The Houston Rockets’ season might have ended before it even began.

Expectations were justifiably high after Houston finished second in the Western Conference last year, then added Kevin Durant and former starting centre Clint Capela to become the No. 2 betting favourite behind defending NBA champion Oklahoma City.

But while Durant is the club’s best scorer and Alperen Sengun its best overall player, Fred VanVleet is Houston’s heartbeat — its most irreplaceable player — and he just tore his ACL, meaning he likely will miss the entire regular season (or, at best, the vast majority of it).

The former Toronto Raptors star, who will turn 32 in February, suffered the injury in an off-season workout, ESPN first reported.

While ACL tears are not as devastating as Achilles tears (like the ones recently suffered by superstars Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton) which generally take at least a full year to come back from, the absolute best case for VanVleet — if he recovers like Wolverine — would still be a spring return just prior to the playoffs. And what shape would the veteran be in at that point just as the season really ramps up?

VanVleet spent seven stellar seasons with the Raptors after being signed just after going undrafted in 2016. He earned an all-star selection and even an NBA Finals MVP vote (Kawhi Leonard got the other votes) in helping the Raptors win the NBA title and holds Raptors single-game records for both points (54) and assists (20) in a game, making him the only player to hold both those marks for a franchise.

He succeeded CJ McCollum as president of the National Basketball Player’s Association in July.

Toronto held a .626 winning percentage when VanVleet played and .335 since he signed with the Rockets. Houston has won 58% percent of the time since adding VanVleet vs. 25% in the previous three years.

Which is why there were a lot of grimaces when the news broke and plenty of reaction on social media from players, fans and media alike. Many mentioned Houston’s lack of options behind VanVleet and its lack of cap space under the first apron cap penalty to try to add a veteran point guard.

Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young wrote on X:

Long-time Raptors play-by-play voice Matt Devlin wrote:

Sam Vecenie, The Athletic’s draft guru said: “The Fred VanVleet injury is for sure a big problem for Houston. They have potential answers (Amen Thompson, Reed Sheppard), but Fred just just such a smart, steadying presence for them. Limits TOs. Can handle. Gets guarded from behind the 3-point line. Pull-up gravity. Great in their defence.”

Here’s our take on why the Rockets are so hampered by the VanVleet injury and what so many seem to be missing when they focus on his shooting struggles last season (near career lows in two-point, three-point and effective field goal percentages):

NO CLEAR REPLACEMENT

There’s no plug-and-play replacement at Houston’s disposal. Yes, the team has Thompson, one of the most intriguing young players in the league and a favourite now to be named Most Improved Player, but Thompson — a supreme athlete who defends like few others — has been one of the weakest outside shooters in the NBA through his two years.

He made eight three-pointers as a rookie (VanVleet has hit more in a single game four times as a Rocket), 25 last year (which VanVleet does about every two weeks) and just 22.1% of his career attempts.

Sengun is a 27% three-point shooter over four years, but is a brilliant passer and scorer from other parts of the floor.

Houston’s plan had been to surround him and Thompson with deadly marksmen like Durant and VanVleet to help them generate enough shooting. Now they probably have to go huge with Durant playing small forward and Jabari Smith Jr. — a decent but not great stretch big man — at power forward and Thompson either at point guard (where he’s only spent 1% of his career minutes) or shooting guard (just 17% of his minutes last season).

Thompson has some point forward in his game, but being the primary ball-handler would be asking a lot (even if Sengun will assume some of those duties, too, at centre) given his lack of experience and shooting woes.

The Rockets do happen to have a 21-year-old No. 3 overall pick on the roster in Sheppard and some will tell you he was the best prospect in his draft class, but the issue is head coach Ime Udoka, an old-school, hard-boiled, defence-first type, only played him 12.6 minutes a night as a rookie because of his defence.

Is Udoka simply going to throw Sheppard in now, replacing one of the premier guard defenders in the NBA with one of the worst?

Veteran Aaron Holiday, who also played about 13 minutes per game for the Rockets last season, even starting three times, could also be an option because he can shoot and defend, but he has played more than 18 minutes a game only once in seven seasons.

TOUGH TO ADD

Because Houston is so close to the first apron luxury tax penalty (just over $1 million away), the team can’t just sign a crafty veteran point guard (a veteran would count for about a million more than that against the cap).

The team would have to draw from its enviable depth up front (Steven Adams and Capela will platoon behind Sengun, there’s also Durant, Smith Jr., Tari Eason, Jeff Green and Dorian Finney Smith) to try to balance out the roster and many of those players are under trade restrictions as recent signings for a while.

The team might have to part with Eason, who it seems to be in a contract-extension stalemate with but is said to love, in order to keep its championship window open.

ABOUT THAT WINDOW

Speaking of which, you might think nobody is going to beat the Thunder anyway and there’s also Nikola Jokic in Denver to contend with in the West but, on paper, Houston was a pretty strong group (hence the Vegas odds before VanVleet’s injury).

While much of the core is very young (age 24 or under), Durant is days away from turning 37 and has a history of injuries. He’s also not currently signed beyond this season.

Green, his former Seattle Supersonics teammate (that’s how long they’ve been around, the team no longer exists!), is 39, Adams 32, Capela 31.

Houston has one shot, maybe two, or even three if they’re extremely lucky with Durant’s health and desire to stay put, and now one of them is gone and the odds of VanVleet being as good as he once was post-injury, even next season, aren’t as good as they would have been had he not torn his ACL.

There’s no doubt about it, this was a brutal blow for Houston and for VanVleet.

WHAT ABOUT THE RAPTORS

Some might claim the Raptors did the right thing in not putting a full-court press on retaining VanVleet a couple of years ago until it was too late.

This injury doesn’t change anything and doesn’t justify letting him go. Nobody could have known he’d get hurt this badly, even with the huge workload Nick Nurse bestowed on him over the years.

The team built up Scottie Barnes too fast and maybe it never would have worked with VanVleet, Barnes, Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby. Or maybe they should have traded Anunoby earlier and investigated whether the remaining trio, plus Jakob Poeltl, would have.

But we’ll never know. What we do know is the Raptors still miss VanVleet and now the Rockets will, too.

@WolstatSun