Bill Simmons Hates On Rockets Fans, Declares Houston One of the Worst Home Crowds in NBA

The Houston Rockets are going into their biggest home game of the season, a Saturday night ABC showcase showdown with the defending champion Golden State Warriors. But if you listen to Bill Simmons, Chris Paul and Co. shouldn’t expect much help from the crowd.

Simmons — the most famous sportswriter in America at this point — believes the Rockets have one of the most pathetic crowds in the NBA.

“They have a top three worst home crowd,” Simmons declares on the most recent Bill Simmons Podcast. “Shout out to Houston. God bless you guys. I don’t like the energy at all. I don’t think the (Rockets) crowd affects the game at all. They seem bored.

“I need more from the Houston crowd. If you’re going to have the second best team in the league, come on… Step it up Houston. I know you have it in you. You had great crowds during the Hakeem era.”

Of course in Hakeem Olajuwon’s day, NBA ticket prices were much more reasonable — and the league hadn’t become as corporate as it is now. The Summit of Hakeem’s era provided for a much more intimate game day experience than the Toyota Center, too.

Still, Simmons went even further, impugning one of the NBA’s most self serious (and sensitive) fan bases.

“Have you watched a Rockets home game and thought, ‘Wow, the crowd’s really winning the game for them,’ ” he says. “Never! That’s never happened. Not since the Hakeem era.”

These Rockets of James Harden, Chris Paul and Mike D’Antoni actually carry the same home record (16-6) into Saturday night’s game as the Warriors, who are almost universally recognized for having one of the very best home crowds in the league. But that doesn’t mean Simmons’ rant — one which caused his podcast guest, ESPN’s Zach Lowe, to exclaim, “Wow. Really?!” — doesn’t have some merit.

Rockets crowds at the Toyota Center are often late arriving — and large sections of the lower bowl, including plenty of the high roller front rows, never come close to making it back out in time for the start of the third quarter. Second halves often begin amid a virtual ghost town. There are also plenty of games where large swaths of the lower bowl have empty seats.

“Have you watched a Rockets home game and thought, ‘Wow, the crowd’s really winning the game for them,’ Never! That’s never happened. Not since the Hakeem era.”

It doesn’t help that Rockets management has made the team’s own secondary ticket market much less fan friendly. By no longer allowing bidding for tickets on Flash Seats, the franchise has set the stage for more prime lower level tickets to go unused. With the old bidding system, dedicated fans could often find seats for less than face value for the non-marquee games on the schedule. In many cases, those seats would have otherwise gone empty.

Now, with set pricing on Flash Seats, many do.

In many ways, NBA franchises dictate what type of crowd they get based on their practices and policies. It will be interesting to see what changes first-year Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta ends up making. Fertitta and his sons are dedicated sports fans who’ve seen games in many different arenas. And this billionaire’s built an empire based on hospitality. There will no doubt be some new best practices (and maybe some new management) in the future.

Until then, Houston Rockets fans will likely continue to get dumped on nationally.

And while it’s true that Rockets fans are not as rabidly crazed as the crowd in Oklahoma City for example, that’s not necessarily entirely a bad thing.

There’s much more to do in Houston than Oklahoma City. Houston’s a much more sophisticated and diverse city with transplants from all over (you’ll see plenty of Warriors fans in Saturday night’s crowd — but then again, there are Warriors fans everywhere these days).

Sometimes a crowd isn’t everything. Even if it gets you Bill Simmons scorn.