The Young Rockets Finally Have a Suitable Environment for Evaluation

So let's evaluate them

Photo by Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images

Note: This story was originally supposed to run at The Messenger, but for various reasons, that is no longer happening. I’m running it here in place of Film Findings, and I will do an extra film episode sometime between now and the All-Star break — probably centered around the trade deadline. Enjoy.

After back-to-back road losses to the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls — the latter of which came in overtime after they had staged a double-digit second-half comeback to tie things up — the Houston Rockets are back down to .500.

Houston began the season 0-3, but then reeled off six consecutive victories, only to drop three in a row again to fall to 6-6. The Rockets have been just as streaky since that start, having sandwiched three more three-game losing skids around a five-game winning streak and two pairs of back-to-back wins. Houston then won three of its first four January games to improve to 18-16 before dropping these most recent two contests in Miami and Chicago. Add it all up and just less than halfway through the season, the Rockets’ record is even at 18-18 — good (as of this writing on Thursday afternoon) for 10^th place in the Western Conference and, if the season ended today, the final spot in the play-in tournament.

Houston has the NBA’s fourth-best defense on a per-possession basis, and its 21^st-ranked offense. That combination has yielded a scoring margin that has them 11^th in both net rating and Basketball-Reference’s Simple Rating System, which adjusts point differential for strength of schedule. When you consider where this team was last year (tied for the NBA’s second-worst record, with the 29^th-ranked defense and 27^th-ranked offense), as well as the fact that the Rockets are the seventh-youngest team in the league by minutes-weighted age, all of this has to be considered a massive win — even if the team ultimately falls short of postseason play.

It remains to be seen whether or not that will happen, but the moves the Rockets made this past offseason — signing Fred VanVleet and Dillon Brooks, hiring Ime Udoka as head coach — have at least provided them with an infrastructure to actually see what they have in the young players around whom they want to build their future. And the results on that front are encouraging to varying degrees.

The most promising signs they’ve gotten are from Alperen Sengun, who is doing his best mini-Nikola Jokic impression on a nightly basis. (Note: Very mini-Jokic. They are not close. But it’s a style-of-play kind of thing.) Sengun is, along with Jokic, one of just five players this season sporting usage and assist rates of at least 25 percent, along with a defensive rebound rate in excess of 20 percent. The others are Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Luka Doncic. Needless to say, that is impressive company to keep.  

Sengun has a long way to go defensively. His rim-protection numbers are not good. As a help defender, he is ineffectual at best, with opponents scoring 1.044 points per direct drive (one where the possession is ended by the driver or a teammate one pass away) against his help, a figure that ranks 36^th out of 42 defenders who have helped on 250 drives or more, according to Second Spectrum. His isolation and post-up defense numbers are kind of blah, and among the 47 duos who have defended at least 150 ball screens together, Sengun and Dillon Brooks rank second-to-last in points allowed per possession.

But he’s also a 21-year-old big man in his third NBA season. It takes time to be legitimately good on defense. He’s not a disaster on that end, just not yet a positive force. Maybe he can get there. He’s a smart player, and perhaps there’s a path for him to have a Jokic-style impact on that end.

It’s worth putting up with the growing pains defensively to access what he brings as an offensive fulcrum. He is a marvelous passer, especially from the high-post area, and he has already dramatically slashed his turnovers from where they were as a rookie and sophomore. He can get a little too jumper-happy at times (especially with his one-legged fadeaway) but he's a strong finisher around the rim thanks to his delightful array of flip shots and floaters, and his mid-range shooting accuracy is improving. There’s a whole lot to work with and a whole lot of room for growth.

There’s also a lot to work with when it comes to Jalen Green, though the talent comes in a much more confounding package. There are times where you watch Green and wonder how it is that anybody can stop him, so outrageous is his athleticism and so pretty to look at is his variety of off-the-dribble moves to get where he wants to go.

