The Denver Nuggets had a great offseason. They did what fans were begging them to do for so long — build a competent roster with more shooters and talent surrounding Nikola Jokic — and had established themselves as one of the top contenders in the Western Conference.

Then the Houston Rockets traded for Kevin Durant. Coming off a season in which they were the No. 2 seed in the playoffs while not being able to score the basketball, they went out and addressed the biggest issue on their roster in the best way possible. Durant is in the twilight years of his career, but can still put the ball in the loop like no one else.

While the Durant trade cost a high price, the Rockets were able to keep some of their most talented players: Fred VanVleet, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr. and Alperen Sengun. That starting five instantly became one of the three best units in the conference along with Denver and Oklahoma City and looked scary to go up against.

Until it wasn’t.

Just in: Houston Rockets’ Fred VanVleet has suffered a torn ACL, sources tell ESPN. A devastating, potentially season-ending loss for the Rockets with their starting point guard and leader. pic.twitter.com/Qhf0V58DwR

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 22, 2025

News broke on Monday that the Rockets lost VanVleet, the engine of Houston’s offense, suffered a torn ACL while at an offseason workout. The veteran had just signed a contract extension to keep him in Houston for the near future and was coming off a playoff performance in which he averaged 18.7 points per game and was the Rockets’ best source of offense in the final four games of the first-round series against the Warriors. He averaged 5.6 assists per game last year after posting five straight seasons of posting at least 6.3 per game. His playmaking is just as valuable as his scoring.

No one roots for injuries in sports, but they are a part of the game. Just ask Nuggets fans who had to watch two years of Nikola Jokic’s prime go to waste because of injuries suffered by Michael Porter Jr. and Jamal Murray. Especially in the NBA, the champion at the end of the season generally has good injury luck that allows the best players to stay on the floor when the stakes are the highest. Steph Curry got hurt for the Warriors, Jayson Tatum for the Celtics, and Tyrese Halliburton — one of the biggest what-ifs in recent playoff memory — got hurt after coming out of the gates blazing hot in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

As a result, the landscape of the West has been shuffled around. The Rockets don’t have a point guard now, and the salary cap will make it challenging for them to add someone as they are dangerously close to the first apron. As things currently stand, Reed Sheppard, Aaron Holiday and Thompson are in line to take on that playmaking role. Sheppard is a former No. 3 overall pick who has lots of raw talent to fine tune, Holiday is a veteran journeyman who has never been in a starting role, and Thompson is a blossoming young star who has shown flashes that he can be a point forward.

They all have the talent to do so, and could possibly make up for VanVleet’s playmaking ability in a committee. However, none of those three have been asked to be a starting point guard throughout their career, so someone is going to have to step up in a big way if the Rockets still want to win a championship.

This is an opportunity that the Nuggets need to jump on, especially early in the season. If it takes those three players time to figure out how to run the offense, and the Rockets get out to a slow start as a result, the Nuggets need to win as much as they can early in the season to create a gap between them and Houston.