Houston Rockets

The Houston Rockets are a professional basketball team based in Houston, Texas. They play in the National Basketball Association (NBA). more...

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Franchise History

1967–1968: Beginnings in San Diego

The San Diego Rockets, along with the Seattle SuperSonics, entered the NBA in 1967 as an expansion team. The Rockets selected Pat Riley with their first draft pick in 1967, and went on to produce a then-NBA record 67-loss season.

1968–1971: The "Big E" Coin Toss

The Rockets won the coin toss versus the Baltimore Bullets, earning them the number one pick in the NBA Draft, selecting Elvin "the Big E" Hayes from the University of Houston. Hayes led the team to the franchise's first ever playoff appearance in 1969.

Move to Houston

In 1971, real estate broker Wayne Duddleston and banker Billy Goldberg bought the franchise for $5.6 million and relocated the team (which, interestingly, already had an appropriate nickname – Rockets – for a Houston-based team) from San Diego, where there was a lack of fan support (the majority of San Diego were Los Angeles Lakers fans), to Houston, Texas, the home town of Hayes. The Rockets began playing at the Astrodome and AstroHall, both in Houston, the HemisFair Arena, in San Antonio, the Hofheinz Pavilion, on the University of Houston campus, and at Waco. However, fan support was also scarce in the football and baseball-dominated city, and the Rockets averaged less than 5000 fans per game the first season. A local legend has it that some days the local churches in Waco drew more people than the Rockets. Despite this, the team played well, acquiring two promising young players in Calvin Murphy and Rudy Tomjanovich.

1972–74: Hayes Traded

Before the start of the 1971 season, Coach Alex Hannum left for the Denver Nuggets of the rival American Basketball Association. Tex Winter was hired as the new coach and a month later the team was sold and moved to Houston. Coach Winter installed his Triple-Post Offense system that contrasted with the pro-style offense that Elvin Hayes preferred. Houston traded Hayes to the Baltimore Bullets for Jack Marin, the Rockets went into a rebuilding mode for the next two seasons. The lack of winning did little to capture the city's attention. In the early spring of 1973, following the Rockets 10th straight loss, Winter was relieved of his duties.

1974–76: Playoffs

With Coach John Egan's guidance and Tomjanovich, Murphy, and Mike Newlin leading the way, the Rockets made their first appearance in the playoffs since arriving in Houston. The rockets defeated the New York Knicks (with Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe, Bill Bradley, and Jerry Lucas) in the first round and advanced to the Eastern Conference Semifinals before losing to the Boston Celtics. From this point forward the Rockets earned respect in Houston and have been popular in the Space City since this era.

Read more at Wikipedia.org