By Alec Marcus
When the NBA learned their West-leading Thunder were going to face the Houston Rockets in their In-Season Tournament Semi-Final, they weren’t thrilled.
The idea for the Tournament gained serious traction when it was announced that the final four teams would compete at a neutral site in Las Vegas, attracting celebrities and sportsbook partners. Last year’s inaugural battle was a huge success in large part to its superstar participants like LeBron James of the Lakers (who won the event and Tournament MVP) and Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Bucks.
The NBA hoped to have more star power in its second go-around, and its top contenders from the Western Conference included Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Ja Morant, and Anthony Edwards. So when it was Alperen Sengun who punched the last ticket to Vegas, the NBA wasn’t nearly as happy.
But this is what the In-Season Tournament was meant to do: drive competition in the first quarter of the season and create mainstream opportunity for small-market teams on the rise. Last year’s runner-up, the Indiana Pacers, played highly competitive basketball last December on a national stage and used that experience to fuel their Conference Finals run later in the season.
This year, we got the Houston Rockets. And while they did come up short 111-96 to a very dangerous Oklahoma City team, they proved they were playing some of the best team basketball throughout the league.
I for one was happy they clinched a spot to Las Vegas. I’ve been thinking of writing about them for a while now.
…
When we think about the Houston Rockets, it’s almost impossible not to think of the James Harden era. “The Beard” arrived in H-Town in 2012 (from Oklahoma City funny enough) and co-authored with Steph Curry a basketball revolution, designed to maximize the 3-point shot. For the next eight seasons, Harden and Curry nuked the NBA with unprecedented outside artillery and legendary outside-in attacks.
Harden’s spectacular handles, athleticism, and shooting prowess helped generate a stretch of eight consecutive years on the MVP ballot, including three runner-up finishes and the 2018 MVP award. He became a Hall-of-Famer averaging 29.6 points, 7.7 assists, 6.0 rebounds, and for our purposes here, 3.3 threes per game. He made the All-NBA First Team three times, won three straight scoring titles, and even led the league in assists in 2017…just for fun.
But most importantly, Harden made Houston a powerhouse reaching the playoffs all eight seasons during his tenure. They won over 50 games five times including an NBA-best 65-17 mark in 2018, and they made two trips to the Western Conference Finals, losing to Curry and the Warriors on both occasions. It was easily the Rockets’ most successful stretch since the days of Hakeem Olajuwon (who made the postseason 14 times in 15 years), and without question their best offensive performance in franchise history.
Following their Semi-Final loss in the NBA Bubble, Houston’s ownership group ousted head coach Mike D’Antoni and general manager Daryl Morey and replaced them with rookie coach Stephen Silas and rookie GM Rafael Stone. James Harden, seeing the writing on the wall, famously showed up to the start of the season looking…chunky… fans online have hypothesized that he might’ve been wearing a fat suit to get traded. The ruse worked and Harden was dealt to the Brooklyn Nets in a four-team deal netting back EIGHT first-round draft picks, which immediately kickstarted a Rockets rebuild.
Houston in the first years removed from Harden was…dreadful. 30 different players suited up for the 2021 Rockets which included the returning John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins off debilitating injuries, 17 games of Avery Bradley and 20 games of Victor Oladipo, and a team-high 70 games for undrafted rookie Jae’Sean Tate. They plummeted to 17-55 with a bottom-four offense and defense, and lost 20 consecutive games from early February into late March.
The 2022 Rockets had 10 more games to work with, but that only helped them win 3 more games en route to their 20-62 finish, their first 60-loss campaign since 1983. There was a lot more uniformity when it came to their everyday rotation, as they increased the number of 50-game-plus players from 2 to 9, though they didn’t make any noise being led by Kevin Porter Jr. and Christian Wood. Their offense improved minimally and their defense got even worse.
In 2023, the Rockets won two more games during their second-straight 60-loss campaign, their first such streak in franchise history. This is when the future of the Rockets started to take shape with 3 of their season-long starters being under 21-years-old. They were still experimenting with role players as part of their rebuild, with names like Josh Christopher, KJ Martin, and Usman Garuba.
Finally in the summer of 2023, ownership decided to jump ahead in their rebuild and make considerable efforts to return to the playoffs. They first fired coach Stephen Silas after an abysmal 59-177 tenure (a .250 winning percentage) and hired the controversial Ime Udoka, the former coach of the Boston Celtics who was suspended for a year following an internal affairs scandal.
