It’s time for harsh truths. Cold, unrelenting reality. Words must no longer be minced.

The Houston Rockets’ situation has materially worsened in 2025-26.

Place the blame where you will. Ime Udoka’s offense lacks sophistication. Rafael Stone picked Jalen Green with the most consequential draft pick of the rebuild. Kevin Durant has a burner.

Each of the young players is flawed. This won’t devolve into a “who are the Rockets trading” piece. It’s a tangentially related “the Rockets will have to trade someone” piece.

Again: Cold, unrelenting reality.

Rockets’ rebuild did not go according to plan

It may be cold, but it shouldn’t be particularly surprising.

Historically, this is the rebuilding cycle, whether a team tanks or not. You have low expectations as a young team, start winning games as an up-and-coming squad, the expectations rise, and then you see if any of your young players can meet them at the highest level. If even one can, you’ve found your franchise player:

If nobody does, then nobody is safe.

That’s when consolidation happens. It’s a dirty word for “young core” enthusiasts. Fine, but NBA years are like dog years – each year is more than a year.

In a couple of seasons, the Rockets’ “young core” will be an “in-prime core”. If you think they project as title contenders, it would be impossible for us to have a conversation. I think that’s utterly delusional.

(Luckily, this is not a conversation, and you are a captive).

Sorry, I do. Let’s talk about it. Alperen Sengun has regressed to his previous standard on defense. He’s as inefficient as ever on offense. If this looks like a franchise player to you…again, delusion is the word.

The same goes for Amen Thompson. I’m not trying to play favorites. His one-level scoring will be exposed in the postseason. Even if Houston ditched Sengun for a floor spacing big and ran a pick-and-spread offense around Thompson, there’s little evidence that it would be viable. The Spurs would love to defend that offense in a seven game four game series.

Reed Sheppard? The last bastion of hope. This is the one player who it’s too soon to dismiss. He’s been outstanding as a sophomore. Yet, as early as it would be to dismiss him, it would be equally early to coronate him. All of which is to say, it would be better to keep him, but he shouldn’t hold up consolidation either.

Moreover, even the idea of running a “team first, no franchise player” team is problematic. To make that work, the synergy needs to be perfect. It isn’t with this team. Sengun and Sheppard are a rough defensive pairing. Sengun and Thompson are a poor offensive pairing.

This is the situation the Rockets are in. They tanked for three years (plus a bonus year of reaping the Nets’ rewards), and they didn’t net a franchise-caliber player or a perfectly constructed roster. They just didn’t.

It’s not as egregiously unfortunate as many will frame it. In that entire window, the only high lottery picks who turned out to be one of those have been Victor Wembanyama and Cade Cunningham. Even Paolo Banchero, the patron saint of Rockets’ would-bes, hasn’t met that bar. This happens. It’s happened before. The question is this:

What happens when it happens?

Rockets need to rebuild the rebuild

The year is 2018. The Toronto Raptors are the second-best team in the Eastern Conference almost annually, but they are second by such a massive margin that it’s moot. The team is homegrown. It’s talented. Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, Jakob Poeltl. It is never going to win a championship as constructed:

So, they trade for Kawhi Leonard.

The year is now 2019. LeBron James has joined the Lakers for no reason other than they’re the Lakers. That may break the analogy for you, but the Rockets did land Kevin Durant for just a bit more than nothing, so the situations are comparable enough. Beyond James, the Lakers have a similar collection of strong, but sub-elite talent. Brandon Ingram. Lonzo Ball. Josh Hart. Julius Randle. None of these guys are a viable co-star for James:

So, they trade for Anthony Davis.

Turn the clock back further. Now it’s 2007. Sorry, the time machine is on the fritz. The Boston Celtics have a solid group of young talent. Rajan Rondo, Al Jefferson, Gerald Green. Not going to win a championship, etc.

Yada yada yada, Kevin Garnett.

Take a deep look in the mirror. Be brutally honest with yourself. Take a look at this Rockets core.

Do we have Baby Jokic, Turbo Igoudala, White Curry, and wings? Or, does this look a bit more like Siakam, Anunoby, and Poeltl. Ingram, Ball, and Hart.

