{"id":833476,"date":"2026-09-12T03:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T03:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/833476\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T03:00:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T03:00:24","slug":"rockets-notes-sengun-stone-sheppard-offseason-moves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/833476\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets Notes: Sengun, Stone, Sheppard, Offseason Moves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rockets general manager Rafael Stone spent nearly two weeks in T\u00fcrkiye this summer visiting with All-Star center Alperen Sengun<\/a>, writes Matt Young of The Houston Chronicle<\/a> (subscriber link).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great experience,\u201d Stone said on Friday. \u201cI loved the country. Truly beautiful, really nice, sweet people.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Young, Stone\u2019s trip was the result of Sengun pushing Houston\u2019s top basketball executive to be a more vocal presence around the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was important for me to do,\u201d Stone said. \u201cWe had some good conversations at the end of last year and part of it was him putting pressure on me that, \u2018You have to communicate better.\u2019 He said, \u2018You\u2019re always around, but I want to hear from you more: Good, bad or ugly.\u2019 I said, \u2018Alright, that\u2019s fair.\u2019 His first couple of years, I was always on him and I\u2019ve tried to back off a little bit. He doesn\u2019t need me yelling at him 24\/7, but I took that in, so one of the things that came out of that was, \u2018Hey, let me go spend some time with you in T\u00fcrkiye.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more on the Rockets:<\/p>\n

Former third overall pick Reed Sheppard<\/a> has added some muscle to his frame this summer as he prepares for his third NBA season, per Young<\/a> (subscription required). \u201cA lot of it is just getting older, but also eating good and staying in the weight room, doing what I need to do for my body, but at the same time, staying on the court and doing that stuff,\u201d Sheppard said. \u201cI think just all-around, working out and getting stronger and staying in the weight room.\u201d The 6\u20192\u2033 guard was listed at 185 pounds in 2025\/26, Young notes.
\nVarun Shankar of The Houston Chronicle (subscriber link<\/a>) grades each of Stone\u2019s significant offseason moves. Shankar is highly complimentary of the two-year, $12.4MM deal given to free agent addition Marcus Smart<\/a>, handing out an \u201cA+\u201d for the transaction. He also liked the decision to bring in veteran shooting coach Chip Engelland (\u201cA\u201d) and the five-year, $81.5MM contract Tari Eason<\/a> signed (\u201cA-\u201c) as a restricted free agent.
\nShankar was less high (\u201cC+) on the the Rockets\u2019 decision to trade up to acquire No. 31 overall pick Bruce Thornton<\/a> and wasn\u2019t a fan of the way the team handled Dorian Finney-Smith<\/a>\u2019s time in Houston, giving Stone a \u201cC-\u201d for parting with three second-round picks to shed the veteran forward\u2019s salary a year after signing him to a multiyear contract in free agency. Overall, Shankar gave Houston a \u201cB+\u201d for its offseason moves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rockets general manager Rafael Stone spent nearly two weeks in T\u00fcrkiye this summer visiting with All-Star center Alperen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[1307,7,2417,29715,374,292,194,4066,326,6,7473,1081,211,873],"class_list":["post-833476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-rockets","tag-alperen-sengun","tag-basketball","tag-bruce-thornton","tag-chip-engelland","tag-dorian-finney-smith","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-houstonrockets","tag-marcus-smart","tag-nba","tag-rafael-stone","tag-reed-sheppard","tag-rockets","tag-tari-eason"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117255839613644539","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833476","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=833476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}