HOUSTON (SportsRadio 610)- Change was constant during Jae'Sean Tate's first four seasons with the Rockets. He watched teammates come and go, and he saw coaching staffs get overhauled, but as he started training camp for his fifth campaign in Houston all of the faces were the same.
"The last few years has just been completely different," Tate said on Media Day. "To just be able to run it back with the same team, with a few additional pieces, I think we're going to hit the ground running."
The Rockets return their top 12 in total minutes played from last season, only the Cleveland Cavaliers can say the same, but they made a coaching change during the offseason, while the Rockets bring back their entire staff, minus assistant coach Tiago Splitter, who took a head coach job in France.
"We got that chemistry from last year," Rockets guard Jalen Green said. "You see us out here, what we're doing- The chemistry, everyone's having fun, smiling and playing hard. It's just good energy, a good vibe. That's great going into the season."
Along with the returns of Alperen Sengun and Tari Eason from injury that kept them off the floor for the end of last season, the Rockets are adding first round pick Reed Sheppard and veteran big man Steven Adams to their rotation, so it's not quite like picking up where they left off in April, but it's pretty close.
"There is a lot of continuity to it," Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. "We talked about that being a benefit of bringing majority of the same group back, other than Steven and Reed, but it's good to hit the ground running and not have to pick up on terminology and what we're asking to do."
After losing five-of-six going into the All-Star Break and four-of-five coming out of it, the Rockes recovered to close out the season 16-7 to finish 41-41, a 19-game improvement over the 2022-23 campaign. Udoka says bringing everyone back gives them a good head start, but they aren't picking up right where they left off in April.
"We're gonna add more, but we also don't want to skip steps," Udoka said. "We want to reiterate the things that we did well, and the positive is that we have a ton of stuff on film to show them throughout the year of what we did well and could do better, and so it's a continuation, but we'll start from the ground up and get those same points and emphasis across."
