GRADING Rockets Kevin Durant Trade & Why Houston Had The BEST Offseason In The ENTIRE NBA

GRADING Rockets Kevin Durant Trade & Why Houston Had The BEST Offseason In The ENTIRE NBA

On today’s show, grading the Rockets off season moves all the way from training for superstar Kevin Durant down to adding bench depth in Josh Aogi and everything in between. Did Houston have the best off season in the entire NBA? It’s all coming up right here at Lockdown Rockets. This is mission control Houston. Ignition sequence start. 6 5 4 3 2 1 What’s up and welcome to another edition of Locked On Rockets, your daily podcast home for everything Houston Rockets basketball. As always, I’m your host, Jackson Gatlin, native Houstononian and credentialed media member. I’m also the host of Locked On Thursdays. Be sure to follow along wherever you listen to your podcast or on YouTube. Just search Locked on Rockets where the best way you can help us grow our show is to listen every single day on a podcast platform of your choosing and then like, comment, subscribe on YouTube. On today’s show, we’re going to be diving into offseason grades for your Houston Rockets, taking a look at each individual move, and just kind of giving, you know, our assessment of where the Rockets stand with the moves that they’ve made this off seasonason. Did they possibly have the best off seasonason of any team in the entire association? And then we’ll also compare the Rockets off season and what I think was a lot of success in their off season to the rest of the NBA landscape and see how other teams stack up compared to what the Rockets were able to achieve uh this off seasonason. And the place that we have to start is the big move that I guess it didn’t set everything in motion because the Rockets made some offseason moves and they did some housekeeping kind of things before officially trading for Kevin Durant. But the KD move was the crown jewel of this Rockets offseason, trading for a superstar, uh, addressing the team’s biggest weakness, uh, weaknesses really, plural, of this past season and doing it without gutting the roster. I don’t know how you can look at the KD trade and walk away feeling like it’s anything less than an A. The only reason it’s not a flatout like A++ just, you know, not completely knocked out of the park is that that little bit of concern, that little bit of reservation, right, about Kevin Durant’s age. He’ll be 37 at the start of this next season. He’s 36 right now, 37 at the start of the season, and his injury history, right? But at least based on what we saw out of him last season, he’s not showing any signs of slowing down. And that’s why the Rockets were confident in trading for him. That’s why they’re confident in adding him to the existing structure of this team. In part because you didn’t gut the entire roster to add Kevin Durant, right? The cost to get KD was so ridiculously low that the Rockets almost for felt like they had to take the deal. And moving forward, you know, we’re not going to be able to judge this trade, you know, for a few years out, what have you. And I know there’s still a lot of Rockets fans that believe that trading Jaylen Green was a mistake and and those Rockets fans would probably grade this trade a lot more harshly than than the uh than the A grade that I’m giving it. And that’s totally fair. But what this trade told us, right, is that the Rockets believe in their ability to win right now with Kevin Durant over the next two to three years. They believe more in that version of this team than they did in any version of the team where they allow Jaylen Green to continue growing, developing, and to hopefully one day see him become that number one option, uh, that leading scoreer on a contending team that they hope that he could become when they drafted him number two overall. So, I think there’s a couple important things to note here in trying to assess the value of this trade, and I I already hit on one of them, right? It’s the Rockets didn’t have to gut their roster to get Kevin Durant, right? They gave up the confetti cannon of second round picks. They gave up the number 10 overall pick. They gave up Dylan Brooks and they gave up Jaylen Green. And as far as relative cost goes for superstars, that is a pretty small price to pay to be able to add what is absolutely still a top 10 player in the NBA. KD is is absolutely still a top 10 player in today’s NBA. At worst, he is top 15. And that is, I think, a pretty that’s, you’d have to make a pretty convincing argument for 10 other guys ahead of Kevin Durant based on his production on, you know, from last season alone. One of, if not maybe the most efficient player in the NBA, one of the best scorers to ever touch a basketball, and he’s about to lace him up for the Houston Rockets. That’s a win. It’s doubly a win when you factor in that he addresses the biggest weakness of this team from this past season, their inability to put the ball in the bucket. uh his efficiency will help considerably