Houston Texas is the fourth-largest populated city in America. As of 2024-2025, Houston ranks as the sixth-largest DMA (Designated Market Area) in the country. This ranking is based on the number of television households in the region. Houston is not a small market.
The Houston Astros payroll this season is $231 million, making them the sixth highest in all of MLB. The Houston Texans payroll is $317 million, ranking fifth in the NFL. Lastly, your Houston Rockets will be nearly $33 million dollars over the salary cap this upcoming season. Houston’s teams are not small market teams. However, somehow our fanbase continues to have an inferiority complex to, and enjoy confiscating the role of the little guy, the underdog, or the disrespected, despite not being any of those.
Recently, Bleacher Report published their 2025-2026 NBA win/loss predictions, and according to Andy Bailey, he believes the Rockets will win 52 games. He points to Kevin Durant’s age, recent history of missing games, in conjunction with what he calls a “lack of offensive creation behind Durant” as his reasoning. Before you get upset… do you not have similar concerns? I have seen the exact same sentiment expressed right here by Rockets fans. Yet, fan blogs and fan groups all over the social media landscape branded it the national media continuing to “disrespect” the Rockets.
“The media continues to disrespect the Rockets” is the rallying call here… but is it even true that the Rockets have been disrespected by the media in the past, for them to be continuing the disrespect now?
We can all agree that before the last two seasons, the media had no reason to even discuss the Houston Rockets, much less show them any respect… for what? Being the best at having the league’s worst record twice and being among the worst teams in the league in the season that they weren’t the very worst, and yet somehow still never earning the number one overall pick?
The Rockets were hot garbage just about from the time James Harden unceremoniously forced his way out and the Christian Wood era began. Prior to that, the Rockets were given all the respect in the world for seemingly being the only team in the league even remotely interested in trying to compete with the Golden State Warriors. The large consensus among not only fans of the league, but those who cover it, locally and nationally, is that were it not for a Chris Paul hamstring injury, the Houston Rockets would have hung another banner from the rafters in Toyota Center.
Outside of those things, in the last decade of Houston Rockets basketball, what have they done that’s so deserving of respect, that they are not being given credit for by “the media”? Last season, they convincingly won 52 games, as they spent the majority of the season maintaining the second-best record in the West.
When national pundits acknowledged their vast improvement yet fell short of giving them any serious odds at winning the title because of their inexperience, Rockets fans cried “Disrespect!” even though right here on this very website, I daily saw comments about not knowing who would close out games in the postseason, and if offensive droughts would creep up and haunt them in the playoffs.
What happened in the postseason? The Rockets put up a fight, but everything we and the national media worried would happen against a veteran Warriors team came to fruition. I get it… when your kids are messing up, you prefer to critique and discipline themselves. You may even at times be too hard on them, but you know it’s because you love them and want them to do better. But let someone else talk bad about your kids? OH, HELL NO!
I feel like that’s how the Rockets fans can be when it comes to critique of the team. When it comes to showing them “respect”, let’s face it… the Rockets have not done a lot to garner respect or attention from the national media until very recently, and they are being talked about for it. In what world a 52 win prediction, which was good enough for the number two seed in the West a year ago, is disrespect… I’m sure I don’t know.
What I do know, is the Rockets currently have the fifth-best odds to win the NBA championship, and plenty of NBA pundits believe they are the biggest threat to the defending champion OKC Thunder. Stephen A. Smith, Tim Bontemps, Brian Windhorst, Kendrick Perkins, Chiney Ogwuimike… the list goes on. In the words of Jacobim Mugatu, the Rockets are so hot right now!
Does one measly bleacher report article that predicts a 52-win season in the juggernaut Western Conference change that? No. it doesn’t Houston. We have got to get out of this little man mindset that someone is always doing the city wrong. Will Houston ever be the L.A. with the Lakers? Or Boston with the Celtics? Even New York with the Knicks? No, they won’t because the market share in those cities as far as eyes and ears still dwarfs that of Houston.
It’s not likely to change unless… you do what the Warriors did out of Oakland, and now San Francisco California… you win. The Golden State Warriors built a legacy so big, with a player so iconic, that as long as he is in the league, that team will be in the discussion, whether they are the number one seed in the west or fighting for a play-in spot… because the league, media, and the world respects WINNERS. The Rockets have yet to win on a level that garners that kind of respect… not yet. But you better believe they have the opportunity right in front of them. It’s up to them. Do they want to be the next “What if” Houston Rockets team, or do they want to cement themselves in the history of the NBA? Stay tuned.
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