The Rockets ended the season with the same record as the 2024-25 season and lost in the first round, just like the previous year. Yet, somehow this season feels lackluster. This isn’t a team of young players with their first taste of the playoffs. This was a Rockets team with a bonafide superstar and guys with several years of experience behind them.
Before we get into a very interesting offseason, we will look back at the team as a whole and hand out some grades for the rotation players (in alphabetical order) and coaching staff.
STEVEN ADAMS: INC
Key Stat: 6.1 +/- rating
Contract Status: Signed through next season
Greatest Strength/Improvement: Rebounding
Must Work On: Staying Healthy
There was an argument to be made that Adams was the team’s most important player if not most valuable. That +6.1 rating tells a lot of that story. For a team that doesn’t shoot particularly well outside of Kevin Durant, his offensive rebounding provided a huge source of strength that was noticeable when he went out for the season.
CLINT CAPELA: C-
Key Stat: 12.3 Minutes per game
Status for Next Season: Signed through next season
Greatest Strength/Improvement: Offensive Rebounding
Must Work On: Making a bigger impact
Capela in his second stint with the team felt almost like overkill given Adams and the other bigs on the roster. And despite Adams missing most of the season, Capela’s impact was limited. He still cleans the glass and blocks shots quite well, but his effectiveness as a rim runner was fairly minimal and the minutes he got reflected that.
KEVIN DURANT: A-
Key Stat: Regular Season Games Played: 78, Playoff Games Played: 1
Status for Next Season: Signed through next season
Greatest Strength/Improvement: Elite Scoring
Must Work On: Staying Healthy
It is difficult to imagine Durant will have another season where he plays 78 games (with only a couple missed due to injury), but the team paid for that luck with his absence in the postseason. Durant remains one of the most efficient and effective scorers in the NBA, but his health and the reported issues he may or may not have caused in the locker room with his reported X “burner account” should make everyone wary about what the team can expect from him in his second and likely final season on the roster.
TARI EASON: B-
Key Stat: 1.2 Steals per game
Status for Next Season: Restricted Free Agent
Greatest Strength/Improvement: Shooting
Must Work On: Consistency
Eason’s season was a microcosm of his entire young career. He had moments where he was absolutely barn burning, leading the league in three-point percentage at one point. Then, a combination of injuries and inconsistency brought him back to earth. The team opted not to extend him last summer and that may have been the right move. His three-and-D skills will be in demand, but how much given his inconsistency is the question and the Rockets will have the right to match.
DORIAN FINNEY-SMITH: D-
Key Stat: 27 3pt percentage
Status for Next Season: Signed through 2028
Greatest Strength/Improvement: n/a
Must Work On: Health and conditioning
This was supposed to be the replacement for Dillon Brooks. Oof. DFS had his moments — you might need to squint to see them — but far too much of his season was spent struggling to come back from offseason surgery. It is possible he improves this offseason with health, but it definitely felt like a roster hole this year.
JEFF GREEN: C
Key Stat: 5.8 Minutes per game
Status for Next Season: Expected to Retire
Greatest Strength/Improvement: Being a Mentor
Must Work On: Relaxing on the beach
God bless, Uncle Jeff, who came into the league with Durant and will apparently exit on the same team with him. Green didn’t play a ton of minutes, so it’s tough to give him high marks for his work on the floor. But, he is such a calming voice in the locker room and his retirement will be well deserved.
AARON HOLIDAY: B+
Key Stat: 39 3pt percentage
Status for Next Season: Unrestricted Free Agent
Greatest Strength/Improvement: Showing up when called upon
Must Work On: Keep on truckin’
What felt almost like an afterthought signing last offseason turned into yet another year of Holiday just doing what was needed to help the team. He was exactly who he is, which is a very good three-point shooter and surprising on-the-ball defender. With Fred VanVleet missing the entire year, his veteran presence helped to steady a very shaky young backcourt at times.
JOSH OKOGIE: C+
Key Stat: 32 Starts
Status for Next Season: Unrestricted Free Agent
Greatest Strength/Improvement: Three-Point shooting
Must Work On: Consistency
Okogie went from “who?” to part-time starter pretty quickly. Coach Ime Udoka loves his defensive toughness and he ended us shooting above average from three. He was in and out of the lineup throughout the season making it hard to get a real read on who he is, but it was a solid signing for a team that often struggled to get the most out of their best players.
ALPEREN SENGUN: B
Key Stat: 20.4 Points per game
Status for Next Season: Signed through 2029
Greatest Strength/Improvement: Scoring in the post
Must Work On: Free Throw shooting, defense
It’s pretty incredible that Sengun has become one of the most polarizing players on the team among fans. He was recently ranked on The Athletic‘s list of most overrated NBA players, a list gathered from his peers. But, he also carries a very unique skillset, particularly on offense. Maybe the comparisons to Nikola Jokic were unfair (no one is The Joker), but his defensive lapses, at times poor concentration and general inconsistency did some damage to his rep. He has plenty of room to grow, but he will need to do it sooner rather than later.
