Offseason Approach
Keeping working to find the right mix for playoff success
Actual Cap Space
-$68.8 million
Practical Cap Space
-$56.2 million
Projected Luxury Tax Space
$16.1 million
Under Contract (9)
Steven Adams
Clint Capela
Kevin Durant
Dorian Finney-Smith
Tristen Newton (two-way)
Alperen Sengun
Reed Sheppard
Jabari Smith Jr.
Amen Thompson
Potential Free Agents (8)
Isaiah Crawford (restricted – two-way)
J.D. Davison (unrestricted – team option)
Tari Eason (restricted)
Jeff Green (unrestricted)
Aaron Holiday (unrestricted)
Josh Okogie (unrestricted)
Jae’Sean Tate (unrestricted)
Fred VanVleet (unrestricted – player option)
Dead Cap (0)
None
Projected Signing Exceptions
Non-Taxpayer MLE ($15.0 million)
Bi-Annual Exception ($5.5 million)
Notable Trade Exceptions
Cam Whitmore ($3.5 million)
First Round Draft Picks
None
Notable Extension Candidate
Amen Thompson (rookie scale extension)
Analysis
A year ago, it looked like the Houston Rockets were a player away from making noise in the Western Conference playoffs. After acquiring Kevin Durant, it was assumed that Houston was on their way. A year later, there’s still work to do.
Durant put together another All-NBA season. The Rockets won 52 games and were solid on both ends of the floor in the regular season. Then everything fell apart in the playoffs.
Houston fell behind the Los Angeles Lakers 3-0 and were ultimately bounced in six games. And it’s important to keep in mind that Luka Doncic didn’t play for the Lakers in the series and Austin Reaves only appeared in two games.
The disappointing end to the season left the Rockets with a sour taste in their mouths. Now, it’s up to Rafael Stone to figure out the moves to get Houston deeper into the playoffs.
Of the Rockets own free agents, Tari Eason is the priority. Yes, Eason’s overall shooting efficiency slipped, but he showed he can maintain his three-point shooting efficiency on greater volume. If he can balance out his shot mix more moving forward, the overall percentage should rise. Eason is also a really solid defender and rebounder too.
For Houston, they do need to be a bit careful here. They’ve already paid Alperen Sengun and Jabari Smith Jr. They’re going to have to pay Amen Thompson soon too (more to come!). That means that they can’t just hand Eason whatever he wants. The good news here is that Eason’s restricted free agent status should mean that the Rockets aren’t fending off a lot of offers. The projected cap space teams are likely to have other priorities ahead of Eason.
Considering Eason hasn’t established himself as a starter, and it likely to continue coming off the bench if he stays in Houston, that limits his market to some extent. Houston should offer something in the range of four years and $80 million. That would protect the Rockets should Eason never becoming more than a very good combo forward off the bench.
Beyond Eason, Fred VanVleet’s situation is the next one to watch. He missed all of last due to a torn ACL suffered in preseason training. VanVleet has a player option that is truly a 50-50 scenario on being picked up or not. If VanVleet picks it up, Houston will have about $24.1 million under the first apron to work with. Given that the Rockets would like to re-sign Eason, that gets a little tight.
If VanVleet opts out and takes a but of a haircut, that would help Houston with wiggle room to fill out the rest of the roster. Something like $60 million over three years, but with only the first two years guaranteed would be fair value, while giving the Rockets some additional room under the aprons. That deal would start at about $18.5 million and would lock in $38.5 million for VanVleet over the next two seasons.
If VanVleet opts out and re-signs, and Houston re-signs Eason on a deal that starts around $17.8 million, they’d have around $12 million or to play with under the first apron to and $25 million under the second apron to fill out the roster.
That’s not enough to use the full Non-Taxpayer MLE, but the Rockets could use the Taxpayer MLE to fill one open roster spot, then veteran minimum deals to fill out the remainder of the roster. That would keep them under the second apron.
Of the Rockets other free agents, all are minimum-level players. If Houston wants to bring back any of Jeff Green, Aaron Holiday, Josh Okogie, Jae’Sean Tate or J.D. Davison on a minimum deal, that’s fine. None are likely to garner offers for more than the minimum elsewhere, and bringing any back on a minimum won’t prevent the Rockets from doing any other business.
To make any bigger changes, Houston will have to look at trades. Considering neither Clint Capela nor Dorian Finney-Smith played a big role for the Rockets, they could be available via trades. That would be just more than $20 million tradable salary. For Houston to get involved on any star-level players, they’d have to put someone like Jabari Smith Jr., Reed Sheppard or Steven Adams into a deal as well.
Instead of a big trade, look for Houston to get VanVleet re-signed and back on the court, to bring back Eason on a reasonable contract and tinker around the edges of the roster. The Rockets could use more shooting and scoring. Keep an eye on players like Tim Hardaway Jr., Landry Shamet, Simone Fontecchio or Taurean Prince. All of those players can shoot and are in the salary range that Houston can afford.
Beyond retooling parts of the rotation, the Rockets single biggest piece of business this offseason is getting Amen Thompson to sign an extension. Thompson can’t shoot. Not even a little bit. Despite opponents knowing this, Thompson was still able to get to 18.3 points per game with more than 70% of his shots coming in/around the paint.
But the Rockets won’t be extending Thompson for his scoring. A large chunk of the reason to extend Thompson is that he’s a Defensive Player of the Year level of defender. There’s no position he can’t defend, except for the biggest of centers. He’s equally good on- and off-ball. Thompson is an absolute stud defender. He’s also a good rebounder and improving playmaker.
When you put all of that together, Thompson is going to get paid. A five-year, $185 million contract makes sense for Thompson and the Rockets. That would match the deal that Alperen Sengun got, which is fair given the importance of Thompson and Sengun to the franchise going forward.
This offseason isn’t likely to be nearly as momentous as last summer was for the Houston Rockets. This time it’s about retaining talent, rebalancing the cap sheet a bit and locking in another young piece. Maybe Rafael Stone has some major trade brewing that we don’t see coming. He’s not afraid to take big swings. But if that happens this year, it’ll likely come in-season vs over the summer.