The Houston Rockets Tickets : The Rockets Did Not Win Their First Championship Until 1994

The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston

, Texas. The team plays in the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The team was established in 1967, and played in San Diego, California for four years, before being moved to Houston.

In the Rockets' debut season, they won only 15 games. But after drafting Elvin Hayes first overall in the 1969 NBA Draft, they made their first appearance in the playoffs in 1969. After Hayes was traded, Moses Malone was acquired to replace him. Malone won two MVPs during his time in Houston, and he led the Rockets to the conference finals in his first year with the Rockets. He also took the Rockets to the NBA Finals in 1981, but they were defeated in six games by the Boston Celtics.

In 1984, the Rockets drafted future Hall-of-Famer Hakeem Olajuwon, who led them to the 1986 Finals in his second year, where they lost again to Boston. In the next seven seasons, they lost in the first round of the playoffs five times. They did not win their first championship until 1994, when Olajuwon led them to the finals. The team repeated as champions in 1995. However, the Rockets did not advance to the finals again, and missed the playoffs from 1999/2003. They did not reach the playoffs again until they drafted Yao Ming and they did not advance past the first round of the playoffs again until 2009.

The Rockets were founded in 1967 in San Diego, and after being bought by Robert Breitbard for 1.75 million dollars, they joined the NBA as an expansion team for the 1967/68 NBA season.The San Diego franchise nickname became the "Rockets" due to the local development (General Dynamics) of the famed Atlas missile/booster rocket program. Jack McMahon was named the Rockets' coach, and the team's first draft pick, in 1967, was the future Hall of Fame coach Pat Riley. However, the Rockets went on to lose 67 games in their inaugural season, which was then an NBA record for losses in a season.

In 1968, after the Rockets won a coin toss against the Baltimore Bullets to determine who would have the first overall pick in the 1968 NBA Draft, they selected Elvin Hayes from the University of Houston. Hayes led the team to the franchise's first ever playoff appearance in 1969, but the Rockets lost in the semi-finals of the Western Division to the Atlanta Hawks, four games to two. In 1970 NBA Draft, the Rockets drafted Calvin Murphy and Rudy Tomjanovich, who would together play all their careers, a total of 25 seasons, with the Rockets.

Despite being coached by Hall of Fame coach Alex Hannum, the Rockets only tallied a 57/97 record in the following two seasons, and did not make the playoffs in either season. Because of the low performance and attendance, Breitbard looked to sell the team , and in 1971, Texas Sports Investments, which was led by real estate broker Wayne Duddleston and banker Billy Goldberg, bought the franchise for $5.6 million, and moved the team to Houston. The franchise became the first NBA team in Texas, and the team's nickname of "Rockets" kept its relevance after the move.

During the four years the Rockets were in San Diego, they played their games in the San Diego Sports Arena , which had a seating capacity of 14,400.In their first season after moving to Houston, the Rockets did not have their own arena in Houston, and they played their first two years at various venues in Houston, including the Astrodome, AstroHall, Sam Houston Coliseum and Hofheinz Pavilion.

They also had to play "home" games in other cities such as San Antonio, Waco, Albuquerque, and even San Diego. During their first season, the Rockets averaged less than 5,000 fans per game, and in one game in Waco, there were only 759 fans in attendance.

Their first permanent arena in Houston was the 10,000 seat Hofheinz Pavilion, which they moved into during their second season. They played in the arena for four years, before occupying The Summit in 1975. The arena, which could hold 16,611 spectators, was later renamed the Compaq Center, was their home for the next 28 years.

In 2003, the Rockets moved into their new arena, the Toyota Center, with a seating capacity of 18,500. In the past fifteen years, the Rockets' attendance was at the lowest in 2002, when their attendance per game was only 11,737, second worst in the league. However, the Rockets averaged 17,379 spectators in the past year, their best average attendance ever.

by: Cynthia Hoffman

POST COMMENT

Steve Houston BreakFree2Liberty - Burn The Cubicle Where to Stay in Houston? Houston personal trainer The Truth About Erotic Massage Parlors in Houston Places at Houston Houston Dynamo Playoff Tickets - Wizards 1, Dynamo 1 Luis Scola Should Be The Core Of Houston Rockets