on offense. His go-to scoring ability will help a ton. And the Rockets already have kind of their identity in place. The defense is not about to slip, right? Losing Dylan Brooks certainly hurt. And that honestly might have been the biggest loss of the trade when you factor in that KD over Jaylen Green is kind of a no-brainer. Um, losing Dylan Brooks certainly hurts from a depth perspective, but then the Rockets went out and made subsequent moves to help offset the loss of Dylan Brooks by going and getting a guy like Dorian Finny Smith. So, with the KD trade, in my mind, it has to be an A. And I think one other kind of I guess side effect if you will of the KD trade or one other one other kind of ancillary benefit of the KD trade and I think this was something that the Rockets were going to run into sooner rather than later even if they hadn’t dealt you know Jaylen Green for Kevin Durant is truly identifying and picking a direction for this team and and I’ve maintained that the KD trade is not just a win now move, right? It’s and it’s not a championship or bust move. Title aspirations are certainly on the mind and and this team on paper is a legit title contender, but the window does not slam shut in two or three years whenever Katie’s ready to hang him up or transition into a smaller role, what have you. Honestly, with Katie’s skill set, I could see him playing well into his 40s if he really wanted to and just coming off the bench and being like that. He can be easy money sniper playing 15, 20 minutes off the bench, and I’m sure he’d love to do it. The dude loves hoops, right? So, I think it it not only works as a win now move, but the Rockets will absolutely still have a future post KD, right? They’ve still got Alpen Shingun. They’ve still got Amin Thompson. We’ve still got Jabari and Tari and hopefully, right, pending what we see out of him in year two, right, hopefully Reed Shepard in that mix as well. Not to mention the other future draft assets they’re going to have from the Phoenix Suns being able to have a pipeline of other young talent potentially down the line to infuse into the roster post Kevin Durant era. Um, as well as the Brooklyn Nets pick swap, the pick from Dallas somewhere down the line. like they’ve got other top-notch draft assets that could become available to them uh should the other teams struggle, which I think on paper the Suns look like they’re probably going to still struggle for a couple years. Um, and the big thing here is the Rockets needed to identify a direction right now. They have the direction. KD is their best player. He’s their number one guy. They’re going to have a clear-cut hierarchy. But one thing that is a benefit in in I guess removing Jaylen Green is it opens up more runway for Amin Thompson to continue to grow and develop. And I know that there’s going to be some people who are like, “Well, why couldn’t you have just got rid gotten rid of Fred Van Vleet, get rid of Fred, and then let Jaylen and Amin Thompson run the show like they did, you know, while Fred was out to injury?” Did y’all see what happened to the Rockets when Fred went out to injury? Like they did okay without Fred, but the wheels kind of came off the train without Fred Vanble Vleet. Like Fred is still so important to the fabric and the identity of this Rockets team. And you can, you know, blame Emodoka for that. You can say that Fred is a crutch for Emodoka to lean on and that he shouldn’t have to rely on, you know, an over 30year-old point guard to be able to, you know, keep keep the ship upright in Houston. But the fact of the matter is Fred is and his impact on winning is cannot be uh cannot be overstated. He’s very important to the fabric and the success of this team. And so for a men Thompson to continue his upwards trajectory to continue his exponential growth that we’ve already seen a ridiculous amount of him just two years of him being an NBA player. for him to get to the point that the Rockets really believe that he can get to, they needed to open up more on ball reps from Thompson. And shout out to uh the Podfather himself, Ben Dubose, who was over on his show, the Logger Line podcast talking about this very same topic. But I think one of the reasons that the Rockets did not go out of their way to add additional ball handling, another guard, whatever, to the roster this off season is because they are very confident. Part of it is their belief in Reed Shepard being able to hold down the fort as the backup guard. That’s certainly part of it, but I think a bigger part and a part that I wasn’t paying enough attention to, you know, earlier on was their desire for a bigger role for a men Thompson with the ball in his hands. If a men Thompson is going to become the superstar that they truly believe he can become one day, he needs to start getting more and more reps. He needs to start really spreading his wings and making his impact felt on the game in more than just being an ancillary player, right? He needs to be the guy