Houston Rockets Logo — Houston Rockets is a professional team of basketball U.S. based in Houston, Texas. Play in the Southwest Division, within the NBA Western Conference. The team was established in 1967, playing in his first four years in San Diego (California). In his debut season won only 15 games, but after choosing in the 1968 draft at number one to Elvin Hayes, got the same season making their first appearance in a playoff. After being transferred Hayes, they signed to replace him with Moses Malone, which was erected at the heart of the team. Malone won 2 awards for best player in the NBA during his stay in Houston and led the Rockets to their first appearance in a final, in 1981, which fell in six games against Boston Celtics.
The Rockets were created in the city of San Diego in 1967, and after being purchased by Robert Breitbard by 1.75 million U.S. dollars, entered the NBA with Seattle SuperSonics in the expansion draft of the 1967-68 season. The nickname for the Rockets vno given because the city of San Diego is calling itself a city in motion. Jack McMahon was elected as a coach, and his first choice in the NBA Draft of 1967 was that years later would member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, Pat Riley, in the seventh. In his first season lost 67 games, then losing record in NBA history.
In 1968, the Rockets won the coin toss to Baltimore Bullets, obtaining the first position of the 1968 draft. They selected Elvin Hayes of the University of Houston. The rookie Hayes led the team to its first playoff appearance in 1969, dropping eliminated in Division Semifinals against the Atlanta Hawks 4-2. In the 1970 Draft, the Rockets chose to Calvin Murphy and Rudy Tomjanovich, a posteriori key players in the franchise. Coached by Jack McMahon and Alex Hannum, the Rockets ended their stay in San Diego with a record of 119-209, unable to qualify for the playoffs the next two seasons.