The Rockets just lost Game 6, at home, to the Lakers. They underperformed this season, so now the commentariat will overreact with grandiose prognostications about what the team should do to have a better season next year. The talkers and writers will say and type what they have to do because they have a job, but really the answer the is clear. The Rockets should do nothing.

The Rockets’ season was derailed by two key injuries. Fred van Vleet, their star point guard and a champion, tore his ACL before the season started and did not play a single game. Then, Steve Adams, an all-time great rebounder and all-time best tattooed player, the linchpin of their miss-and-rebound-everything offense, suffered a season injury early in the season. At the end of the season, Kevin Durant was injured and only played one game in the playoffs.

The injuries left the team with a lot of young, very athletic players without the glue to hold them together. The commentariat will say the team needs to trade this person and that player to get that athlete and that playmaker, that Eason doesn’t shoot well or Sheppard chokes in the playoffs or Thompson cannot make a shot. All those points are true.

They are also fixable with offseason practice. Players can improve shooting, focus, awareness, etc. They cannot change their body, and their athleticism is barely changeable as well. The Rockets have a tall, lanky, athletic core, that is young. The first three traits are immutable, youth is surmountable with experience. This series provides experience.

Basketball is a game of chemistry and experience, and the Rockets did not get the chance to develop either. They are young and athletic, and now the team has playoff experience. A team that is brought back, that knows ownership believes it, is stronger than its parts. The hard part for ownership is to resist the urge to tinker, the urge to listen to another podcast, to read that next article, to talk to that next vice president of operations. Let things be, let the team mature, let the athleticism build and the youth wisen. If the team does that, and stays healthy, they will be much stronger next year than this year.

Also, they should trade Durant.