with the ball in his hands, dictating how a game is played, dictating the flow, the tempo, setting his teammates up, imposing his will on the game. And that’s a lot harder to do when you’re having to share so many of your onball possessions with Jaylen Green. When Jaylen Green needs his touches, when he needs the ball in his hands, when he needs to get into a rhythm, when he’s leading the team in field goal attempts, when he’s the leading scoreer on a team, albeit on unfortunately pretty abysmal efficiency, right? They needed to get that out of the way for Amen Thompson to have a chance at a bigger role. It probably won’t be as big as Jaylen’s on ball role was this past season because you’ll still have onball reps for Kevin Durant. Obviously, you’ll still have onball reps for Alpinu and Fred Van Vleet still going to handle the basketball. But it’s a lot easier to split those duties and basically say, you know what, we want to put the ball in Amnen Thompson’s hands and let him run the show while Fred Van Vleet’s on the bench than it is for them to somehow split ball handling time between Jaylen Amen and Fred Van Vleet. That becomes a lot harder. So, I think that’s one of the ancillary benefits to the Kevin Durant trade as well. Not only does you not only do you add a top 10 superstar in the NBA, but you also clear a pathway for a men Thompson’s development and growth to continue. So that way whenever KD is ready to step away, whether it’s in 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, whatever it is, whenever that transition, whenever the passing of the torch takes place, KD is able to easily pass the torch over to what will likely be Amin Thompson as the Rockets’s best player somewhere a little bit further down the line. So I’m grading the KD trade as an A. I’m very curious your thoughts on the trade. I want to know your grade for it. Uh coming up, we’ll grade a few of the other offseason moves that the Rockets made as well as getting into looking at the NBA at large and how the Rockets offseason stacked up compared to everybody else. We’re going to get there in just one moment. 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Uh Stephen Adams is very much still a guy that could be getting starters minutes elsewhere uh for another team and there’s probably some teams out there that would have loved to poach Stephen Adams away from the Rockets, but again based on how the Rockets supported him during his rehabilitation process and his sheer impact and role that he found here in Houston playing uh as Alparen Shingun’s backup and then the establishing of the double bigs lineup which means that there’s plenty of minutes and a big role for him moving forward with this organization. It made it a no-brainer. you keep him around. I think that’s another A move for the Rockets. Um, looking at the Jabarius M Jr. rookie extension, you get him on a very fair contract. Uh, great value. Uh, 5 years, whatever 20ish million it was. Um, I’m going off the top of my head. Average annual value, uh, you know, about 23 million a year. And given Jabari’s role in his production and what we talked about before, adding Kevin Durant, similar to what we talked about in segment one and how that kind of opened up or will open up more on ball reps for Amen Thompson, removing Jaylen Green from the equation, also opens up more offensive opportunities for a guy like Jabari Smith Jr. and we’ll have to do this. We’ll we’ll revisit these numbers when we do Jabarisma Jr. season review, but nobody actually suffered more this past season that in the onoff splits than Jabari Smith Jr. did as far as how much better he was on the floor when Jaylen Green was actually off the floor. And a part of that was because there was actually an opportunity for Jabari to really spread his wings a little bit offensively when Jaylen Green wasn’t out there running the show. Um, and so I do think that Jabari is going to be a huge beneficiary of the KD deal, both from just a bigger role for himself offensively as well as getting to learn directly from Kevin Durant. Again, if Jabari is able to even harness 25% of Kevin Durant’s game, you know, the the handling, the wiggle, the shotmaking ability, the ability to get to his spots on the floor, if he can just unlock a portion of that, then Jabari has the chance to become a really special offensive player and potentially have a much bigger role than what he’s been so far in his career, which is just kind of a, you know, ancillary 3 and you know, supporting cast kind of player. Um, but there’s a reason that he was, you know, widely viewed as the number one overall pick going into the 2022 draft and didn’t change until the final moments before the draft. He still is a guy that could have been a number one overall pick and and is still a top three pick in his own right and there’s a chance for him to still be uh, you know, a really talented offensive force in the NBA. Maybe he just hasn’t hit his stride yet. Uh, I’m not going to hold my breath for