(OK, it’s probably better than Rondo and Jefferson).

So, what should the Rockets do?

The Rockets need to make a decision soon

It doesn’t have to be this summer. It doesn’t have to be Giannis. If the Rockets want to kick the can, they can wait to see if they can find a franchise-caliber diamond in the rough in the 2027 draft. Heck, they could wait for the 2029 draft. They have major skin in that game with multiple swap rights with potential lottery teams, but good luck selling Tilman Fertitta on waiting four more years for a “guy”.

So Antetokounmpo should be on the table. Nothing should be sacred between these walls. Still, Antetokounmpo is not the perfect answer. No matter who the Rockets move, they’ll be pairing him with another non-spacer unless they’re moving both Sengun and Thompson.

Alternatively, Antetokounmpo is almost certainly the best player who’s going to shake loose during the Rockets’ consolidation window. Remember: That window isn’t particularly wide. Once these guys are in-prime players, teams will be thinking about their next deal. In two seasons, Alperen Sengun will be two (or three, pending his player option) seasons away from his first non-rookie deal.

As it stands, Reed Sheppard is an outstanding value on his rookie contract. When it comes time for his rookie extension, his team will have to answer (theme alert) difficult questions. The same holds for Amen Thompson, only a year sooner. How much do you pay the best defensive wing in basketball if he’s a non-shooting role player?

None of this is optimal, but can we be realistic for a moment? The Spurs have Victor Wembanyama, and Dylan Harper would be the Rockets’ franchise player. The Thunder. Period.

Sure, that’s just two teams. Otherwise, as Nikola Jokic eventually ages, the Rockets have an opportunity to solidify themselves as the third-best team in the Western Conference for years to come.

…Hang the banner.

The third-best team in the conference consolidates, especially with another half-decade as the fourth-best team in front of them. It isn’t good enough to win an NBA championship.

This isn’t what we wanted. It wasn’t Plan A. Historically speaking, it is the de facto Plan B.

Rockets fans will say that our guys are not being optimized. There’s some truth in that. Ime Udoka’s read-and-react offense is suboptimal for a roster that’s light on pass/dribble/shoot players. Yet, that points to the broader issue:

This roster is light on pass/dribble/shoot guys.

It’s heavy on specialists. Players who are outlier strong in one area, but struggle in another. The closest player to reaching pass/dribble/shoot in the young core is Sheppard, and only time will tell if Udoka can scheme around his defensive shortcomings.

Maybe you love these kids. Perhaps you’ve grown attached. That’s cute, but if you take a long, honest look at the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs, it’s impossible to come away feeling like the Rockets have enough.

Harsh, but true.

Every NBA player has a role. That’s not to say that every NBA player has the right role.

I worked at a law firm for five years. For the first year, I worked in the file room. I did well there because it would definitely be possible to train a primate to do the job.

Eventually, I was promoted to a desk job. I struggled mightily. It was far more complex. My manager hated me.

In time, it became clear that my biggest strength was talking to the clients. I became, in a sense, the face of the company. I was responsible for client intake – I was the first person you met. Perhaps the least competent, but people seem to trust me. I was also responsible for calling clients to give them bad news.

The point? I found my role. I went from a simple role to a role I couldn’t handle, into an ideal role.

Amen Thompson needs the same transformation with the Houston Rockets.

Rockets overburden young wing

In 2024-25, Thompson had a 17.5% Usage Rate. This year, he’s up to 20.2%.

He has a 22.0% frequency as a pick-and-roll ball-handler, up from 15.8%. If you follow this team, you know what’s going on. Thompson was a wing last year, and this year, he’s the starting point guard.

That’s not all. It’s more difficult to quantify a defensive role change, but Thompson’s responsibilities have been qualitatively different in 2025-26. He is frequently tasked with guarding the opposing team’s best offensive player. Last season, that was typically Dillon Brooks’ job.

It’s all resulted in a puzzling season for Thompson. His basic counting stats are up across the board, but his Box Plus/Minus (BPM) has slipped from 4.1 to 1.8. For reference, that’s the difference between ranking between (coincidentally) Alperen Sengun and Kevin Durant this year, compared to his real place tied with Santi Aldama and Nic Claxton.

