Houston Rockets Schedule Release! What Stands Out?

Houston Rockets Schedule Release! What Stands Out?

They got to get it in. Dust to Smith. Jabari for three and the win. Yeah, he got it. [Applause] We are here to fuel rocks news. It’s the Rockfield podcast. Of course, I am your host Lashard Binkley. You can always find my written work over at Rockets on SI and of course you find me on Twitter X at Binkley Hoops. I am a credential reporter covering the Houston Rockets. And on today’s show, I want to give a quick synopsis of what I think of the schedule. Of course, it just dropped a few hours ago. Um, we pretty much already had the um opening night schedule and the Christmas schedule, which amazingly enough, the Rockets are were part of are going to be part of both. And if you’ve been following the Rockets for any amount of time, especially during after James Harden was traded away, you know that the fact that the Rockets are on going to be the first game of the NBA season on national television and also playing on Christmas Day, that just tells you how far the Rockets have come because there were some really lean years there after 2021 where the Rockets were afterthought on pretty much everybody’s radar, even some fans here in Houston. So, the fact that they have come this far and of course a lot of it has to do with acquiring Kevin Durant, but also it has to do with just the way the Rockets have progressed the last couple years going from 40 going from 22 wins to 41 wins and then 52 wins last season. And then of course you have one of the best scorers of all time. That’s definitely going to get the attention of a lot of people. The Rockers also have 28 national televised games. That’s not seven or eight NBA TV games because there not any more NBA TV games. That’s Prime. That’s ESPN. That’s ABC. It’s kind of spread across all of them. TNT, even though it’s really kind of um all kind of the same with ESPN, but it’s kind of spread across all those different platforms. So, the Rockets will be on 28 times that type of fit most in the entire NBA. So, again, that tells you a lot about where the Rockets are right now. And speaking of the opening night before I kind of get into the full schedule, of course the Rockets will be facing off against Oklahoma City Thunder as they race their first banner as Oklahoma City. They actually won a championship in 1979 as the Seattle SuperSonic. So it’s not the first ever for the franchise, but is the first for Oklahoma City. Um so the Rockets will be facing off against them opening night um as they travel to Oklahoma City. Also kind of keep in mind another thing um just kind of doing my research as I was going through the opening night schedules over the last several years. The Rockets have now lost seven straight opening night games. The last one they actually won was against surprisingly enough the Golden State Warriors who were led by Steph Curry and Kevin Durant. That was the last time the Rockets actually played on the opening night NBA opening night as well. So, there’s a lot of parallels between this season um this season opening game and in 2017. Also, the Rockets going into 2017 that just made the biggest move of the offseason. They traded for Chris Paul. So, that was his debut game. Same thing here. Rockets made the biggest move of the offseason trade to Kevin Durant. That’ll be his first game. And of course, Kevin Durant played for those Warriors teams. And also to kind of go even a little bit deeper, the Rockets won that game 122 to 121. and they won it because Kevin Durant’s last second potential game-winning shot was a fraction of a second too late and that’s how the Rockets were able to come away with that victory. So, there’s a lot of parallels between 2017 and this year’s Rockets team flowing into opening night and also Golden State was raising a banner that night. They had just won championship in 2016, the 2016 2017 season. So, it’s a lot of parallels going on here between those two nights. So, the Rocks are going to be trying to break that sevengame uh opening night or losing streak with Kevin Durant, who was part of the last team the Rocks actually defeated. So, a lot of lot going on right there. But, kind of just go a little bit into the schedule. I’ll probably have a more in-depth uh podcast coming up this weekend where I really break down the entire schedule, but it’s kind of just looking at it kind of a quick overview of it. The first 10 games, um there’s a lot of winnable games in there. the Rockets. Um they’re kind of spread out. There’s not a lot of dominant teams they’re going to be going against. Um of course the first game will probably be the hardest game out of all the 10. It’s the one at Oklahoma City, but if I’m looking at the schedule at worst, the Rockets should be seven and three. I think they actually should go 8-2 with them losing the game at Memphis at um Milwaukee. The only reason I say that is not because those teams are some juggernaut teams. just because in that time frame in November, they’ll been played five games and nine nights, some traveling back and forth. I think that’s more of a schedule loss than anything else. And funny enough, I actually have them beating Oklahoma City on opening night because a lot of times when these teams are raising their banners, they going through all that hoopla, they’re not really focused. They’re not really thinking about the game as much as they’re thinking about what happened last season. Then the opponent is coming in. They’re hungry. They want to beat the defending champions. And in this case, it’s the Houston Rockets. And and on top of that is Kevin Durant going against his the former franchise that actually drafted him. Even though Seattle actually drafted him, but he spent majority of his prime years with that franchise was with Oklahoma City. So that’s another thing to kind of keep in mind. I think why I think the Rockets going to win that opening night. I think the Rockets actually go eight and two in this first 10 games because they play teams like uh the Washington Wizards. They play San Antonio. Even though San Antonio better, I think they can still beat San Antonio. The first home game, the uh debut for Kevin Durant in Toyota Center will be against Detroit. That’s the second game of the season. The Rockets will be favoring that. Actually, the Rockets will be favoring every single game except that Oklahoma City Thunder game in the first 10. That kind of depends on how the season starts off and if there’s any injuries, but I think the Rocks will be favored in nine out of 10 games. So, the Rockies going eight and nine and one is not out of the realm of possibility. Well, do I expect them to go 9 and one or 10 and hope? Probably not. Um, because it’s the NBA, anything can happen, but they should definitely at least go eight and two in those first 10 games. Like I said, it’s a lot of winnable games in that first 10 game