any magical overnight like, you know, ascension into stardom for Jabari, but I do think that that’s something to certainly be aware of. Uh, and I think for the Jabari extension, it makes perfect sense. I don’t I’m I’m going to give it an A. Like, I just I’m going across the board here. Um, it’s going to be really hard for me to find a deal that I’m not going to probably grade as an A for the Rockets simply because all the deals make a lot of sense, right? There’s not really any deals that didn’t make a ton of sense for this Rockets team. The Fred Van Vleet deal, uh, two years, $50 million extension. Uh, they renegotiate his deal. It was certainly kind of a wink wink nudge nudge. Hey, we overpaid you to come here. Now we’re going to underpay you to be able to flesh out the rest of the roster. Uh, shout out to Fred Van Vleet in his camp for, you know, being able to, I can’t say take the sacrifice, but, you know, you get Fred down to a number that makes a lot more sense for who he is and what he provides as a player in that $25 million a year range instead of being paid north of $40 million. Um, and so that’s a that’s a completely fair contract for Fred Van Vleet, and it’s his way of kind of paying the organization back for being overpaid when he first came to Houston. and it puts the Rockets in a position, it unlocked the ability to go and get a guy like Dorian Anthony Smith with a non- taxpayer MLE. So, that move in and of itself, I’m going to rank as an A. Um, and then I’ll lump all these guys together, but the uh the Stay Ready crew of Aaron Holiday, Jeff Green, and Jan Tate, being able to keep all those guys on one-year vet minimum deals uh talked about it a year ago when Aaron Holiday renegotiated his contract, right? when when Jeff Green was still getting his payday, uh Jun Tate was being paid above average for what his role probably would be on any other team, you know, these guys were the the benchwarmers effectively, right? The third stringers, the garbage time guys, the stay ready crew. And they were all being paid significantly more than a lot of their uh counterparts on other contending teams who sit at the end of the bench and get and rack up DMPs and, you know, basically insurance policy guys. Now they’re all being paid, you know, an appropriate amount, getting the vet minimum contracts, but being able to keep all three of them and not having any of them decide that they want to leave, that they want bigger roles elsewhere or that they want to secure a little bit more money elsewhere. Part of that is because I think the Rockets did their job of paying those guys more than what they were probably worth before the Rockets got to a point where they had to pay them or where they could only pay them with the vet minimum deals. And so that’s, you know, great foresight, great financial planning from the Rockets front office. So in lumping those three guys together, I’m going to give the Stay Ready crew retention an A as well. Getting into the other key additions to this team though, um the biggest one being Dorian Finny Smith, the effectively the Dylan Brooks replacement in the Rockets rotation. uh getting DFS and the contract that they got him on, the way that it’s structured with years three and four essentially being non-g guaranteed deals. So basically, you get DFS on the same remaining contract that you would have had Dylan Brooks on had you kept Dylan Brooks and not included him in the trade for Kevin Durant. DFS is a great pickup, right? He’s not he’s still absolutely a starting caliber wing in today’s NBA. Maybe he’s lost a little bit of a step uh having gotten a little bit older, but he gives you a lot of what Dylan Brooks gives you, the defensive intensity, the tenacity. He’s not going to start as many fights as Dylan Brooks, but on paper, he is a better three-point shooter. And I think he’s a guy that maybe knows his role a little bit more offensively, right? He’s a guy that is probably easier to have coexist next to a star player than Dylan Brooks who at times could, you know, be susceptible to a moment of like CTE here or there offensively by um, you know, taking over the ball or trying to do a little bit too much offensively, getting into his bag a little bit. And sometimes it worked and other times it wasn’t the best unfortunately. So Dorian Finny Smith, a guy who’s going to pretty much stay in his lane, do what he’s supposed to do, and let the star players, let KD, let Shingun, let Amond Thompson do what they’re supposed to do, and he’ll just play good, tough, hard-nosed defense, and then knock down threes at a greater than 40% clip from behind the arc, and he’s an underrated slasher and finisher at the rim as well. So, I think the DFS pickup is still an A in my book. Um, and also, it also weakens the Lakers, right? And that’s another big big thing. Now, granted, the Lakers might have not been able to retain DFS anyways because they needed to use some of their uh available MLE money to be able to sign DeAndre Aton. Um, but