Houston Rockets legend Ralph Sampson reveals his biggest concern for the team\u2019s championship hopes ahead of the 2026-27 NBA season.<\/p>\n
The Houston Rockets enter the 2026-27 season with championship expectations<\/a>, but franchise legend Ralph Sampson believes their ability to stay healthy will determine<\/a> whether they can seriously contend for a third NBA title.<\/p>\n Speaking to Kyle Odegard of Action Network, Sampson pointed to health as Houston\u2019s biggest concern following an injury-plagued 2025-26 campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ll see if they get healthy. If they do, I think they can compete, but you’ve got to be healthy,\u201d Sampson said.<\/p>\n The issue became particularly apparent last season. Fred VanVleet missed the entire campaign after suffering a torn ACL<\/a> before the season, while Steven Adams underwent surgery on his left ankle<\/a> in January and missed the remainder of the year.<\/p>\n Kevin Durant<\/a> also battled injuries. The Rockets star missed a February game with a sprained left ankle before injuries significantly limited him during Houston\u2019s first-round playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers. Durant missed Game 1 with a bruised right knee and later suffered another left ankle sprain in Game 2, ultimately appearing in only one game during the six-game series.<\/p>\n The Lakers advanced despite dealing with injury issues of their own<\/a>, including Luka Doncic’s hamstring strain and Austin Reaves’ oblique injury during the series.<\/p>\n Houston has since added more veteran depth around Durant, Alperen Sengun<\/a> and Amen Thompson<\/a>. The Rockets signed former Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart to a two-year, $13 million contract<\/a> after he spent last season with the Lakers. Smart averaged 14.7 points, 5.5 assists and 2.7 steals against Houston during the first round.<\/p>\n With a deeper roster in place, Sampson believes Houston has enough talent to compete for a championship. His concern remains whether the Rockets can keep that talent available when the postseason arrives.<\/p>\n The Houston Rockets enter the 2026-27 season with championship expectations, but franchise legend Ralph Sampson believes their ability to stay healthy will determine whether they can seriously contend for a third NBA title. Speaking to Kyle Odegard of Action Network, Sampson pointed to health as Houston\u2019s biggest concern following an injury-plagued 2025-26 campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston Rockets legend Ralph Sampson reveals his biggest concern for the team\u2019s championship hopes ahead of the 2026-27…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[1307,883,7,866,292,194,4066,938,326,6,211,962],"class_list":["post-855865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-rockets","tag-alperen-sengun","tag-amen-thompson","tag-basketball","tag-fred-vanvleet","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-houstonrockets","tag-kevin-durant","tag-marcus-smart","tag-nba","tag-rockets","tag-steven-adams"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117419386045699923","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855865","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=855865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}