Browsing: VanVleets

The Houston Rockets looked ready to contend for the Western Conference heading into the preseason following deals for Kevin Durant and veteran role players Dorian Finney-Smith and Clint Capela.

Anchored by point guard Fred VanVleet, who signed a two-year, $50 million contract over the summer, all the pieces were in place for Houston to challenge the Oklahoma City Thunder for the title and contend for its first NBA championship since 1995.

During an unofficial team workout in the Bahamas, VanVleet suffered a torn ACL that could sideline him for the season’s entirety. Now, the Rockets are challenged with filling his spot in the lineup and locker room. How will the team deploy Amen Thompson, Reed Sheppard and others as they try to stay in the conference race?

Following the Rockets’ preseason game against the Atlanta Hawks on Monday, our NBA analysts broke down the injury’s impact on the team, its players and what Houston could do to bolster its lineup.

What could the Rockets’ 2025-26 season look like after Fred VanVleet’s torn ACL? Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images

In Houston, Rockets adjust to new reality

As smooth R&B tunes flooded the room for the cooldown portion of a recent training camp workout at The Memorial Hermann Houston Rockets Training Center, coach Ime Udoka plopped down in a chair next to Durant.

For several minutes, the two talked while the rest of the team grunted through the end of the session.

Durant is aware of his changing role in the aftermath of VanVleet’s injury. Durant won’t do it alone, but the All-Star veteran is naturally the key cog in Houston’s by-committee approach to facilitating offense, according to Udoka.

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“I think it will be different guys kind of thrust into a role,” the coach told ESPN. “For instance, [second-year guard] Reed [Sheppard], you take Amen [Thompson], guys that have done it some with Fred being out at times on a smaller stage. We really leaned on [VanVleet] the first few years to be that experience, that IQ out there at the point guard spot. But I think it’ll just be a committee, honestly, like different guys initiating offense. [Alperen Sengun] is a center that you can run a lot of things through. Kevin as well with the attention he attracts. So, it may not be the traditional point guard way, but we’ve got a lot of capable pieces out there to get it done.”

Udoka wasted no time explaining that to the team in a meeting shortly after VanVleet’s injury. VanVleet was set to serve as the team’s veteran table setter and steadying force on the defensive end, but Udoka still thinks the current roster contains enough collective talent to fill in the gaps.

Durant sat out of Houston’s preseason-opening win/loss to the Hawks. In his absence, Udoka served up potential options for offensive facilitation in a starting lineup that consisted of Thompson, Sheppard and Sengun with Jabari Smith Jr. and Tari Eason manning the wings.

Interestingly, Thompson, Sengun and Smith took turns bringing the ball up the floor and routinely found cracks in Atlanta’s defense for drives to the basket. Houston’s first group first group ran off an early 16-9 lead against a Hawks starting lineup of Trae Young, Dyson Daniels, Kristaps Porzingis, Zaccharie Risacher and Jalen Johnson.

“I feel like [we can] win a lot of games,” Sheppard said. “Expectations are high. We’ve just got to come out and control what we can control. The coaches will have us in the situations they want us in. So, we’ll just play how we know how to play and have fun.” — Michael C. Wright

Despite setback, VanVleet injury is not a derailment

The Rockets’ trading for Durant, Finney-Smith and Capela was a clear signal of their intent to compete for the West immediately.

Every team would be shellshocked by losing their veteran captain and starting point guard to a season-ending injury. For the Rockets, the fallout is that their replacements are not what you’d plan for a contender. That would be part-time ball handler Thompson, who plays a massive role defensively and has limited experience at the position, or former top 3 pick Sheppard, who is an intriguing player but barely played as a rookie.

The Rockets don’t lack options. Durant certainly can initiate offense; he’s an offensive system himself. Sengun can be the hub of the offense and is one of the best passing big men in the league. But these are all secondary options and not the front-line leadership that Van Vleet is known for.

