The question has been raised throughout the season. Should the Houston Rockets have made last offseason\u2019s trade for Kevin Durant?<\/p>\n
Those who say no will likely reference Houston\u2019s eerily similar winning clip to last season. To that point, the Rockets have gone 37-22 through 59 games in 2025-26. One year ago, they had the same record at the same point.<\/p>\n
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Which has been used to make the argument that the Rockets didn\u2019t get better with Durant.<\/p>\n
However, that actually undersells the point. Especially considering what all has happened to the Rockets, from a roster standpoint.<\/p>\n
Their infrastructure has been shaken, due to injury. Fred VanVleet, Houston\u2019s lone table-setter over the last two seasons, hasn\u2019t played.<\/p>\n
(Which we\u2019ve heard endlessly, I know).<\/p>\n
Houston has struggled to get into their sets. The pick-and-roll action (which seems to be the only offensive gameplan in Ime Udoka\u2019s toolbelt) has been rather..meh. Amen Thompson has the will to fill that void but he doesn\u2019t have the know-how.<\/p>\n
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Alperen Sengun has missed a handful of games (and has faded defensively). Tari Eason has missed 22 games.<\/p>\n
Steven Adams\u2019 loss might be the most pivotal across the league this season.<\/p>\n
Jabari Smith Jr. has been very inconsistent throughout the season. Durant has been the only constant.<\/p>\n
Even at 37-years-old. He ranks third in minutes per game and fourth in total minutes played.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also bailed the Rockets out in a litany of offensive possessions, hitting shots with an insanely high degree of difficulty.<\/p>\n
And has even had to take on a playmaking role (which hasn\u2019t always been pretty, I agree).<\/p>\n
But imagine if Houston didn\u2019t make that trade. Jalen Green has missed most of the season.<\/p>\n
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When he has played, he\u2019s flashed the same inconsistencies and\/or hot-and-cold propensity. Dillon Brooks has certainly been missed this season, but he\u2019s also benefited from having an ample amount of freedom to let it fly and chuck. He\u2019s taking 17.4 shots per game, which is a career-high.<\/p>\n
Yet and still, his efficiency has been\u2026.meh. 50.7 percent effective shooting (which is worse than either of his two seasons in Houston), and 54.7 true shooting (which is also worse than either of his two seasons with the Rockets, but almost identical to his first season with the Rockets in 2023-24).<\/p>\n
Brooks wouldn\u2019t have been able to replace (or even match) the production that we\u2019ve seen from Durant this season.<\/p>\n
This trade was a no-brainer. Even upon revisiting it.<\/p>\n
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Houston would be a lottery team without Adams, VanVleet, and Durant. And if you were to undo the trade and place Green back on the roster this season, they would\u2019ve been without him too.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also worth noting that Houston spent years seeking a closer, even with Green on the roster. Because he didn\u2019t prove capable of being a consistent closer.<\/p>\n
So even if they didn\u2019t make the deal for Durant (which carried a lower than usual asking price), they would\u2019ve still likely moved those pieces for someone else, eventually.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The question has been raised throughout the season. Should the Houston Rockets have made last offseason\u2019s trade for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3794],"tags":[1307,883,7,1195,866,292,194,4066,2497,861,938,189,6,211,962,873],"class_list":{"0":"post-633535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-rockets","8":"tag-alperen-sengun","9":"tag-amen-thompson","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-dillon-brooks","12":"tag-fred-vanvleet","13":"tag-houston","14":"tag-houston-rockets","15":"tag-houstonrockets","16":"tag-jabari-smith-jr","17":"tag-jalen-green","18":"tag-kevin-durant","19":"tag-miami-heat","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-rockets","22":"tag-steven-adams","23":"tag-tari-eason"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116157245396576468","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}