I don’t know. I don’t know the Lakers cap specifics off the top of my head. Maybe they would have been able to do both things. Either way, it weakens the Lakers. It strengthens the Rockets. It’s their Dylan Brooks replacement. And while he’s probably not going to uh command the adoration and love that Dylan Brooks did from Rockets fans uh with the the fire, the heart, the intensity, all that, uh he’s certainly going to be a huge piece of the pie and an important productive member of this team and a great complimentary piece for this team this upcoming season. Um could I could easily see DFS starting some games honestly in the games where Kevin Durant maybe misses some time. So that’s a possibility to be on the lookout for. Um, the Clint Capella edition was the most surprising get of the offseason. That was one that was not on I don’t think on anybody’s bingo card was the reunion with Clint Capella. However, you know, the idea of being able to basically upgrade the Jock Land slot into Clint Capella who only recently lost his starting job and could very easily still start for a number of teams in the NBA. fact that the Rockets have not one but two backup bigs who could command legitimate starter minutes from at least like a third of the other teams out there in the NBA is pretty important when you factor in again how important depth is going to be for a potential title run and the fact that the Rockets don’t want to run guys like Steven Adams into the dirt right by overplaying them throughout the regular season. So now you still get a version of the double big lineups. Um you get a serviceable, you know, starter quality big who’s now your third string big man coming off the bench. You get a legitimate lob threat to be able to come in and you know have an element and a dimension to this team offensively that they haven’t had uh before which where is it? Lob threat. There it is. Lob threat. Um, and so yeah, the CA the the Capella get when it became, you know, available that the Rockets were able to get Clint Capella without giving up realistically anything of value to get Capella, it was a total no-brainer. So, I like the Capella move. I I’m not blown away by it. So, I’ll give it like a solid a solid B B+, I guess. Like, it’s not it’s not a move that I think is going to significantly move the needle either way. But it also shows that the Rockets aren’t afraid to spend, right? They could have not gone for Clint Capella and they could have saved money and they could have dodged the luxury tax, but they said, “Screw that. We want to be in a position where we can contend at the highest level. We don’t want to have to rely on Jock Landale or Nefali Dante for those third string center minutes when Steven Adams isn’t available to play.” And I think the Rockets saw enough of those minutes early in the season as well as later in the year in the games that Steve Adams did have to miss while they were still being preventative in nature and and you know being cautious with you know his health down the line of the season that they didn’t want to have to rely on a guy who wasn’t up to par for what they wanted to be able to achieve with some of those double big lineups or is just the flatout replacement at times for Alpin Shingun on the floor and Clint Capella gives them that. Um the last piece of the puzzle here for the Rockets who they most recently signed Josh Aogi. Um former former teammate of Kevin Durant. Uh defensive pest nuisance on the perimeter. Not going to be a guy who’s a part of the core rotation. Um he’ll probably be more so lumped in with the stay ready crew guys, but certainly a guy that’s going to see uh you know some minutes here or there in certain matchups. And I still think like you know the Rockets could have maybe done a little more with that final spot. And even though, again, I call it the final spot, you know, they they signed him, you know, to their 14th roster spot, but given the fact that they don’t have any more money to sign anybody, it is effectively their final spot. So, they’re not getting a 15th player. So, get stop getting your hopes up and please stop talking about Quinton Grimes in the YouTube comments. It’s not happening. Um, I like the AOI signing. He gives them another defensive point of attack guy. uh leaves a little bit to be desired offensively and they I think the Rockets could have maybe done a little bit more with that slot. Maybe they could have gone more of an insurance policy route in case Reed Shepard doesn’t work out or you know adding another ball handler, but ultimately they they wanted to triple quadruple double down on the on the defensive side of things and that’s what they did with this signing. I’m going to give the AOI signing like a like a B minus I guess maybe a C plus. Like I’m kind of at this point where the Akogi signing doesn’t feel super consequential anyway. Um but it’s also not like a bad signing. It doesn’t hurt them. So, uh maybe they could have done more with that. Maybe that’s the