On paper, the Houston Rockets are built to be a legitimate contender for the NBA Championship. They swung big and landed two-time NBA Champion and former league MVP Kevin Durant during the offseason, adding one of the best scorers in NBA history to an already very talented young core that includes All-Star Alperen Sengun, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr. and Reed Sheppard, among others. This was pretty much the same young core that helped the Rockets to a second-seed finish in the Western Conference last season.
Heading into this campaign, they were pegged to be one of the top four teams in the West, and with everything considered, they really should be.
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But they’re not.
Instead, the Rockets are sitting at the sixth seed in the West, and with ten games remaining on their schedule, there’s a real possibility that they drop into the Play-In Tournament if they continue to skid. They’re 4-6 in their last ten, and have lost back-to-back games, including a monumental collapse against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Thursday, which saw them blow a 13-point lead, the biggest in the last couple of decades.
So what’s going on in H-Town?
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Well, NBA podcaster Bill Simmons has some thoughts.
Houston, you have a problem
On an episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast, Simmons talked about the struggling Rockets, saying that there’s something off with the team’s vibes.
“It’s bad, this is bad. First of all, it’s the most disconnected of all the playoff teams,” he stated, before touching on the team’s body language during the closing moments of regulation in Thursday night’s game.
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Houston’s Sengun came up with a magnificent defensive stop on Minnesota’s Julius Randle to send the game into overtime, before falling hard on the floor, busting and bloodying up his lip. Given the stakes and just how incredible the play was, it was surprising to see that no one celebrated or even checked on Sengun, save for Sheppard.
“Durant doesn’t even acknowledge him really, and nobody else on the Rockets comes over and Sengun just walks back,”Simmons detailed. “This was like one of the best plays of Sengun’s career, it was insane.”
“That team is just so, so not on the same page. I don’t like the vibes. Something’s really wrong with the Rockets,” Simmons added.
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Issues with Ime?
Last season, Houston head coach Ime Udoka earned a lot of praise for being able to take the supposedly rebuilding Rockets to the second seed of the ultra-tough Western Conference. He was lauded for being a tough coach who pulled no punches when it came to his coaching style.
A season later, it seems like a lot of the fans, and even the experts, are pinning at least some of the blame for the Rockets’ mediocre season on Udoka, who’s on his third season with the team.
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Simmons believes that Udoka isn’t really on the same page with the team either.
“Ime, I think this has been one of the worst coaching jobs of the year. I don’t see any adjustments late, the vibes are awful,” Simmons said. “I don’t think he really likes the team that much.”
A lot of the criticism for Udoka comes from his rotations and lineups, and this inability to take accountability.
Durant’s burner backlash
Simmons suggested that the Rockets’ slide began after the All-Star break, which coincided with screenshots of Durant’s alleged burner account going viral, which contained a lot of negative comments towards a number of NBA players, including Durant’s current Rockets’ teammates, especially Sengun and Smith Jr.
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While it was never proven that Durant was actually behind that burner account, it still spread across NBA Twitter and likely had a negative effect on team chemistry.
“If you want to go Full Conspiracy on it, they have not looked the same since the All-Star break, and all that KD burner stuff, whether that was true or not true,” Simmons mentioned. “They’ve not looked the same, and they don’t seem connected at all.”
While it’s a real possibility, at the end of the day, the Rockets are still too good a team to ultimately squander their guaranteed postseason spot and fall into the Play-In Tournament.
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That being said, even if they lock up their spot in the playoffs, it’s safe to say that teams aren’t exactly shaking in their boots at the thought of facing the Rockets in their current state.
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Mar 27, 2026, where it first appeared in the Latest News section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.