Despite this setback, it’s not a derailment. Houston has depth, and the team has time, but it is absolutely a problem. Udoka has had some time to think about how to manage it, but he doesn’t have a clear pathway. It’s one of the more compelling storylines in the West going into the season. — Brian Windhorst

Rockets will still have to fill Amen Thompson’s minutes

Losing VanVleet is a significant hit to the Rockets in my stats-based wins projection. Although we won’t be rolling out projected win expectations for all 30 teams until later this week, the preliminary version had Houston with the NBA’s fourth-best projection, consistent with the excitement after this summer’s trade for Durant and maybe even a little on the low side.

Replacing VanVleet’s minutes with guards Sheppard and Aaron Holiday, plus a few extra for Thompson and Jabari Smith Jr. — already projected as key rotation players — drops the Rockets by nearly four projected wins.

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It’s worth remembering that even if Thompson is VanVleet’s replacement at point guard in the starting five, Houston will still have to fill out the rotation by replacing the minutes Thompson was set to play elsewhere. (Thompson averaged 35.8 minutes per game last season when starting alongside VanVleet, nearly identical to the 36.1 he averaged in 18 starts with VanVleet sidelined.)

Unless the Rockets roll out a series of giant lineups, that probably means much larger roles for Sheppard and Holiday, who were set to battle for playing time behind VanVleet. Sheppard played just 654 minutes as a rookie, while Holiday played 792.

As much focus as there naturally is on VanVleet’s role as point guard and the floor spacing he provides, my projections actually suggest Houston might miss him more at the defensive end of the court. After all, Sheppard can replace some of that shooting if he takes a step forward in his second NBA season, while Thompson and Sengun will step up their playmaking duties.

VanVleet’s stout presence is an underrated factor in the Rockets’ defense, which ranked seventh in defensive rating. Houston allowed 1.9 more points per 100 possessions with VanVleet on the bench than in the game, per Cleaning the Glass, a larger drop-off than they suffered without him on offense (1.3 points per 100 possessions worse).

Without VanVleet, I project the Rockets to finish seventh in offensive rating and 11th in defensive rating. They’re still in the mix for home-court advantage with the fifth-best wins projection in the West. And that’s before Houston considers shuffling the deck midseason if Sheppard doesn’t develop the way they hope.

Still, the Rockets no longer look like the kind of immediate threat to the Thunder we imagined when they were able to backfill the depth lost in the Durant trade by signing Finney-Smith as a free agent. Before VanVleet went down, I wrote that backup point guard was the biggest hole on the roster. Now, it looms larger than ever. — Kevin Pelton

Do not expect help on the way to the backcourt

Houston has an open roster spot and will likely file for a $14.1 million Disabled Player Exception. If the NBA determines VanVleet is out until mid-June, the league would grant the exception, which would normally allow Houston to sign or trade for a player on a one-year contract.

However, even if the $14 million exception is granted, Houston would not be allowed to sign a player (such as former Rockets guard Russell Westbrook, for example) into that exception at the moment, because the Rockets are just $1.25 million below the first apron. The moves Houston made this offseason hard capped the team at that level.

The Rockets could make a trade to fill VanVleet’s absence; they have five tradeable firsts, including an unprotected 2027 Phoenix first and two of the more favorable 2029 firsts of their own, Suns and Mavericks. They also have the right to swap firsts with Brooklyn in 2027.

However, what the Rockets lack is tradeable contracts.

The eight players Houston signed this summer — VanVleet, Steven Adams, Finney-Smith, Holiday, Jae’Sean Tate, Jeff Green, Josh Okogie and Capela — cannot be traded until mid-December. Holiday and Tate have the right to approve any trade.

Meanwhile, Smith signed a rookie extension and has a poison pill restriction. It has been nearly seventeen years since a player with a poison pill restriction has been traded.

With nine players off the board, the only players left Houston could trade are starters Durant, Sengun, Thompson and reserves Sheppard and Tari Eason. The two reserves make a combined $16.3 million. — Bobby Marks

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