Udoka had done something Brad Stevens couldn’t: take the Celtics to the NBA Finals, and he did it in his very first year with the whistle. The Rockets’ new hire was sure to turn around the team’s turn-style defense which finished bottom-four in each of Coach Silas’ three years. The Celtics had tightened up their 14th-ranked defense all the way to a top-2 rated unit in Coach Udoka’s lone year with them, prioritizing on-ball pressure, rebounding, and shot-blocking.
The Rockets, holding down just a $48 million team payroll at the time, were ready to use their league-leading cap space to sign veterans that would elevate their young players. They absolutely smashed it out of the park by stealing Fred VanVleet away from the Raptors on a $128 million deal, the exiled Dillon Brooks on a much-criticized $86 million deal, the towering Jock Landale to a four-year contract, and the highly-respected Jeff Green to a sizeable two-year contract.
Houston had built an impressive core of young talent during their horrid three-year stretch. Their three seasons at the front of the lottery resulted in the selections of Jalen Green 2nd in 2021 of the G-League Ignite, Jabari Smith Jr. 3rd in 2022 of the Auburn Tigers, and Amen Thompson 4th in 2023 from Overtime Elite. However their greatest selection was made outside the lottery and by another team in fact – their rival Thunder who drafted and dealt Turkey’s Alperen Sengun for two future first-round draft picks.
All of these transactions were beautifully constructed, and fans and GM’s around the league should take note of this particular rebuild. Houston’s front office dealt their franchise scorer and immediately replaced him with a similar prospect, they helped develop their cornerstone guard by taking a cornerstone forward the year after, they drafted another cornerstone who directly fit their new coach’s identity, and they spent big money on new pieces to round out their new lineup and scheme.
There was clearly an alignment of philosophy all the way up from ownership down to the player pool, and the organization manufactured a stellar turnaround earning a 41-41 mark in 2024. Two months into the 2025 season, the Rockets are the third-best team in the Western Conference, and the NBA landscape is now on red alert.
How did they do it?
…
I doubt the Rockets saw Alperen Sengun as the next face of the franchise in the summer of 2021, taken mere hours after Jalen Green for the team James Harden made famous that just hired a head coach who made megastars out of Kevin Durant and Jayson Tatum in recent years. Just as Harden helped revolutionize the NBA for perimeter scorers, Denver’s Nikola Jokic is doing the same for talented centers, more specifically international ones.
“Alpy”, 22-years-old, is looking more and more like “The Joker” each month as a big-bodied, carefully-timed, interior finisher. He too has remarkable feel for the basket and an equally-graceful mid-range stroke, he’s a very physical glass cleaner, and he’s one of the most gifted passing centers in the world. His footwork and stature are amongst the best in the league making him a frustrating assignment, and he’s a tireless big man who makes winning plays.
Sengun is next in line of a storied history of heralded Rockets centers from Moses Malone to Hakeem Olajuwon to Yao Ming to Clint Capela. He’s leading one of the top teams in the Western Conference at just 22-years-old, and the In-Season Tournament was the first real test of his temperament.
The Rockets did expect great things of Jalen Green however, the team that made All-Stars out of Calvin Murphy, Steve Francis, Tracy McGrady, and James Harden. The California native was the highest-rated prospect to ever forgo the college landscape, opting to sign with the NBA’s G-League Ignite to play and train like a professional player. If Udoka was going to play through another all-around scorer, here it was.
Green, 22-years-old as well, is an electrifying offensive player with lightning burst, downhill speed, and springboard athleticism. He’s a high-leaping rebounder and high-arc outside shooter, with sky-high hops to throw down dunks with ferocity. He’s less of a marksman and more of a volume-scorer who relentlessly attacks up and around the court.
Sengun and Green weren’t ready to compete at a high level out the gate, illustrated by their 62-loss rookie campaign. They were gifted a third piece to facilitate their development, a player who filled the gaps with legitimate pedigree.
Jabari Smith Jr., 21-years-old, is a long-armed All-American power forward whose father had some run in the NBA. He can handle the ball and create his own shot at 6’11”, he’s a wide-ranging shot-contester, and he’s a stealthy 3-point shooter. His light frame positions him best as a stretch-four, though he moves around the court well enough to drill mid-range jumpers and finish cut passes.
