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Playoffs week four are upon us, and we've got a lot of things to talk about, a lot of seismic changes in the last week.

But where I want to start is talking about the poor, the huddled, the vanquished teams in these playoffs.

And particularly in the Western Conference, which John has focused upon a ton when we look forward to next year that the competition seems

like it's only going to get more brutal in that conference. And John, the Houston Rockets,

they are in a really weird situation right now. Let's talk about what the heck they're going to do.

Yeah, they are in a weird situation because

they're good, right? Like, they're unquestionably good. I mean, we were debating who we would

pick in the Rockets Lakers series. So you don't get to that point unless you have some level of

quality on your team, right? But it seems like this is as good as it's going to get for them. They have no assets,

no real plausible way to add anything significant from here unless they just, you know,

luck into an undrafted free agent and end up with Red Van Vleet somehow or, you know, some,

avenue like that. But they have no draft

picks. They have no good young players at all. They are right at the tax line and have no

inclination at all to spend into it. And they're going to have a different head coach next year.

And their system is really built around this head coach's unique philosophical way of playing. So they're at a crossroads to me. And

underlying this, and I wrote this in my story for the athletic, is that James Harden has two

years on his deal before he could become a free agent. And when does that situation start

becoming a little more urgent from his perspective, where he

looks and sees no future here playing with, you know, Russell Westbrook playing, making

47 million in 22, 23, and Eric Gordon making close to 20. And no real possibility of help

on the way in the meantime. that's going to be an interesting

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