one move where you look at, you know, how things shook out and maybe they could have, you know, maybe they should have sat down and really tried to convince Cam Whitmore that he should have stuck around and they could have had Cam Whitmore instead of going out and getting Josh Aki. But, you know, it is what it is. Um I guess you have to factor that in as well. And you know what? I will I will actually I’ll grade the Rockets on that. I’m going to say they mishandled the Camelmore situation. As disappointing as it is, you know, and and it’s clearly the best thing for him going forward in his career going going back to his hometown as well as, you know, a chance to play for a role on the Wizards, you know, a team that’ll have, you know, very little stakes. They’re going to do a lot of losing. It’ll be a great opportunity for him to really showcase his skill and talent. Um, I think the Rockets really lost something with Cam Whitmore. And I think that that whole situation was maybe a little bit mishandled by the Rockets coaching staff not giving him, you know, the opportunity to really learn through some of his mistakes and commit to fixing his errors with game reps and instead kind of punishing him for not doing the stuff maybe behind the scenes that he wasn’t doing 100% of, I guess. Um, so grading that move, I’m going to give the Rockets I’m not going to go all the way down to an F. because I don’t think like Cam Whitmore is going to suddenly turn into like an MVP candidate overnight. But uh I will say it’s like a D. Like it’s it’s very sad that they they got Cam Whitmore. They he showed some amazing flashes of talent and the Rockets really weren’t able to ever harness that and and utilize it. Especially for a team that struggled as much offensively as they did at certain stretches last season. Like Cam Whitmore is just a plug-and-play flamethrower off the bench. He’s also a black hole offensively sometimes. like that’s it’s not a complete win. Um but I do think the entire you know what I won’t grade it D is a little harsh. I’m going to say C minus for the Cam Whitmore situation. The handling of it all of it is it’s not ideal. Um but it is what it is and I and I give I do give the Rockets credit for sending him to a place that he feels like he can carve out a role for the next phase of his NBA career. Um with that those that kind of encompasses all the actual moves that the Rockets made this off season. I want your thoughts on each move. You can batch them together if you want to. Um, give me your thoughts on on what they accomplished in the YouTube comments coming up. I do want to take a look around the NBA landscape and see what else other teams have achieved, how the Rockets stack up compared to them, and then we can come away deciding, did the Rockets have the best off season in the entire NBA. We’re going to get there in just one moment. and final segment here at Locked On Rockets, your daily podcast home for everything Houston Rockets basketball. All right, one thing that I wanted to note on that I I had my notes and I forgot to mention while we were still going through the grades. Um, retaining Emoa, extending Emodoka, that is absolutely an A, in fact, it’s an A+ move in my book, right? Emodoka is not a head coach that’s without his shortcomings, right? not a perfect head coach, but I think he’s clearly a top five head coach in the NBA, and he’s done so much in such a short amount of time with this Rockets team. And look, time will tell. Maybe Emma Udoka’s limitations will ultimately be the thing that prevents him from becoming a championship level head coach with the Rockets or with another team somewhere down the line. But at least right now, he certainly has the makings of a championship level head coach. Um, he’s been a head coach for three seasons in the NBA. He’s turned the Rockets around really quickly in just these two seasons. He did it without having a bonafide star player on the roster. Um, and I’m very excited to see what he’s able to achieve with this team with the with the team and the way that it looks now that he’s really been able to cater it, craft it in his image. Um, and adding a top 10 player to it. Uh, there should be no excuses this next year. Right. On paper, the Rockets are very much one of the top three favorites to win the title this next year. They could be the team that upsets OKC out west. So, there’s a lot riding on this next season, but the Rockets were very smart to lock down Emmyodoka and extend his contract. So, I I’m very much grading that as an A+ move uh for this off season. Let’s take a look around the NBA. And I think there are a number of teams out there that made some very substantial moves this off season. Um, I think you go and look I think we have to start with kind of comparing to some of the the teams in the Western Conference first and foremost the competition for the Rockets. Um, and the first team that comes to mind for me, well, first I guess we could say the the OKC Thunder, right? They’re