I don't know that I can recall in my life as an educated basketball fan — which goes back roughly to the year before Yao Ming was drafted — in which the Rockets ever faced a potential franchise turning one quite like the one they have in front of them.
For years, this team always seemed like it was in flux. They were bad enough to draft Steve Francis and Yao with their own lottery picks — and lucky enough to get them — and the Francis-McGrady trade shifted the balance of the franchise, but before that deal happened, did it feel like the Rockets faced a fork in the road?