While the frontcourt appeared to be set, neither him nor Sengun profiled well enough to anchor the Rockets defensively, a major concern of the incoming head coach. Fortunately the incumbent had been working with a very young roster and the Rockets found themselves right back at the head of the lottery. Satisfied with the play of Green despite his untraditional route to the league, GM Rafael Stone looked outside the box once more.
Amen Thompson, 21-years-old, is a twin to another lottery pick (Ausar of the Pistons) and is a second incredibly athletic forward to the mix. He made noise as a First Teamer and Champion within the upstart Overtime Elite program, as a 6’7” rim-running and shot-swatting playmaker. He has an elite defensive profile as a jump-out-of-your-seat rebounder and punishing pick-pocketer.
That foursome was missing a few key attributes for Coach Udoka:
- dependable three-point shooting
- perimeter toughness
- team playmaking
- experience
Rafael Stone and the rest of the front office went to work finding players in the open market who could provide those missing traits, and they had plenty of cap space to acquire it.
Fred VanVleet was the first to come on board and was the perfect addition to this young nucleus, as a proven outside shooter and pesky on-ball defender. The size of their last three first round selections could neutralize the limitations of VanVleet’s 6’0” stature. If VanVleet (career 1.4 steals per game) couldn’t disrupt a play in the backcourt, opponents would still have a literal wall to climb in the frontcourt.
A day later, Dillon Brooks came on board. He was vilified by the mainstream media and made a scapegoat for the Grizzlies’ defeat in the opening round of the 2023 NBA Playoffs against the Lakers. The player most responsible for the ruggedness, confidence, in-your-face nature of the Grizz’ new identity was shown the door as soon as his contract expired.
Brooks didn’t want to leave the division and he’s been a hugely underrated addition to the Rockets lineup. He too is a dependable source of three-point shooting (though a bit erratic year-to-year), and his entire brand is perimeter toughness…he might be the toughest perimeter defender in the whole NBA. There aren’t many better insurance policies for a young frontcourt than “Dillon the Villain” causing havoc above the arc, and he has tried to save his reputation just like his head coach.
VanVleet and Brooks check the most important boxes but what really makes them shine as signings is their team playmaking aptitude. Their per-position stats won’t jump out at you, but VanVleet and Brooks have played heavy minutes for some of the strongest lineups in the NBA. The Raptors and Grizzlies were mostly playoff teams during their respective tenures, checking the fourth box – experience.
Alas, the Rockets have never been the same, their defense rising from 29th all the way to 9th. VanVleet and Brooks upped the pressure on the perimeter forcing the worst opponent three-point shooting throughout the league (34.8%), the second-lowest team assists per game (24.4), and bottom-5 opponent shooting overall (46.3%). Perhaps the physicality stemming from Sengun, Thompson, and Brooks was so intense that it also forced opponents to shoot just 76.7% from the “free” throw line, second-worst in the NBA.
The 2024 Rockets formed their identity more and more as the season progressed with VanVleet and Brooks looking reborn as high-usage two-way players, Jabari Smith Jr. improving his steady outside stroke, Jalen Green realizing his potential as a near 20 point-per-game scorer, and Alperen Sengun asserting himself as one of the best centers in the NBA. Sengun averaged 21.1 points, 9.3 rebounds, and 5.0 assists per game on 53.7% shooting.
Most importantly, the Rockets won 41 games, a truly impressive mark in the loaded Western Conference in which 41 wins didn’t even get you a shot at the Play-In Tournament.
…
As we approach the calendar year 2025, the rotation is mostly the same and yet the Rockets have blown way past the Play-In Tournament, and if the season ended today, they would be hosting Game 1 of a playoff series as a 3-seed. Houston as of this writing is 17-9, and their defense has risen again now ranking 2nd.
Fred VanVleet and Jalen Green are averaging the most steals of their Rockets tenures, and Dillon Brooks is averaging the most minutes and rebounds of his eight-year pro career. Together, they’re holding opponents to the second-lowest three-point attempts and third-lowest three-point makes in the NBA, forcing just a 34.1% success rate beyond the arc, good enough for 5th in the league. That’s done wonders for their still-improving offense on theirside of the ball, which still ranks slightly below-average.
