Houston Rockets: This team is REALLY good. (How good remains to be seen)

First all of the caveats:

 - It's regular season NBA, which means next to nothing except for actually making the playoffs.
 - Many in Houston aren't paying attention, at all, to the team in the NBA that currently has the best record.
 - Even IF they win they'll still be 3rd fiddle to the Astros and a mediocre Texans franchise.


Given all of that, the Rockets just won their 17th straight game which left them with the best record in the NBA and a narrow 1/2 game lead over the Golden State Warriors for home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

Chris Paul has been amazing, James Harden has been even better.  Unanimous MVP better.  In fact, if Harden doesn't win the MVP this year the award is a farce.  And I say that as someone who's not traditionally been a fan of "the Beard" in the past.

For all of the concern surrounding his hiring head coach Mike D'Antoni has done a masterful job crafting this deep roster, built by GM Daryl Morey, into a currently unstoppable force.

The only question remaining now is whether or not they can continue this charge when the games really matter, in the playoffs against quality teams when something is actually on the line.

James Harden doesn't have that bullet point on his resume yet, none of these players do.

It has to be frustrating though to realize that, no matter how good you're doing, the bulk of sports interest in Houston is going to be focused on the worst team in the city.  A brief listen to Houston sports talk radio this morning revealed the bozos at 610 talking about JJ Watt's trade value, and 790 (The Rockets flagship station) airing Josh Innes who only talks about himself while making borderline racist comments to try and drive controversy, and listeners.

As good of a time as it is to be an Astros or Rockets fan it's equally as frustrating because of the 800 lb gorilla in the room.

In even a mediocre sports town coverage of the Astros in Spring Training and the Rockets beating all comers would dominate the sports news landscape. In Houston we get talk about whether or not the Texans will pursue free agents who might have knelt during the National Anthem or not.

Blech.

To the credit of the Houston Chronicle and the TV stations, at least they're covering Houston's two best teams. Although there's precious little coverage of the Houston Cougars men's basketball team, who is a shoo-in to make the NCAA dance and my dark horse team to win the AAC tournament.

But, I digress.....

As the regular season winds down the playoffs in Houston have the potential to be really, really fun. IF the Rockets and Warriors take care of business (and they should) their match-up in the Western Conference Finals might be looked back on as the REAL NBA Finals. The Raptors and Celtics might have something to say about that bur, for right now, it appears that the Rockets and Warriors are the class of the league.

It's just too bad that few in Houston realize this.