I have not watched enough Houston Rockets games this year.<\/p>\n
I feel bad about it. I write about the team. I\u2019ve never been an 82-game fan. Are you crazy? Living where I do is a factor. Some of these games start at 11 PM for me. I am writing this on my 39th birthday. You do the math:<\/p>\n
I might be long past the point of counting sheep by the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Yet for most of my life, I have been a 70-to-75-game-a-year fan. In 2025-26, I\u2019m on pace for\u2026maybe 55-60ish? It\u2019s enough (in my opinion) to understand the team. It\u2019s not necessary to see the same failings play out over (and over, and over, and over) again.<\/p>\n
(Note: This was written before the big Hawks win. I\u2019m not sure if that game changes much about the piece\u2019s driving logic, but it may have changed the tone) <\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to beat a dead horse, but I will give it a little kick. The Rockets don\u2019t have a point guard. Alperen Sengun and Amen Thompson can\u2019t shoot. Sengun and Reed Sheppard can\u2019t easily defend together. It\u2019s hard to think of a wing joke here that doesn\u2019t refer to chicken. The Rockets have too many wings, OK? Never mind a joke.<\/p>\n
Some fans have identified Sengun as the common denominator. If he can\u2019t play with either Thompson or Sheppard, he\u2019s the obvious candidate to move. That would be a more viable argument if he hadn\u2019t been the best overall player of the trio in their careers to date. What\u2019s the solution here?<\/p>\n
What would make the Rockets watchable in 2027-28?<\/p>\n
Moreover, Kevin \u201cDon\u2019t Call Me Michael\u201d Dickerson Durant has had a tangible negative psychological effect on a team that\u2019s generally felt it had strong chemistry. You can see it: You can feel it. It\u2019s a dark cloud.<\/p>\n
Durant is 37. Every other player that\u2019s been mentioned here is barely old enough to drink in the United States. This creates a schism. Fundamentally, the Rockets have four options:<\/p>\n
RebuildRetoolConsolidateStay the course<\/p>\n
Option 4 is overwhelmingly likely heading into 2026-27. The Rockets would be wise to add any player who can shoot. They\u2019ll likely lean on Fred VanVleet\u2019s return to fill the ball-handling vacuum. Steven Adams will return, and otherwise, fans can expect to watch what they\u2019re watching now in addition to those inclusions.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s rule out Option 1. Options 2 and 3 loom as remote possibilities. It wouldn\u2019t be a shock for the Rockets to acquire Giannis Antetokounmpo this summer, but it would register as a surprise. They could move one of Sengun, Thompson, or Sheppard to alleviate some of the roster construction issues, but that would veer closer to shock than surprise.<\/p>\n
It would be painful, and entirely unnecessary.<\/p>\n
Rockets can afford to take a long view<\/p>\n
Pretend Kevin Durant is not a Houston Rocket. Imagine a world where Rafael Stone traded Jalen Green for, let\u2019s say, Khris Middleton, just to get off his contract.<\/p>\n
(An intensely painful hypothetical, but bear with the thought experiment).<\/p>\n
Say Dillon Brooks is gone, too. He spontaneously combusted, or retired to pursue spiritual purity: Doesn\u2019t matter. The point is to imagine the exact roster the Rockets have this year without Durant.<\/p>\n
They\u2019d have a worse record. Durant has 8.3 Win Shares in 2025-26. This is a rudimentary (probably deeply flawed) approach. There\u2019s a Butterfly Effect that isn\u2019t quantifiable. For argument\u2019s sake, let\u2019s add an two extra wins and operate under the assumption that Houston would have six fewer wins if Durant were replaced with a league-average wing (so, roughly Middleton).<\/p>\n
They\u2019d have 35 wins. That would put them a game ahead of the Los Angeles Clippers and Portland Trail Blazers. The Clippers are old and virtually without future draft equity. Houston would unambiguously be in a better position than the Clippers in this hypothetical.<\/p>\n
The Blazers are young: Does anyone think Portland is a dumpster fire? Isn\u2019t the consensus that this organization is in a fine spot? OK, now ask yourself this: Don\u2019t the Rockets have a comparably talented young roster? Doesn\u2019t it feel like they\u2019re even a little bit better?<\/p>\n
Now, consider that the Rockets have a far more impressive collection of draft capital than the Blazers.<\/p>\n
So, if the Rockets didn\u2019t have Durant, they\u2019d still be in a good place. They\u2019d be young, talented, and major players in the draft game. The public is effectively penalizing them for having Durant, when in reality, Durant is house money. The money that\u2019s been invested is still projecting a good return on investment.<\/p>\n
The Rockets don\u2019t need to do anything rash. They can run the same roster back next year. If the result is another disappointing season, they can look into options again.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re also quite likely to have a high lottery pick during that summer. The Rockets have swap rights with the Brooklyn Nets, and they outright own the Phoenix Suns\u2019 first. Between those two assets, the odds are reasonably high that they\u2019ll land a quality pick.<\/p>\n
Yes, it\u2019s generally perceived as a weak draft. So was the Anthony Bennett Giannis Antetokounmpo class. The draft is volatile, which can cut both ways. Supposing the Rockets land a good pick, they can take the guy they like the most, and either move forward with the same roster or a similar, but retooled one.<\/p>\n
Can we talk about the 2029 draft? Houston owns the two most favorable of their own, the Mavericks\u2019, and the Suns\u2019 picks. Once again, they\u2019ll be in a prime position to land a top pick. Nobody can say what that class looks like. For all we know, there\u2019s a 14-year-old in Sri Lanka or Moldova who will be ready to change basketball by then.<\/p>\n
To summarize: Acquiring Durant shifted the narrative around the Rockets to a present-focused discussion. Given that they have so much future-focused equity, it\u2019s fallacious thinking. The team is depressing right now, but that shouldn\u2019t distract anyone from the fact that they\u2019re in a good, if complicated, position moving forward.<\/p>\n
For now, let\u2019s just try to watch them when we can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I have not watched enough Houston Rockets games this year. I feel bad about it. I write about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[7,292,194,4066,6,211,9782],"class_list":["post-672837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-rockets","tag-basketball","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-houstonrockets","tag-nba","tag-rockets","tag-rockets-analysis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116273692330431754","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672837","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=672837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}