tendon suffered last season, he was the dominating post presence that the Warriors lacked and gave them an element that they hadn't before had in the "Splash Brothers" era. In his last appearance against Capela and the Rockets in the final meeting between the two teams in the regular season, Cousins could not be stopped and was their go-to guy down the stretch as he put Capela on skates and scored multiple key baskets in the paint to close out the Golden State victory. He finished that game with 27 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists in 32 minutes of action, while Capela had 13 points and 13 rebounds in 40 minutes on the floor. It's pretty simple when you look at that matchup in this series, with Cousins out, Capela should be able to dominate the paint defensively and clean the glass, while running the floor for easy baskets in transition against the slower and less skilled Golden State reserve bigs. After one game, that was obviously not the case.

Rockets Clint CapelaHouston Rockets/Facebook

We all know that Clint Capela is not an offensive powerhouse who gets his numbers scoring down low with a plethora of moves in the paint. The good news is he doesn't need to be with the system and team he has around him. Capela is at his best when he gets involved in pick and roll basketball with James Harden and Chris Paul that leads to lobs at the rim and dunks in the lane. He is an elite athlete at his size so when he gets out in transition there are not many big men in the NBA that can keep up with him. Most importantly he is an above average defender that has length and size to alter shots around the basket, he can defend on the low block and he rebounds at a high level even when the game is played at a very fast pace. We have all seen the numbers by now and know that when he is on the floor doing those things and playing alongside Harden and Paul, the Rockets are a championship caliber basketball team. When he doesn't, they may not be good enough to get out of the second round let alone beat the Golden State Warriors.

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Durant’s arrival marks a new era for the Rockets. Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images.

Adding a player of Kevin Durant’s caliber was too valuable an opportunity for the Houston Rockets to pass up, even though it meant moving on from Jalen Green just four seasons after they drafted him second overall.

Durant was officially acquired from Phoenix on Sunday in a complicated seven-team transaction that sent Green and Dillon Brooks to the Suns and brought Clint Capela back to Houston from the Hawks.

General manager Rafael Stone is thrilled to add the future Hall of Famer, who will turn 37 in September, to a team which made a huge leap last season to earn the second seed in the Western Conference.

Asked Monday why he wanted to add Durant to the team, Stone smiled broadly before answering.

“He’s Kevin Durant,” Stone said. “He’s just — he’s really good. He’s super-efficient. He had a great year last year. He’s obviously not 30 anymore, but he hasn’t really fallen off and we just think he has a chance to really be impactful for us.”

But trading Green to get him was not an easy decision for Stone, Houston’s general manager since 2020.

“Jalen’s awesome, he did everything we asked,” Stone said. “He’s a wonderful combination of talent and work ethic along with being just a great human being. And any time that you have the privilege to work with someone who is talented and works really hard and is really nice, you should value it. And organizationally we’ve valued him tremendously, so yeah very hard.”

Green was criticized for his up-and-down play during the postseason when the Rockets were eliminated by the Warriors in seven games in the first round. But Green had improved in each of his four seasons in Houston, leading the team in scoring last season and playing all 82 games in both of the past two seasons.

Pressed for details about why Green's time was up in Houston, Stone wouldn't get into specifics.

“It’s the NBA and you can only do trades if a certain amount of money goes out and a certain amount comes in and there’s some positional overlap or at least overlap in terms of on ball presence,” he said. “And so that’s what the deal required.”

In Durant, the Rockets get a veteran of almost two decades who averaged 26.6 points and six rebounds a game last season and has a career average of 27.2 points and seven rebounds.

Houston loves the veteran experience and presence that Durant brings. Stone noted that the team had arranged for some of its players to work out with him in each of the past two offseasons.

“His work ethic is just awesome,” Stone said. “The speed at which he goes, not in a game … but the speed at which he practices and the intensity at which he practices is something that has made him great over the years and it started when he was very young. So of all the things that I hope rubs off, that’s the main one I think is that practice makes perfect. And I think one of the reasons he’s had such an excellent career is because of the intensity with which he works day in day out.”

Durant is a 15-time All-Star and four-time scoring champion, who was the Finals MVP twice. The former Texas Longhorn is one of eight players in NBA history to score at least 30,000 points and he won NBA titles in 2017 and 2018 with the Warriors.

Now he’ll join a team chasing its first NBA title since winning back-to-back championships in 1994-95.

“Everything has to play out, but we do — we like the fit,” Stone said. “We think it works well. We think he will add to us and we think we will help him.”

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