The Houston Rockets are hungry and 3-0

As the Golden State Warriors accepted their championship rings, the Houston Rockets waited.

They waited as the Warriors celebrated the very thing that has eluded Houston. James Harden, Chris Paul and head coach Mike D’Antoni have each been agonizingly close. Their resumes are stacked with All-Star appearances, First and Second-team All-NBA honors, Coach of the Year awards and other individual accomplishments. What’s missing from each resume, however, is a championship. As the Warriors rolled out the Larry O’Brien trophy to center court, Paul, Harden and D’Antoni were as close to the trophy as ever.

The Warriors opened the 2017-18 season celebrating being on top of the NBA world. Then the Rockets opened their season by beating them.

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The Warriors are the reason Paul, Harden and D’Antoni now share a locker room. Separately, each of them has had chances at the ultimate prize. Harden got his first taste in 2012 when he, as a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder, lost in the NBA Finals to the Miami Heat. In 2015, his Rockets lost to the Warriors in the Western Conference Finals. In the 2000’s, D’Antoni’s Phoenix Suns revolutionized basketball, but could never get over the hump. Paul’s Clippers won 50-plus games for five-straight years, but excruciating playoff losses kept them out of the Conference Finals.

While Harden is still at the height of his powers and D’Antoni’s legacy will forever be “Seven Seconds or Less,” winning a championship would cement Paul’s legacy as one of the greatest point guards of all time.

“[Winning a championship] means everything. If I was fine with everything else, I would have just stayed where I was.” Paul said at Rockets Media Day in late September. “I came here with one purpose, one goal in mind, and that’s to win a championship.

“The cool part is being here with a guy like James who has those same aspirations. Then another guy like coach [D’Antoni]. Coach has done everything in this league and I know how bad he wants to win a championship. I feel like he absolutely deserves it, but you don’t get championships just because you deserve it.”

Luck plays a part in winning a title. Untimely injuries can derail championship aspirations. Power house super teams like the Big Three Heat and current Warriors present unthinkable final bosses. A good example for these Rockets are the 2012 Mavericks, who defeated the Heat in one of the greatest upsets in Finals history. It was Dirk Nowitzki’s last shot to check off the championship box while the Heat planned on being there for “not six, not seven” years in a row. Desperation isn’t something that can be measured on NBA.com’s stats page, but it plays a part in seizing the moment.

Teams with championship aspirations will often employ players with championship experience, but the Rockets have only one such player — Trevor Ariza, who won with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2009. Otherwise, the team is made up of players who have yet to reach the pinnacle.

“We all hungry. We all dogs,” said P.J. Tucker, who signed with the Rockets this summer. “At the end of the day, everybody just wants to win. No matter who scores, who hits the winning bucket, whatever it may be, we just want to win.”

Does being hungry give the Rockets an edge over teams that have won a title?

“No question,” Tucker said. “Because you’re not thinking about stats, you’re thinking about winning. Everybody in this group is pushing ego to the side this year, and the one common goal is just to try to win a championship.”

The Warriors led on Opening Night by as many as 16 points, but Steve Kerr went minutes without any of his big four on the court, Draymond Green got injured, and the Warriors may have suffered a letdown after the emotional high of the ring ceremony. The Rockets clawed back into the game and won. After defeating the Sacramento Kings on the second night of a back to back and beating the Dallas Mavericks, the Rockets are 3-0 to start the season.

“I think our management has done a good job of getting guys that complement each other. You want veterans but you don’t want too old. You want them right in their sweet spot and we got that,” D’Antoni said in Sacramento. “We got a chance like 29 other teams, but I like what we saw last night for sure.”

They still have some kinks to work out. Paul missed the last two games with a knee injury, and struggled to fit in with Houston’s break-neck pace on opening night. After some experimenting, D’Antoni will eventually have to settle on a rotation, and the defense will need to get more consistent.

“It’s a good start. We’re not satisfied, we know we can play better, we didn’t play great either game,” Tucker said after beating the Kings.

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Rockets general manager Daryl Morey has openly spoken about upping Houston’s risk profile. Adding a player like Paul, even if the fit isn’t perfect, does that. It also adds a sense of collective desperation. Harden is smack dab in his prime, and D’Antoni can coach for several more years. Paul, however, is 32 years old, and may not be able to play at his All-Star level for too much longer. As most teams plan to wait out the juggernaut in Oakland, Houston’s window is open now, but only precariously.

“These are all very highly motivated players. You just have to have the right fit, the right players, and you got to get some luck, and then you compete,” D’Antoni said. “Hopefully this could be our time.”