NBA Players: 3 Things we learned from Chris Paul's tenure at the Houston Rockets

#3 If luck favors, the Rockets are a surefire Championship-caliber team

The Rockets have all the mental equipment necessary to go big.

Chris Paul was averaging over 21 points in the 2018 playoffs when he crashed out against Golden State in the Western Conference Finals. The Rockets were leading the series 3-2 and then went on to lose two straight to the defending champs.

To put things into perspective, they were indeed moments away from lifting the title figuratively, as the ailing LeBron-led Cavaliers side wouldn't have posed much of an obstacle in the NBA Finals down the road.

In retrospect, this was a squad that had posted a franchise-best 65-17 win-loss record during the regular season and finished as the No. 1 seed for the first time in franchise history. Clearly, they were meant to be the antithesis to the mighty Warriors, but fate had other plans.

However, now that the Houston squad has shown the resilience needed to lift the Larry O'Brien trophy given the right support, bagging Russell Westbrook seems to have extended their title hopes for at least another couple of years.