they’re the defending champs. They made no major changes, but they resigned everybody. They brought back their big three. They extended all their contracts. Um, the Thunder I don’t think had a better off seasonason than the Rockets because they’re basically maintaining status quo. They didn’t make any major additions. They made no major changes. They didn’t lose anybody of consequence. So, the Thunder are basically plateauing. Now, maybe the Thunder still just get better because they’re an incredibly young team, right? SGA could still get better. Cadet can get better. JDub can get better. All their other young players can get better. So, OKC might just get better from internal growth alone, right? And they’re already the best team in the NBA. They already won the title, so maybe that’s enough to go on repeat and get a second title or become a dynasty, what have you. But they didn’t have a better off season than the Rockets. The Denver Nuggets had a fantastic off season. Um, making some very, very significant moves, uh, fleshing out their roster, getting rid of Michael Porter Jr. So, they they they traded Dario Sarich and MPJ. They got back, um, they added Bruce Brown, Cam Johnson, Tim Hardway Jr., and Yonas Valenunis. Even with the Yonas Valenunis drama about whether he’d actually play for the Denver Nuggets, on paper, the Nuggets have addressed their biggest weakness, which is their depth, right? Their inability to keep the game flowing when Nicola Joic heads to the bench. And so, the Nuggets made some really fantastic moves and it’s really hard. Like, on paper, I’ve got the Rockets and Nuggets like neck and neck as far as power rankings in the Western Conference. Um, if I were grading the Nuggets offseason though, I’d probably give them like an A minus. Um, I don’t think that they get the A+ or the the A ranking that I’m going to that I’m going to give the Rockets simply because they didn’t make the swing for a star level player. They added some really highlevel role players. They added some solid depth. Um, but I don’t think that puts you in the same tier as the Rockets who basically added again a top 10 player to their roster. So, I’m going to have the Denver Nuggets uh a little bit lower in their own tier uh of offseason grade. The Clippers are the next team that I think you have to look at as making, you know, some very significant offseason acquisitions. And I think that you can argue that the Clippers might be in that same tier as the Nuggets and the Rockets out west as far as, you know, on paper what we expect to see out of these teams this next season. Um, but the biggest the biggest issue with the Clippers, right, is going to be age. Um, they’ve added uh well they they they brought back Nicholas Batum and James Harden. They lost Norm Pal and Drew Eubanks, but they added Bradley Beal, John Collins, Brook Lopez, Chris Paul, and former Houston Rocket Titi Washington. Um, depthwise, the Clippers have a ton of depth. They’re incredibly talented top to bottom. Just are they going to be able to make it to the postseason? Will they not be banged up and injury-riddled and beaten down? Uh, this is the oldest team in the NBA. There are injury questions around their star players. Everybody is like not just over like 30, they’re like over the hill, like 34, 35, 36, 37. Like this is an old roster. Um, but the talent is undeniable. I love what the Clippers have done, but some so much of what the Clippers did was contingent on like the Suns buying out Bradley Beal and then like, you know, Chris Paul like making his way back there and like so much of that could have not happened. Um, it did and it broke down the way that it did. So, I I have to grade them on how things did transpire. I’m going to give the Clippers an A minus as well. Their off seasonason was phenomenal. Um, and they took what was looked at as a season that was going to be a loss, you know, losing Paul George, um, you know, having him run away to Philadelphia and, you know, not having Kawawaii for a chunk of the season, they were able to establish a really great defensive identity and actually have a really successful year despite missing so much time from Kawaii. Uh, and you know, had they not had a runin with the Nuggets there in the first round of the playoffs, like I think the Clippers were an incredibly talented team and could have uh certainly made some noise in the postseason, and I think that we’ll certainly see them make a push this next year. On paper, I don’t think they’re better than the Rockets, but I I also wouldn’t want to see the Clippers in a seven game series with all that experience, all that talent at their disposal. Um, so I’ve got I’ve got Clippers A minus, Nuggets A minus. Um, who else do I have here? I had I had one other team as an A. Um, I really liked what the Atlanta Hawks did, man. The Atlanta Hawks honestly might have been my favorite non-Rockets team with their allseason moves uh this summer. Uh they added Nquille Alexander Walker, they added Luke