Since the Finals ended, NBA fans have been wondering who would be able to challenge the Oklahoma City Thunder and their budding dynasty. OKC had some difficulties in the playoffs, having twice been pushed to a seventh game, but the best team in the regular season did emerge as champion in the end, and the scary part is that they’re so young, so they’re only going to get better.
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The Houston Rockets were the first team to announce themselves as true challengers to the throne when they finalized a trade for Kevin Durant when the new league year began in July. Ime Udoka’s club ascended last year to win 52 games and become the No. 2 seed in the West, and with Durant on board and another year of experience for their young core, they had every reason to believe they could make a run.
Then Fred VanVleet tore his ACL, a devastating injury that has reshaped the power dynamic in the league. VanVleet won a title with the Raptors and was one of the veteran leaders on the Rockets. Without him as the starting point guard, Houston’s title chances look much different.
ESPN’s NBA crew discussed yesterday how FVV’s injury would impact the team, and what if anything the Rockets front office could do about it. “You’re gonna get a healthy dose of Amen Thompson at point guard,” Bobby Marks said. “Last year, 1,300 possessions at point guard, but however, most of them were with Jalen Green, who’s no longer on the roster here.”
Rockets fans will need to hope that Thompson is up to the task, because Marks delivered a double dose of bad news. “It was already thin in the backcourt,” he said while naming Aaron Holiday and Reed Sheppard as unproven depth pieces.
“Help is not on the way,” Marks continued. He also pointed out that most of the roster can’t be traded until close to Christmas due to having just signed this offseason. The Rockets are also just barely under the first apron, which will prevent them from signing someone else without going over.
Kendrick Perkins was still high on the Rockets’ chances despite VanVleet’s injury and their lack of roster flexibility at this time.
“I wouldn’t overly react to the point guard situation,” he said, “because they have so many guys that can actually push the rock, from Amen Thompson, to Kevin Durant. There’s a reason we can Sengun ‘Baby Jokic’ because he can be that point center.”
Though Big Perk expects Houston to be fine from a ball-handling perspective, he thinks where they’ll really miss VanVleet is in their 3-point shooting, as they ranked in the bottom third of the league last year in 3-point percentage, as well as 3s attempted and made. Still, he expressed confidence in Sheppard to fill that role.
Meanwhile Malika Andrews made the most agreeable argument of the lot and said, “It may be Reed Sheppard time, but that’s asking a lot of a young player with very very high expectations for this team.”
Sheppard was the third pick in the 2024 draft, but he had difficulty cracking the rotation. He averaged less than 13 minutes over 52 games, scoring just 4.4 points per game. Asking him to now play an integral role on a team with title aspirations is a big ask.
As Marks pointed out, the Rockets aren’t able to trade most of their players until mid-December, but that’s still well before the trade deadline, with plenty of time to make an impact. If they can hang tough in the first two months of the season, they have the draft capital to make a big move to fill VanVleet’s spot, which could put them right back in the title conversation.
