Many people around the league believe the Rockets will work out a long-term extension with Tari Eason before finalizing a new deal with Kevin Durant, according to William Guillory of The Athletic.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst recently reported that Durant and the Rockets are expected to reach an extension agreement at some point.
Eason has an expiring contract — the Rockets exercised a $5.68MM club option on the final year of his rookie deal for 2025/26. The fourth-year forward averaged a career-high 12.0 points and 1.7 steals per game while making 57 appearances last season.
Here’s more on the Rockets:
- In the same story, Guillory opines about a pleasant dilemma: Does Houston have too many good players? Guillory believes coach Ime Udoka will have a difficult time figuring out how to divvy up minutes among so many players capable of heavy minutes on a good team.
- Mark Owens, a Houston-area boxing trainer, has become a vital asset to the Rockets — the team’s director of performance, Willie Cruz, describes Owens as “an extension of our strength coaches.” Danielle Lerner of the Houston Chronicle (subscription required) profiles how Owens, who served a federal prison term, turned his life around and helped the Rockets become one of the more physical teams in the league.
- Former Sixers forward Furkan Korkmaz is playing alongside Rockets center Alperen Sengun for Turkey in the EuroBasket tournament. Korkmaz called Sengun, not Joel Embiid, the best center he’s played with in his career. “He’s a special kid and every day he’s trying to give his maximum,” he said in a video posted by Eurohoops Turkey.
It was not fun playing the Rockets last season in the playoffs. Very skilled and at the same time effective grinders. Tough team.
This season they’ll only be better and perhaps a lot better. You add 20 or 25 point per game sniper to a team that was the second seed in the west and it’s going to be trouble.
Hi Gary,
It’s hard to predict how they’ll do this season, not in small part because they didn’t just “add 20 or 25 point per game” KD.
They also lost 2 starters that played big minutes, 1st option/leading scorer Green played all 82 games and physical (dirty ahole defender) 4th option Brooks played 75.
Sources say they’re going to use a triple towers starting lineup with Sengun at the 5, Smith Jr and KD (all at least 6’10-6’11, and which is the 3 and 4 on defense?). The remaining starters are Thompson and FVV. IMO that’s likely not going to work and Ime will have to change it up. Even if I’m wrong and they prove up to the task defensively, it takes time to develop chemistry.
They also added DFS on a 4 yr contract, so he needs PT, as do Adams and Eason.
Add to that KD’s likely to miss ~20 games (so they’ll be lacking a go to guy in those games).
So I think their peak should be better than last season, but with the improvement in the Nuggets, Lakers, and hopefully the Warriors, even if OKC takes a small step back along with the Wolves and likely the Clippers due to the scandal, the Rockets could drop to 5th in the west.
NBAisOK, I agree with your analysis, as usual, including your point that 37 year old KD is increasingly unavailable and, like anybody that age, in decline.
But given this reasoning, why would we expect, as you pose, that the Warriors would be better? Even without Al Horford, this is the oldest core group of players, literally, ever. If KD is expected to miss ~ 20 games, doesn’t that also apply to all 4 of Steph, Jimmy, Draymond, and Horford?
The moment we admit to the reality of age, the entire picture changes. Probabilistically, based on their age and recent injury history, those 4 are players are projected to miss a combined 104 games (average of 26 games each). Of course, the standard deviation is wide — it could be both a lot worse and a lot better. But there is no historical precedent for a roster this old, not to mention succeeding.
Gary,. I agree 100%, Rockets have emerged as physical, nasty, and defense-first in the image of their coach. It’s interesting that Detroit and Orlando are following exactly the same formula. Everybody wants more dogs.
But losing Dylan Brooks may be a much bigger loss for Houston than we realize. I despise Brooks, but he was the guy that turned their culture around. Udoka loved Brooks. When Brooks left the Grizzlies, the team seemed to lose its soul.
Losing Jalen Green is addition by subtraction. He didn’t fit.
Anyone here happen to know where Kelly Iko went/is going? One of my favorite reporters and I didnt know he was leaving until this article wasnt by him.
Minutes shouldn’t be a problem for Rockets. Depth is a luxury for any team. Rockets can keep their core guys ready for playoffs. Rockets still have young talent getting better. Even a guy like Sengun hasn’t peaked yet. I really want to see how this team grows this year.
Smith, Thompson, Sheppard all can step up this year.
@KnickAl,
While I agree completely, it’s not clear that Ime can handle this kind of depth. He likes rigid rotations and basically stops at 8 players as far as standard rotation minutes. Now he’s got 10-11 guys, so which ones aren’t going to get enough minutes to step up?