The Houston Rockets have begun playing without a center, and they are winning games. But there is still a place for the big man in basketball
Last month, the Houston Rockets took the NBA’s small-ball revolution to its logical extreme, defeating the Dallas Mavericks 128-121 without a player listed as taller than 6ft 6in. According to records, it was the first time an
NBA team had done so since the 1963
Chicago Zephyrs beat the
New York Knicks. The Chicago Zephyrs, for the record, were what the
Washington Wizards used to be called three cities and four name changes ago. A lot has changed since then, but considering the evolution of the league, it was probably only a matter of time before a team repeated the Zephyrs’ feat.
How did the Rockets end up playing like this?