Did the Rockets quit on Kevin McHale?

Hall of Famer, Western Conference finalist, Southwest Division champion, and a shiny new extension. No matter. The cruelty of the NBA's coaching carousel hath no mercy, and it stops for no one, as the basketball world was reminded when the Houston Rockets fired Kevin McHale on Wednesday.

Six months ago, the 56-win Rockets, fresh off winning one of the toughest divisions in recent NBA memory, rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to eliminate the Los Angeles Clippers and advance to the Western Conference finals.

James Harden was the MVP runner-up, the team looked like a perennial contender in the making so long as Dwight Howard could stay on the floor, and McHale was only months removed from a fully guaranteed three-year extension.

How things could go so wrong, so quickly is yet another cautionary tale that shows future success is never guaranteed in the Association.

Somewhere along the line, the Rockets lost their way.

Ty Lawson, the prized offseason addition that was supposed to push the Rockets over the hump, is shooting 33 percent and watching Houston perform more than seven points better per 100 possessions when he's sitting on the bench. Harden is shooting a career-worst 37 percent from the field and 26 percent from deep. Howard, while still racking up double-doubles and logging 30 minutes per game in the seven contests he's played, is having little to no effect (0.5 points per 100 possessions) on the Rockets' porous defense.

That defense, more than anything else, has highlighted Houston's early-season fall from grace. With Harden putting forth more of an honest effort on the defensive end, the Rockets boasted the league's sixth-ranked D last year at 100.5 points per 100 possessions, even with Howard missing half the season. Through 11 uninspiring games in 2015-16, their defensive rating of 106.5 ranks 29th.

Even more concerning, of the team's 13 most frequently used three-man combinations, the trios of Harden, Howard, and Lawson, as well as Harden, Howard, and Trevor Ariza, are the worst performing of the bunch, with the Rockets being outscored by 9.2 points per 100 possessions when Harden and Howard share the court.

It's easy to assume the Rockets will right the ship, or to blame their early season woes on the availability of Howard and Patrick Beverley - currently sidelined by an ankle injury - but the fact of the matter is that a team with championship aspirations is getting absolutely torched with their best players on the floor.

That's the part that makes you wonder whether this 4-7 start, which has included five home losses in seven games and a home loss to the lowly Brooklyn Nets, is more than just an early-season blip.

Talent of that magnitude being outplayed and outclassed in such a manner begs the question of whether the Rockets, so promising only months ago, checked out on McHale, an improved coach who developed his abilities over his five years on Houston's bench.

For Daryl Morey, Leslie Alexander, and co. to bail on McHale just 11 games into the season, and only 11 months into that aforementioned extension, they surely had to be wondering the same thing.