The Rockets walked into Toyota Center on Tuesday carrying a 52-30 season and zero patience for the phrase “decent regular season.”
Ime Udoka used it himself, then immediately tore it apart.
“Decent regular season, due to circumstances, but it could have been a lot better,” Udoka said. “We’re not here to just make the first round. We want to make some real noise. I think everybody’s hungry for that.”
That was the tone all afternoon. Fifth seed in the West, out in the first round, 52 wins for a second straight year. Udoka called it a plateau. He is right, and Houston spent the offseason acting like it.
Kevin Durant Is Happy, and That Matters
General manager Rafael Stone said the front office will sit down with Durant after this season to get his thoughts, the way they did last year. Durant holds a player option for 2027-28, so his future is not settled paperwork.
Stone’s read on year one, though, was unambiguous. Durant told them how much he enjoyed it and how much he wanted to be in Houston.
“He’s really the easiest, or along with Yao, maybe the easiest guy that I’ve ever been around of that stature in the NBA,” Stone said. “He just wants to hoop, which fits great with our culture.”
Durant averaged 26.0 points, 5.5 rebounds and 4.8 assists in his first Rockets season on 52 percent shooting, 41 percent from three and 87 percent at the line. This is year 20 for a 16-time All-Star. He is still the best shotmaker in the building by a comfortable distance.
Amen Thompson Gets a Lighter Load
Thompson agreed to a five-year, $208 million extension on September 3, and Houston is already planning to use him differently. Udoka said Thompson will play more off the ball this season, which frees him to lean into the defensive end where he can be elite. He remains a nightmare pushing in transition.
“We will play more people. It’s easier said than done to play a 10-man rotation, but there are a lot of deserving guys,” Udoka said. “We want to get Amen and Kevin’s minutes down.”
Stone admitted the team was under-skilled last season, which showed up as turnovers and choppy half-court offense. The answers: Fred VanVleet back from a torn right ACL, Marcus Smart signed, Steven Adams screening, Bogdan Bogdanovic adding shooting off the bench. Udoka does not expect VanVleet in back-to-backs early, but he is fully cleared and playing five-on-five.
The Expectation Is Obvious
VanVleet framed the season as honestly as anybody.
“We’ve got more than enough talent on this roster to contend for a championship, but that’s a long way away,” he said. “You start chipping away at it. Our daily habits, our focus, and deciding who we want to be is more important than the end goal.”
Clint Capela, who said he dropped around four percent body fat this summer, compared this group’s potential to the 2018 Rockets team that reached the Western Conference finals.
Houston has talked itself into contention before. This time the roster backs it up. Anything short of a second round would waste a year of Durant’s remaining prime, and every person in that room knows it.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.