After an offseason in which the Houston Rockets were one of the league's most talked-about teams due to the aggressive moves the front office made to improve the roster, the narrative just changed completely ahead of training camps opening at the end of the month.
According to Shams Charania of ESPN.com, Rockets veteran point guard Fred VanVleet has suffered a torn ACL, which could potentially result in Houston's starter missing the entire 2025-26 campaign. This is disastrous news for the Rockets for several reasons. The most obvious of which is that VanVleet was going to be heavily depended on to run the show on the offensive end throughout the season after Jalen Green was included in the trade that brought Kevin Durant to Space City.
Now, with the team hard-capped at the first apron, the options to replace VanVleet's production with players not currently on the roster will be very limited. Which means one player, in particular, must raise his game to a level that fans in Houston weren't hoping to rely upon this quickly.
Rockets Need Reed Sheppard to Step Up After Fred VanVleet's ACL Injury
The least complicated way for the Rockets to navigate the 2025-26 season without the services of VanVleet would be for 2024 lottery pick Reed Sheppard to make a massive leap in his second year in the NBA. More was going to be expected out of the former Kentucky Wildcats star, no matter what occurred this season. This injury to VanVleet, though, only cuts out any room for error that Sheppard may have had. He needs to be ready to run the show from Day 1, as that is the most likely scenario following VanVleet's injury.
After a rookie campaign that saw Sheppard take the floor 52 times for the Rockets, the guard is going to need to improve upon the 4.4 points, 1.5 rebounds, and 1.4 assists he averaged in 12.6 minutes per contest in a significant way. One area in particular where Sheppard must clean things up is his efficiency on the offensive end. There is no way to sugarcoat it; he cannot shoot 35% from the field and 33% from beyond the arc and be a contributor on a team with championship aspirations.
Even if the Rockets can get a disabled player exception from the league, this number is capped at the cost of the non-taxpayer Mid-Level Exception or 50% of the injured player's salary, whichever number is lower. With VanVleet set to earn $25 million during the 2025-26 campaign, the Rockets theoretically have up to $12.5 million to use. However, since Houston is hard-capped, they are prevented from adding salary that goes above that apron, no matter the size of the exception they could apply for.
While Monday's injury news certainly doesn't help the Rockets' chances of winning a third NBA championship, all hope shouldn't be lost. Sheppard needs to prove why Houston believed in him as much as they did to select him with the third overall pick in the 2024 draft.
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