Now, it has potentially resulted in an injury.

Rockets may be without Thompson for a spell

Granted, the severity of his injury as of this writing is unknown.

More broadly, this could be a false correlation. Players get injured regardless of their workload. Yet, it’s hard to shake the feeling that Thompson is biting off more than he can chew.

His 36.9 minutes per game rank second in the league behind Tyrese Maxey. Thompson is being asked to do more than he’s ever done and play more in the process.

Last year, he earned his first (of many) All-Defense selections. He joined Dyson Daniels, Luguentz Dort, Draymond Green, and Evan Mobley. Where do Thompson’s All-Defense peers land in usage this year?

2024-25 All-Defensive Usage Rates in 2025-26

Evan Mobley (22.1%)

Amen Thompson (20.2%)

Draymond Green (16.9%)

Dyson Daniels (16.0%)

Luguentz Dort (14.1%(

So, Thompson is behind Mobley. Yet, in all likelihood, he isn’t really behind Mobley.

Thompson gets 73.4 touches per game to Mobley’s 66.5. Mobley does sometimes create for Cleveland, but he’s more of a play finisher, which factors into Basketball Reference’s measure of Usage. Simply put, Thompson is the only All-Defensive selection from 2024-25 operating as a primary ball-handler in 2025-26.

Given that the second All-Defensive squad was comprised of Toumani Camara, Rudy Gobert, Jaren Jackson Jr., Jalen Williams, and Ivica Zubac, Thompson likely is the most or second-most (Williams) used offensive player between each squad. If Ime Udoka wants Thompson to continue making All-Defensive First Team appearances, he may need to lighten Thompson’s offensive load.

There seems to be a false dichotomy when we talk about “on” vs. “off” ball NBA players. To suggest that Houston should move Thompson to an “off-ball role” is an oversimplification. It would be more accurate to say that the Rockets should simply reduce his time on-ball.

That could help them find his perfect role.

Whether you’re a fan of Jabari Smith jkr. or still wish Houston drafted Paolo Banchero or Chet Holmgren, there’s no denying that Jabari Smith seems to have turned a corner after struggling for a stretch earlier this year.

In the four games after the All-Star break, Jabari has scored 15, 21, 31 and 12 points, respectively, which averages out to almost 20 points per game (19.8). However, it’s not just the scoring for Jabari, it’s how he’s scoring. Houston has struggled offensively since December 1 into parts of January, and over that time period, Smith had the worst shooting run of his career. Smith shot just 31.7 percent from downtown and 41.1 percent from the field between December and mid-January. Smith started turning it around after that and has played some of the best basketball of his career, especially over the last 15 games, according to Sports Illustrated. Moreover, in this recent stretch since the ASB, Jabari is shooting a scorching 46 percent from three, and while that number will obviously come back down to earth, if Jabari could stay shooting in the high 30s to low 40s percentage-wise, that will be a huge boost for a Rockets team that has struggled at times offensively.

Since the break, Jabari’s line reads 19.9 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.5 blocks per game on 64 percent shooting from the floor (not a misprint) and 46 percernt from deep. He’s even showed an improved handle, the lack of which has been a common fan critiscism for the 22-year-old forward.

If Jabari keeps playing like this, sucess for the Houston as a team is likely to follow, as according to stats from RocketsWire, when shooting 38.3 percent on threes and averaging 15.8 points towards the start of the season (Oct. 21 to Jan. 1), Houston got out to a great offensive start. Simmilarly, when Jabari’s three-point percentage went down to 30.6 percent (from Jan. 3 through Jan. 16), Houston as a whole began to struggle, and in a recent sample size (Feb. 10 through Feb.24) Jabari is shooting 45 percent from three. The Rockets are 4-2 over that stretch, a higher win percentage (.666) than their cumulative record for the season (.632). All this being said, Houston clearly is benefiting from Jabari’s recent play, as it provides the team another offensive weapon.

So while Smith took a lot of criticism for his bad stretch, he also deserves praise for turning it around. The still young Smith has time to develop into the top-notch stretch four Houston fans thought was being drafted. All it takes is a little more season-long consistency. He’s got three or four more seasons before he enters his athletic prime.

