How will Kevin Durant fare with the Houston Rockets? 🚀 ‘NO BETTER FIT!’ – Tim Bontemps | NBA Today

How will Kevin Durant fare with the Houston Rockets? 🚀 ‘NO BETTER FIT!’ – Tim Bontemps | NBA Today

Oh, that’s my first game winning. I feel like Kobe kill me. How are you all? What’s that smell? Career high in rebounds. Congrats. Oh, for real? Yeah. Say hi to mom and dad. the real way. The real way. Why are you We could beat anybody. We know that on any given night. Um we just got to play our play our game. Play Rockers basketball. We got a shot every night. We lace them up. A lot of clips in there, guys. We weren’t on the Rockets anymore. Since I’m serving as guest host, you already know we have to talk about those Houston Rockets. So, just to recap, the Rockets finished the regular season as the second seed. They lost in the first round of the Warriors and what we will call a spirited sevengame series. That was Houston’s first playoff appearance, by the way, since 1920. and they’ve been really busy this off season. Uh the front office for sure, training for two-time champ and former MVP Kevin Durant for the 10th pick, Dylan Brooks and Jaylen Green. The Rockets also signed Fred Van Vleet, Jabari Smith Jr. and Steo to New Deals. And it certainly looks like a much improved roster and if this summer suggests anything, they should have great chemistry as well. Look at that. Fred Van Fleet was seen doing a boxing workout with head coach Eay Udoka. And Fred also went to Turkey to work out and spend quality time with the birthday boy Alfred Shangon. After all those moves, guys, the Rockets have plus 525 odds to win the West behind only the Thunder and the Nuggets. Amid Thompson put the league on notice this past season. I chatted with a minute at summer league and asked about his new teammate. You know his name. He’s one of the greatest players ever. Um, one of the best scorers ever. He’s going to make my life a lot easier. You know what I mean? What do you think you can learn from Kevin just by observing him? I mean, I just hear his work ethic is um different, you know? I feel like I have a different work ethic, too. So, just like combining that, I think it’s going to be fine. Okay. So, as excited as I am to be able to cover Kevin Durant, I’m really excited about the Rockets and the fact that they were able to keep the majority of their young core, Shangon, Jabari, Amin, Tari, Tim, what immediate impact does KD have on this roster? Well, look, essentially the Houston Rockets turned Jaylen Green into Kevin Durant, right? That is an unbelievable upgrade for the Rockets. A big part of why Houston lost in the first round of the playoffs. So, Jaylen Green simply wasn’t good enough as a score. He shot under 30% from three, under 40% from the field. Kevin Durant, while he is not the player he was in the past, is still a guy that is a 5040 90 guy that’s an easy 25 on any given night and completely slots in slots in perfectly in the role as this team’s primary score. It’s going to make life easier for Alpi Shenun. It’s going to make life easier as Amen said in that clip for Amen Thompson. Guys like Jabari Smith and Amen Thompson and Tari E can easily fill in the minutes that Dylan Brooks has vacated by being part of that trade. So, I think this Rockets team is awfully good. They’re awfully deep. There’s a reason why there wasn’t a huge market for Kevin Durant this summer. He’s going to cost a lot of money in an extension. He’s an older player and also the fit in a lot of these situations wasn’t necessarily clean. But for Kevin Durant with the Rockets, there is not a better fit in the league than him landing there. I thought it was the one team that always made sense. It’s why the Rockets got him, as you laid out, for a pretty fair price from their standpoint. And it’s why they’re set up very nicely with having him now on the roster. Ramon, you and I have talked about this. There’s not a better coaching staff fit for Kevin Durant. He respects Eay Doka so much. Eay coached him with Team USA in Brooklyn. He’s really good friends with Rockets assistant coach Royale Ivy from those Longhorn ties. How do you see that benefiting the Rockets? Oh, look. I mean, we we’ve talked a lot about Kevin Durant and over the past, you know, his entire career, but he he wants to play basketball and he wants to just worry about that. He needs the coach to be the coach and be the leader in that locker room and hold guys accountable. And that is what he’s going to get with Eime Udoka. Kevin Durant is not going to have to be the loudest voice in the room. He’s not going to have to make sure somebody’s coming to practice or getting there on time. That’s Eay’s job. Y and I think he really appreciates that. and and every every place he’s ever been, that’s what he’s asked out of their coach. And I think this is probably the best fit he’s ever had. I mean, I I know they did Oklahoma City, those were some good fits. The Warriors, I think that sort of ran its course. Obviously, it wasn’t a fit in Brooklyn with Steve Nash and then last year with Ben Holder wasn’t great. And this year, Emma Odoka is a guy that he has a relationship with. He trusts and as you mentioned, Royale Ivy, those guys go back to their Texas days. One one thing to follow up on really quick. The other thing along with the Adoka, Fred Van Vleet, one of the best leaders in the league, the MBPA just voted him their new president for another four years. He’ll be in charge of their negotiations in the next CBA. Thought that was an under the radar really big thing in the league going forward. And Fred Van Vleet as the leader of that team with Amyoka to your point with Kevin, he doesn’t have to worry about any of that other locker room stuff. He can just go out there and ball and fill it up as he’s going to. Emodoka, Fred Van Vleet will set the culture there. I think it’s why it’s such a great fit in Houston. So true. And there are different types of leaders, right? Like Kevin might be not be the most vocal, but you have Fred Vanble. And so, uh, DDJ, I want to get you in on this discussion as well here because we talk offense, offense, offense with Kevin Durant, but you brought up something interesting with his defensive skills. Yeah, I think um, we clearly know what Kevin Durant could do for this team offensively, but I think he’s going to add a lot of versatility for this squad on the defensive end. I think Kevin Durant has gotten been kind of an underrated defender throughout his career. um he can defend um in the paint. He can defend with help defense. The blocks are always there. And what he can do for this team defensively is one of the problems with the Rockets last year is you would have, you know, five guys playing defense and their offense would come to a halt. You could put Durant out there with four great defenders, which the Rockets have, and then allow him to run the offense, and you could put the guys like Amen Thompson, Oki, which is a sneaky good um defensive ad that they just had, Dorian Finny Smith. You can go super big with Adams and Durant Shenon or you could go uh with Kevin Durant playing center which he is known to do. There’s just so much defensive versatility that you add with Kevin Durant’s own defense but also the fact that you don’t have to worry about that offense falling apart if you have too many good defenders out there because Kevin Durant can just generate so much offense on his own. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Ramona Shelburne, Tim Bontemps and David Dennis Jr. join Vanessa Richardson on NBA Today to discuss the Houston Rockets’ offseason and their outlook with Kevin Durant joining the squad.

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