After a young group saw its potential last season, the Houston Rockets went all in to take another step in the 2025-26 campaign. The trade to acquire Kevin Durant from the Phoenix Suns sent shockwaves across the NBA and gave Houston a legitimate superstar to team with a young group that includes Alperen Șengun, Jabari Smith Jr. and Amen Thompson.
While that group will look to help Houston advance past the first round of the playoffs for the first time since the 2019-20 trade, an offseason decision could come back to haunt them and set a veteran up to rob the Rockets blind next season.
Fred VanVleet Could Be Fool’s Gold for Rockets Next Season
Part of the Rockets’ turnaround the past few seasons occurred after they brought in Fred VanVleet. A former NBA champion with the Toronto Raptors, VanVleet came to Houston on a three-year, $130 million contract in the summer of 2023 but decided to opt out after this season. The Rockets moved quickly to sign VanVleet to a two-year, $50 million contract but it may have been an overreaction considering his recent performance.
VanVleet may bring veteran experience but his performance has declined since his final All-Star season with the Raptors in 2021-22. While he averaged 20.3 points per game during that season, his average has slowly dropped down to 14.1 last season. Although he’s been able to continue as a distributor for Houston, those numbers dropped from 8.1 assists per game in 2023-24 to 5.6 assists last season.
The shooting has also gone downhill for VanVleet over the last three seasons. While VanVleet shot .403/.377/.874 during his All-Star season with Toronto, he’s shot just .397/.359/.866 over the past three seasons and .400/.369/.842 since coming to Houston.
The counter here is that the Rockets didn’t have an obvious answer to replace VanVleet at point guard. Aaron Holiday averaged just 5.5 points per game and 1.3 assists off the bench last season and it may have been too risky to turn the keys to Reed Sheppard, who was the third overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, but may not match the timeline of the Durant acquisition.
For a team that’s all in, bringing back VanVleet makes sense. But if he continues to decline, the Rockets could have a high-priced problem on their hands.