REED SHEPPARD: B+
Key Stat: 39.4 3pt percentage
Status for Next Season: Signed through next season (rookie deal)
Greatest Strength/Improvement: Shooting
Must Work On: Handling the ball
Speaking of polarizing, there is poor Reed Sheppard. Sure, he was the third pick in the draft, but it was a draft that was bereft of real NBA talent (if he was in the draft this year, he might be in the 20s), and he still had a lot of work to do. This year, as his confidence grew, so did his playing time and his shooting eye. He’s never going to be the incredible ball handling point guard Rockets fans dream of, but if he can grow into a deadeye shooter and a better facilitator, he can be an absolute plus on a very good roster.
JABARI SMITH, JR.: B+
Key Stat: 15.8 Points per game
Status for Next Season: Signed through 2030
Greatest Strength/Improvement: Offensive activity
Must Work On: Consistency
For a guy who often flies under the radar, Smith really seemed to take the next step this year, particularly in the postseason where he increased his stats by two points and two rebounds per game. In some ways, he felt like the team’s edge in the playoffs, something the team lacked when Brooks was traded to Phoenix with Jalen Green. If he can grow more consistent on the offensive end, he could elevate his game even further.
JAE’SEAN TATE: C-
Key Stat: 46 Games played
Status for Next Season: Unrestricted Free Agent
Greatest Strength/Improvement: Hustle
Must Work On: Shooting
Virtually no one thought Tate would be back with the Rockets this offseason, but he has managed to hang on in Houston for years now while the entire team around him changed. Tate will never been a full-time rotation player in the NBA, but his energy and hustle on the floor make him valuable. If he could shoot even a touch better, he’d land a much bigger contract in free agency this summer than he will likely get.
AMEN THOMPSON: A
Key Stat: 4.7 +/- rating
Status for Next Season: Expecting extension
Greatest Strength/Improvement: Defense
Must Work On: Shooting
Thompson does everything and much of it very, very well. The big question now is how much is that worth to the Rockets. It has been widely reported that he is expected to sign a big extension over the summer, but the debate rages as to whether he is the best player on a contender given that he still cannot shoot pretty much at all outside of 15 feet. It’s the single biggest flaw in an otherwise remarkable game. He was forced into a point guard role he really has no business playing and was still the best rotation player all year.
FRED VANVLEET: INC
Key Stat: 0 Games played
Status for Next Season: Player option
Greatest Strength/Improvement: Leadership
Must Work On: Health
Fans bemoaned the loss of VanVleet all season they way they bemoaned his inability to hit shots the season prior. Damned if you do… But there is no question that FVV demonstrated just how valuable his steady hand and coach-on-the-floor mentality is by wearing street clothes on the bench all year. He has a player option, but is likely to renegotiate to give the Rockets a little more cap flexibility and him an extra year or two of stability.
COACHING STAFF: B-
The calls for Ime Udoka’s firing on social media are about as dumb as they are, well, idiotic. Udoka’s tough, taskmaster persona led a scrappy young team to the postseason last year and managed to eke out another playoff berth this year despite some of his most important (if not most valuable) players missing. Yes, he needs help guiding an offense that was rather anemic, even if they had generally solid rankings in that category. Yes, he has got to find a way to make them better in crunch time. But, much of that will depend on who he has on the floor to work with. Overall, he remains a very good young coach.
FRONT OFFICE: C+
Not making a move at the trading deadline may have been a bit of GM Rafael Stone showing his hand. What could the team really do that would both fix the point guard problem and still keep them young and growing into next season? The answer was not much. He admitted that they were hamstrung to a degree with injuries and underwhelming play. But, some of that is on the team for sacrificing more than players for a 37-year-old Durant. The loss of Brooks was palpable, especially with a replacement in Finney-Smith that was underwhelming at best. And they muddled along with a primary ball handling platoon that caused them to be near the top of the league in turnovers.
Now, they have to decide how to handle what will be one of the most complicated offseasons in some time. Do they run it back, swing for the fences, or just make some minor tweaks and hope for better health? Tough gig.
OVERALL GRADE: C
Unfortunately, this year ended in the kind of disappointment that is hard to quantify. Same record. Same playoff result. And only two seasons removed from going .500. Yet, it felt…worse. The addition of Durant brought huge positives offensively, but cost them some of their toughness and may have added some complications in the locker room. The injuries played a huge role, but so did the fact that they didn’t do everything they could to address them, particularly given the now obvious over reliance on VanVleet and Adams. It wasn’t exactly a lost season, but it sure felt like an incredibly awkward balance of talents and personalities for a team with much higher aspirations.