Canard, they got Christophs Porzingis in a three-team trade. Um and they they completely swindled the Pelicans for that pick that is going to be fully unprotected in next year’s draft. Um they’ve already got they’ve still got their star in Trey Young. They’ve got a lot of young talent around him. They’re going to be getting Jaylen Johnson back this next year. Um, the Hawks with a wideopen Eastern Conference with teams like the Celtics, the Pacers, and the Bucks kind of out of commission right now, uh, due to injuries and, you know, losing star player, all that kind of stuff. Um, I think the Hawks have the makings of like a top four team in the Eastern Conference this next year, quite frankly. And so, uh, I really like what Atlanta’s done. A lot of it’s, some of it is going to hinge on whether or not Christoph Porzingis is healthy. um they’re still a really good team even if Porzingis misses the entire year. But if he’s healthy, that gives them even another dimension to play with to have, you know, a a pick and roll partner, a pick and pop partner for Trey Young to go to, as well as still having a Congu at at the other five spot uh in their rotation. So, a lot to like about what Atlanta has achieved this past offseason. Um, outside of that, I mean, I don’t think there’s really any other teams that come super close as far as what they accomplished this off seasonason when you look at how much the Rockets did this off season. Um, I will say like I guess you could look at the Orlando Magic, right? They dealt for they they like they went all in on Desmond Bane and I and I I respect the aggressiveness. they see an opening in the in a weak Eastern Conference and Bane should be a a flatout perfect compliment for France Vagner and Paulo Benero and he’ll ease the scoring burden on both of those guys. They’ll still have their elite defense like Orlando did a lot this off season. Um but I don’t think they’re in the same tier as like the Nuggets and the Clippers personally. Um, I guess you maybe look at the Spurs, too. Although the Spurs more so like they just kind of lucked into getting Dylan Harper and Carter Bryant, you know, draft draft lottery odds and whatnot. Um, but also adding, you know, Luke Cornet, Kelly Oolen, like they added the right pieces around Wimby. Um, but I I still have them a couple tiers below the Rockets. Like those are some those are some B-grade teams as far as what they did, you know, this this past offseason. Um, I think that by by and large I think the Rockets had the most the singular most impressive offseason of any team in the NBA. And maybe there’s a little bit of homerism baked in there, but this Rockets team just launched from a pluckucky upstart young team that may have overachieved a little bit as the two seed in the Western Conference into legitimate contention territory. They moved the needle the furthest of any other team in the association. They moved the needle from furthest from being like a non-contender or like a puncher chance outside looking in pluckucky kind of playoff team to being a legit top three top four odds odds on favorite to win the title this next season and and quite possibly the biggest challenger to the OKC Thunder in the Western Conference. That’s a pretty magnificent magnificent off season. Um, and one that I think is flatout worthy of a of an Agrade, maybe even, dare I say, an A+. But I want your thoughts on the Rockets off seasonason. Let me know your thoughts in the YouTube comments. How does it shake up? How does it stack up with the rest of the NBA? Give me your other NBA offseason that you like. Give me your top three teams this NBA offseason. Right? If you got Rockets number one, who would you rank two and three on your list uh as far as uh grading this offseason goes? Give me all your thoughts in the YouTube comments. Remember, the best way to help us grow the show is to listen every single day on a podcast platform of your choosing and then like, comment, subscribe on YouTube. But as always, thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for listening and we look forward to having you back right here at Locked on Rockets, your daily podcast home for everything Houston Rockets basketball.

GRADING Rockets Kevin Durant Trade & Why Houston Had The BEST Offseason In The ENTIRE NBA

Host Jackson Gatlin (@JTGatlin) breaks down and grades the Houston Rockets’ game-changing offseason, headlined by the acquisition of superstar Kevin Durant. The analysis covers the impact on Amen Thompson’s development, key roster moves including Fred VanVleet’s contract renegotiation, and how these changes reshape the NBA landscape. Gatlin grades each move, comparing the Rockets’ offseason to other contenders like the Denver Nuggets and LA Clippers.

Don’t miss this in-depth look at how the Rockets transformed from a young, developing team to legitimate title contenders. Will Durant’s arrival propel Houston to the top of the Western Conference?

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