Jabari Smith jr. and the rest of the Rockets will be back in action Thursday at 6:30 pm as they take on the Orlando Magic in Orlando. You can watch the game on SCHN, and as always, be sure to check back at The Dream Shake for both pre- and post-game content.

If, and, but. Three of the most aggravating words in the English language.

If the Houston Rockets had known Fred VanVleet would get injured, they wouldn’t have traded for Kevin Durant. That’s the scuttlebutt, anyway. Who can say for sure?

Rafael Stone is infamously opaque. His tightly managed, unusually small front office is shadowy. Fans complain, but we should be glad to have management that’s not routinely spilling the tea.

All of which makes Ben DuBose’s recent reporting especially intriguing. Ben is a good egg. He doesn’t peddle smut. It’s likely that if he’s reporting this, he heard it somewhere. Let’s assume it’s true:

What does it mean?

The Rockets believe in Fred VanVleet

There’s a human tendency to hear something that makes intuitive sense and repeat it without questioning it. The latest jingoism out of the Rockets’ fanbase is “If the team was relying on Fred VanVleet that much, they were never contenders anyway”.

There’s also a false star player/role player dichotomy that a lot of fans subscribe to. VanVleet is, for example, “better” than Zach LaVine, if “better” is defined as helping a team win instead of racking up stats. The question here is, how impactful is VanVleet?

Let’s break open the CleaningTheGlass. VanVleet was running point for four of the Rockets’ six positive lineups in 2024-25. He was part of their best lineup. When he was with Amen Thompson, Dillon Brooks, Jabari Smith Jr., and Alperen Sengun, the Rockets were +30.9 across 130 possessions.

This was all amid something of a down year for VanVleet. He posted a 0.9 Box Plus/Minus (BPM) after hitting 3.4 in 2023-24. It’s been a trend throughout VanVleet’s career: When he’s on the floor, teams tend to play better.

That 3.4 BPM is sniffing star-level production. That’s not to say VanVleet is a star in a traditional sense:

But the Rockets are right to account for his presence.

The Rockets needed VanVleet this year

It’s less about production and more about functionality. VanVleet isn’t the Rockets’ engine. He’s closer to their windshield:

Sure, you could drive without it, but at some point(s) throughout the year, it’s going to be awfully uncomfortable.

The Rockets’ success last year was predicated on winning the possession game. They dominated the offensive glass and kept the turnovers as low as possible. VanVleet is the king of the assist-to-turnover ratio, and neither Thompson nor Reed Sheppard is ascending to the throne anytime soon.

It’s hard to hold this front office accountable for planning on having their starting point guard. One could argue that they should have used Clint Capela’s contract on another point guard, but then, Steven Adams also suffered a season-ending injury, and he’s also essential to Houston’s structural integrity.

Dorian Finney-Smith? Hindsight bias. Tripling down on 3-and-D wings means cornering a market scarcity. Nobody anticipated that Finney-Smith would average 2.9 points on 24.5% three-point shooting in 2025-26 (dear, merciful, God!).

Besides, the Rockets clearly wanted to reserve point guard reps for Thompson and Sheppard. They would have comfortably covered backup point guard duties this year.

So no, it’s not unreasonable that the Rockets would have opted against Durant if they’d known about VanVleet. If you think that suggests too much reliance on VanVleet, you’re misunderstanding VanVleet. The Rockets didn’t think he was the star they were pairing Durant with. They knew he was fundamentally essential to what they do:

But it’s too late now.

I was ready to go nuclear.

I was resisting urges. Fighting demons.

I was ready to say Alperen Sengun and Amen Thompson can’t play together.

Let’s be honest – it isn’t a clean fit. You don’t look at these two guys and think “synergy”.

The paint is as crowded as a public beach the day after COVID restrictions lifted. This isn’t high-level basketball theory. It’s pretty simple. In the modern NBA, two players who don’t shoot the three well shouldn’t work together. So, I was ready go nuclear:

Until I had a revelation.

