It says a lot about the state of Rockets right where you can see that Danuel House is one of their top five players. Possibly top four, and if you want to be super-duper realistic and not be blinded by the blazing light of superstardom, maybe top three. Honestly, I think I would really enjoy a reality where House is a top three player on one of the league’s best teams.
Obviously, James Harden is top 1. He’s a beast. But then it gets murky. Russell Westbrook’s contract and raw stats say he should be top two, but is he really? IS HE REALLY? I think his stats have gotten even emptier than they were before, somehow. And his impact stats suck, placing him behind a lot of the Rockets’ role-players.
So then maybe P.J. Tucker is the Rocket’s second-best player, because he plays defense. Or maybe it’s Clint Capela, who is limited offensively but can grab rebounds. So one of those dudes is behind Harden, and then maybe the other one is behind that one. So that leaves House as the fourth-best player. But I can totally see putting him above either one of those dudes, because he has sweet hair and can actually score points by himself sometimes. So now he’s top two???? Holy crap. House is a top two player on the Rockets.
Now that we’ve determined that House is the second best player in Houston, the Robin to Harden’s Batman, we need to let him know so that he can start shooting like it. Right now, he’s playing like he’s a role-player. This is his career-high in scoring, and it’s only 23 points! For a second banana, that’s not going to cut it. He has to get aggressive. This aggression should manifest itself in ways other than trying to score the basketball; for example, he should probably try to seriously maim Westbrook so that he can’t monopolize the ball anymore.