But Green has major shot-selection issues, and an even bigger issue with keeping his balance when he decides to shoot off the dribble. Green has been fading away or to one side or the other on an incredible one-third of his pull-up jumpers, according to Second Spectrum tracking data, and has an effective field-goal percentage of just 31.4% on those attempts. That’s compared with 40.4% when he doesn’t fade. That figure still isn’t good, but it’s nothing like what happens when he’s off-kilter.

Green’s also become too willing to settle for that jumper despite having the skill set to get all the way to the rim; he ranks just 57^th in the NBA in drives per 100 possessions this season, and 67^th (out of 77 players with 250 or more forays) in effective field-goal percentage on the drive. His share of shots within three feet of the basket is down to a career-low 19%, and his conversion rate on attempts from floater range and in the short mid-range is way down after he showed improvement from those areas last season.

He had a five-game stretch about a week ago where everything he does well was working in concert, and it resulted in his scoring 22.0 points per game while making 4.6 treys a night. But the poor shooting has since returned, and he’s now down to a horrific 37.9% from the field and 33.6% from deep in December and January. If he keeps going like this, indulging his 26.3% usage rate (which is down from last year but still high) becomes unjustifiable — especially considering that he’s not exactly a force on the other end of the court. (There’s a reason why Houston has closed several tight games with Tari Eason on the floor in his place. There have been four games that entered clutch time where Green didn’t play at all, according to NBA Advanced Stats.)

His tools aren’t quite as loud as Green’s, but Jabari Smith Jr. has shown more growth this year. Smith’s usage rate is down a tick but he’s capitalized on the space and opportunities afforded to him by shooting far better from both two and three than he did as a rookie, getting to the rim more often, and knocking down 50% of his corner treys.

He’s now averaging a double-double per 36 minutes, and since late November is at 13.7 points, 9.8 boards, 1.5 assists, and 0.9 blocks per game while sporting a 46-40-86 shooting line and playing plus defense on a nightly basis. He looks a whole lot like an ideal complimentary frontcourt partner for Sengun, with the potential to be more than that as he grows into both his body and his skill set.

The aforementioned Eason is a monster rebounder for his size, and an incredible defensive playmaker. He doesn’t yet qualify for the minutes-per-game leaderboard, otherwise he’d be tied for the shortest player in the league (6-8) with an offensive rebound rate of at least 10 percent and a defensive rebound rate of at least 20 percent. He's also fourth in deflections per 36 minutes among the 279 players who have played at least 400 minutes so far this season, and he’s one of only four players with that minute load who have steal and block rates over 3 percent. (The others are Robert Covington, Matisse Thybulle, and Andre Drummond.)

The sample sizes are minuscule thanks to injuries and the fact that there are so many other players in need of minutes, but rookies Amen Thompson and Cam Whitmore also look like they have a lot to bring to the table.

Thompson just seems to move with a confidence that he can make any and every play imaginable, and he’s already packing a ton of production into his time on the floor despite the fact that he — like his twin brother — seemingly cannot shoot. Whitmore has lit it up from outside (14 of 33 from deep) and attacks the rim with force (he’s shooting 71% within three feet of the basket), and since re-entering the rotation in 2024 has hit double-digits in five of six games, shooting 56% from the field and 50% from deep, scoring 11.7 points in just 17 minutes a night. He got his most extended run of the season in that loss to the Bulls, going 6 of 12 and scoring 16 points while collecting 5 rebounds, an assist, and 2 steals in 33 minutes. He looks like a player — even if he does need to do something other than shoot seemingly every time he touches the ball.

In other words, the Rockets have a bunch of interesting young talent, and now that they have a proper environment in which to evaluate it on an individual and fit level, they can figure out the best way to build their team for the future. They’ve come an incredibly long way in a very short time, and even if they don’t yet have The Guy to build around, they do have a variety of players who can be part of building a path to consistent winning basketball.