Rockets’ duo can grow together

As far as revelations go, this one was light on profundity:

Sengun can probably shoot at a sufficient level in time.

That’s the main point. The idea is that two of a team’s most important players can’t be non-shooters. It’s not that one of them needs to be an elite one. Sengun hit 33.3% of his 0.7 attempts per game as a sophomore. He’s hitting 30.1% of his 2.1 attempts per game in 2025-26. The point?

He’s not hopeless.

It’ll be incumbent on him to improve. Some will disagree. They’ll suggest that the perimeter player should be the one to shoot. Perhaps in an ideal world (although I’m not sure it matters, put a pin in that), but Thompson…well, he’s probably hopeless. If nothing else, he’s too far behind as a three-point shooter (19.3%) to realistically think about life if he improved.

So the Rockets will have to invert a lot of actions. That’s fine. In this fantasy world where Sengun hits, say, 35% of his 3 threes per game, he can initiate from the perimeter. Sengun can beat a lot of 5s off the dribble, and if opponents cross-assign guards onto him, he can beat them with brawn: As long as the opposing 5 is, you know, actually guarding Thompson.

That was the issue against San Antonio. In the second half, Stephon Castle guarded Sengun. Victor Wembanyama guarded Thompson, but he didn’t guard Thompson. Instead, he sagged off of him and dared him to shoot.

It would be less of an issue if teams cared if Sengun shot. He could pop out to the perimeter. He’d either drag Castle out with him, putting himself in a position to isolate on a smaller opponent and Thompson an opportunity to blow-by Wembanyama one-on-one, or he’d get an open three. If a Sengun open three was a decent outcome for the Rockets’ offense, that would change those situations entirely. Hopefully, this is a glimpse of the future:

But what about now?

Udoka must work harder to make duo work

Where’s that inverted pick-and-roll? Sengun ran it with KJ Martin. It was one of the few plays that consistently generated two points for the Silas-era Rockets. It would work just as well with Thompson.

More broadly, Thompson should be doing more screening, rolling, and cutting. When he does have the ball, Sengun should be avoiding the paint as much as possible. Even if he’s not a credible three-point threat, someone is likely to guard him out there. He’s simply too good to leave open.

Even more broadly: there’s nothing in the data to suggest that the two are untenable. Sengun and Thompson are +7.5 in 1018 minutes together this season per Databallr. The spacing problems are more pronounced on a situational basis. They can play together…until they can’t.

An improved three-ball from Sengun is the key to unlocking their partnership on a full-time basis. For now, there are some wrinkles Udoka could add to the offense to mitigate the spacing issues.

There’s no reason to overreact.

It’s well-known that the Houston Rockets like to dominate their opponents with size. So much, that they added Clint Capela in the summer, even after having two very good centers in Alperen Sengun and Steven Adams.

Okay, part of that had to do with preserving Adams, who has a history of injuries to his lower extremities and is in his 12^th season.

(Well, 13^th if you consider his missed 2023-24 season).

Rockets coach Ime Udoka found success in trotting out the double-big lineup last season, playing both Sengun and Adams at the same time.

Naturally, Udoka decided to double-down on that strategy this season, starting both centers at the onset of the season (although Josh Okogie eventually replaced Adams as an actual starter). The Rockets lead the league in offensive rebounds and second-chance points, in addition to total rebounds, rebounding margin, rebound percentage and offensive rebounding percetange.

And Adams has been a huge reason, leading the league with 4.5 offensive rebounds.

However, Sengun ranks 14^th with 3 offensive boards, Amen Thompson ranks 19^th with 2.7 offensive boards, and Capela ranks 25^th with 2.5 offensive rebounds.

With four players ranking in the top-25 of offensive rebounds, it’s no surprise that Houston ranks third overall in offensive rating, because they’re getting additional scoring opportunities.

However, the double-big lineup should be limited to just Sengun and Adams. We’ve seen Udoka trot out Capela and Sengun and um….yeah, he needs to abandon that. Expeditiously.

In general, Capela has looked like a drastic shell of himself. His mobility has been God-awful.

To say that he’s looked slow would be an understatement. And he has hands of stone, at least now.