Opponents are having a tough time getting into any sort of rhythm as the Rockets are #1 in opposing 2-point percentage (49.3%) AND #1 in opposing assists per game (21.7), the latter up 11% over the previous year. Maybe it has to do with the fact the Houston Rockets are also #1 in team rebounding and #1 in offensive rebounding, causing frustration for opposing guards who just can’t get the ball back.
Alperen Sengun is averaging a career-high 10.6 rebounds per game and Jabari Smith Jr. has been good for 6.8 rebounds per game. If that doesn’t seem like all that much, it’s because over 13 rebounds per game are coming from two reserve players – neither of them bigs!
The secret ingredient for the Rockets success this year has been Amen Thompson and third-year Rocket Tari Eason, a gift from the Nets via the James Harden trade.
Thompson has been so impressive as a tempo-pusher, slasher, and engineer of turnovers. He’s averaging 12.1 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 1.2 steals per game and shooting 55.6% from the field as a reserve.
Eason is doing what he’s been doing for years but with more aggression, averaging a mind-boggling 11.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, 1.9 steals, and 1.0 blocks in just 22.8 minutes per game. The LSU product and former first-round pick is a 6’8” nightmare on the defensive end, regularly making impactful plays and stripping his counterparts of their confidence.
This is a Udoka special – having two young and hungry elite up-and-coming defenders that legitimately change the flow of the game and create mayhem. The Rockets don’t lose anything defensively with their two big-money additions off the court. While reserve units ordinarily provide stable shooting and scoring relief, this reserve unit provides unpredictable chaos and defensive intensity.
Aaron Holiday, younger brother and lite version of Jrue Holiday, and a towering set of centers Jock Landale and Steven Adams, ensure the starters that there is no need to tire themselves out on the court. The Rockets’ reserve unit has all the rim protection and energy they could ever need, even if the offensive makeup is entirely different.
…
The Rockets have pounded alarms inside every arena they’ve stepped into this year, putting all 29 other teams on red alert. Their defense, depth, and unique offensive talents are enough to warrant concern of what’s to come in the near future.
These first two months of Autumn 2024 have been breakthroughs for the Rockets’ rebuild which has included a 5-game win streak, back-to-back overtime victories on the road heading into Thanksgiving, and trip to Las Vegas for the In-Season Tournament Semi-Final. The playoffs are still many months down the line and a lot can change with regards to health and effort on the defensive end. Ultimately the postseason will answer the next set of questions in this Rockets regime, mostly about their middle-of-the-pack offense…
Is Alperen Sengun (career 28.1% 3-point shooter) strong enough as a #1 option, or is he a stat stuffer that shouldn’t really be the centerpiece of an offense?
Is Jalen Green (career 41.8% scorer) going to be consistent as a #2 option, or is his dynamic offensive play more suited for a Sixth Man role?
Is Jabari Smith Jr. (career 13.0 points per game) going to assert himself as an offensive star, or will he fail to reach his upside as a #3 overall pick?
Is Amen Thompson (career 19.1% 3-point shooter) going to develop any reliable three-point shot, or will he have to play off-the-bench his entire career?
Is Fred VanVleet good enough a distributor to play half-court offense in the playoffs?
Is Dillon Brooks going to be a dependable shot-maker in the playoffs?
Is Reed Sheppard going to make an impact while the team is hot?
It’s safe to say these Rockets have officially launched with a new starring center, new starring guard, and new identity that’s a complete-180 from their previous one.
When you trade someone of the magnitude of James Harden for just a heavy dose of draft picks with no ready-made star attached, you’re betting that management will not only find its new cornerstones but that they can develop them too. And if you’re doing your job right, those cornerstones will fit with one another and play well together on an NBA court.
If I had to describe what these new Rockets might be united by after the worst stretch in franchise history, it’s that they’ve all been disrespected.
Toronto wasn’t doing all they could to re-sign or appease VanVleet. Memphis packed Brooks’ bags and kicked him out the door. None of their lottery picks were seriously considered with the #1 overall pick. And the Rockets franchise in its entirety was looked down upon despite their several re-ascensions to the top.
2025 is Houston’s first real chance at reviving their lost esteem. If redemption is green, then respect must be red.
NBAL 