What really stood out about the younger Capela is that he played like his hair was on fire. He was outhustling bigs who were more skilled and talented than him.

And while regression is natural as a player ages, again, Capela’s mobility just isn’t there. Not to mention having him on the floor with Sengun just absolutely kills the spacing.

The Rockets are -0.5 with Capela on the court and 12.5 with him off the court.

It’s becoming impossible to justify giving him minutes at all. But he should definitely not be a part of the double-big lineup, even if that was the initial plan upon signing him.

A lot of Rockets fans just witnessed their first full, top-down rebuild.

Some of us have been here before.

When the Rockets’ geriatric Olajuwon/Barkley/Pippen trio finally got put to pasture, the team’s future was unclear. Had Steve Francis not rejected Vancouver (a beautiful city, as long as you’re not in the DTES), who knows what may have happened?

When he arrived in Space City, the future was crystallized. Cuttino Mobley was the cherry on top. The Rockets would build the league’s highest octane offense around a dynamic backcourt:

But Yao Ming had other plans.

The Rockets weren’t supposed to land the number one pick in 2002. They defied the lottery Gods when they still had dominion – the odds weren’t flattened yet, but the Rockets landed the first pick with the ninth-highest odds anyway.

The rest is history. Francis and Ming proved a suspect fit, so the Rockets flipped Francis and Mobley for Tracy McGrady. They built an outstanding roster around their star duo, and could have won an NBA title if not for untimely injuries.

Rockets fans got attached to a vision. Something better came along, and the organization smartly pivoted.

History has now repeated itself.

The tanking Rockets were going to be built around supreme athleticism. That was clear once they selected Jalen Green. The opportunity to grab roughly the most athletic person ever in Amen Thompson solidified the vision: This team was going to run:

But Alperen Sengun was the new Yao Ming.

No lottery luck needed. The Rockets wisely made a draft-day deal to acquire Sengun. He’s emerged as their best player, and the vision has changed. The Rockets have constructed a slower half-court attack around Sengun’s strengths. They even flipped Green for one of the very best half-court scorers in NBA history to bolster their plan of attack.

And that’s great! In the postseason, half-court offense always reigns supreme. The league’s best teams don’t cede transition opportunities willingly. The game slows down. It’s optimal to generate the bulk of your offense in half-court sets:

But are the Rockets taking it too far?

Rockets could stand to run

As of this writing, the Rockets’ 97.26 pace ranks 28th in the NBA. Only the Celtics and Clippers play slower.

Sengun’s offensive approach isn’t the only reason the Rockets slow it down. As the league’s best offensive rebounding team, it behooves them to slow it down. Crashing the boards puts you in a less ideal position to defend transition, and the Rockets want to be set up to collect misses anyway.

Nobody is suggesting the Rockets overhaul their approach. The team’s third-ranked 121.4 Offensive Rating speaks for itself:

But there’s certainly room to tinker.

Firstly, the Rockets could be less committed to twin-towers lineups. Go ahead and scour CleaningTheGlass: You won’t find a double big lineup with meaningful floor time and a positive differential.

Frankly, I’d give Jabari Smith Jr. a bit more time at the 5. He’s playing 3% of his minutes there in 2025-26, which is a career low by far.

For those suffering PTSD (Piercey-Traumatic Stress Disorder): No, I don’t want to squeeze Sengun out.

The team can run with Sengun in the lineup. If he collects the board, he can leverage his floor vision to push the pace and make a quick outlet pass. When Thompson gets the board, Sengun is often near the halfcourt line by the time he’s dribbling anyway. Sengun defends further from the basket than an average big man, so that puts him in a position to receive transition passes.

Perhaps Tari Eason’s return will incentivize the Rockets to run. His 1.8% Steal Percentage is far below his career 2.9% mark. If Eason can get back to his terrorizing ways, it could create opportunities for Houston to push the pace.

Once more: This isn’t about changing everything. The Rockets are in good shape. Most of their strategic pillars are strong. If they could just bump that pace up from 28th to, say, 20th or so, they’ll be able to capitalize on their surplus of athletic players to generate some easy transition buckets:

Even if it’s not the primary source of their identity.