slate. Another thing that stood out to me was the Rockets had a backto back in the second and third game last season. They already had their first backtoback this year. They don’t have their first backtoback until December 5th and six. And funny enough, that December 5th game will be Jaylen Green’s first game back at Toyota Center when Phoenix comes to Houston. And then they’ll be traveling to Dallas. So, it’s not even a it’s not even a road road uh back to back as a home and then basically traveling right down the street to Dallas to take on the Mavericks. So, it’s not really even a strenuous backtoback. So, that’s another thing that really stood out to me that’s going to help the Rockets. It actually is the only back-to-back games. They have in all of the 2025 portion of the schedule from October until December. So, I think you know fact that the Rocks are a older team now with Kevin Durant, with Clint Capello, with Steven Adams, even Fred Van Bleet who’s been playing a lot of minutes the last two season. He’s been playing a lot of man his entire career, but definitely last two seasons for the Rockets. He’s all that’s going to help the Rockets as you know they try to get used to a different system, different players, and also try to rest some of their older guys only having one back to back in the first two or three months of the season is is definitely a a big deal and definitely will work in the Rocky’s favor. And kind of going back to um first games against former teams, like I said, Jaylen Green’s first game at Toyota Center is that December 5th game, but his first game against the Rockets will actually be the Rockets traveling to Phoenix on November 24th when he’ll be um welcoming the Houston Rockets into uh Phoenix for the Rockets take on the Suns. I’m sure him and Dylan Brooks both got have that game scheduled or circled on their schedule for sure. So, that’ll be the first time the Rockets take on Jaylen Green and Dylan Brooks with their new team, the Phoenix Suns. So, that’ll definitely be something interesting to kind of keep an eye on. Um, another thing that kind of stood out to me, uh, between the end of November to beginning of January, they have like 15 out of 19 road games or something crazy like that. Now, it is kind of gonna depend on how they do in group play because the the schedule may change a little bit because you don’t you know the first four games as far as the group play, but outside of that, you don’t really know are they going to go to the quarterfinals. If they don’t, they have to add some other games to schedule. So, it may change a little bit, but for what we know now, it’s like 15 out of 19 or 15 out of 20 of the games are going to be on the road. So, that’s definitely going to be a tough stretch to definitely keep an eye on if you’re kind of following the schedule. Um, it’s that period end of November all the way up until the beginning of January. So, something to keep in mind with that. Um, but overall, it’s always kind of hard to kind of look at the schedule and say, “Oh, this is great. This is not great.” When it comes to the NBA, because it’s not the NFL, it’s 82 games. It’s kind of hard to know what’s going to happen throughout the season. It’s not just 16 or now 18 weeks in the NFL to where you can kind of pinpoint this and pinpoint that. There’s just so many games. It’s kind of hard to say, okay, the Rockers are going to go 20 and 10 in this. You can’t really do that in NBA. So, closer to the end of the year, um, or actually closer to the end of the off season when we get to training camp and preseason, which by the way, I’ll be out at media day, which is the end of September, and I’ll definitely be out the first week of training camp, which is uh exactly um one day after media day. So, media day is usually on the Monday, then Tuesday through however long they’re going to practice. cuz last year they actually training camp went all the way through the weekend. Um the prior years when they had them in Louisiana or Galveston, not in Houston, they was pretty much over after Friday. But now since they’re practicing in a brand new facility in Houston, they are practicing all the way through the weekend. So training camp will probably be from Tuesday all the way through Sunday. They may have an off day somewhere in there. But anyway, I’ll be there for training camp. Definitely bring you all that footage as well along with media day. Um, but that’s kind of some of the things that stood out for me as far as the schedule is concerned. Um, like I said, you have uh the opening night game against OKC and then also you have the Christmas day game against the Lakers which the Rockets again haven’t played on Christmas since 2019. And I know a lot of Rockets fans are going to want to forget that because that was the infamous Damen Lee, D’Angelo Russell, Golden State game where they were playing without Steph Curry and they somehow still blew the Rockets out. It was I still remember that game to this day. I was over at my dad’s house watching the game and it was one of the worst games I’ve ever watched cuz the Rockets just looked disjointed and just looked like they it was pretty bad. So that the last time the Rockets played on Christmas was that Christmas Day loss to the Golden State Warriors in 2019. So it’s been six years. So it’ll definitely be entertaining. Of course, the opening night and the Christmas game will be on the road, unfortunately. But it’s still good that the Rockets are getting a national televised exposure, something they haven’t gotten since James Harden left in 2021. Um so of course that’s another day that kind of stood out to me. But again, um the main thing will be um focusing on that opening night game, which will be huge to kind of put the Rockets I mean, I think they’re already kind of on the map, but that will really put them out there if they’re able to go in there and beat Oklahoma City on ring night with Kevin Durant in his very first game. Of course, like I said, this first home game will be against Detroit um a few days later at the Toyota Center. So, I’m sure that’s definitely going to be a soldout game. It’s another one to definitely keep your eye on. But again, um it’s good to be back. We’re still going to be kind of hit or miss from August, September cuz there’s not a lot going on outside of the schedule release. Um the Rockets may have some events. Of course, I’ll be out of that. But as far as big Rockets news, probably won’t be any more until we get closer to media day, which like I said, it’s at the end of September. And then, of course, you have training camp. And then after training camp, you have preseason. Then we’re off and running for the rest of the NBA season. So, um, like I said, I’ll probably have a more in-depth show this weekend on the looking at the entire schedule, but that’s kind of just my quick thoughts on the schedule. So, as usual, I definitely appreciate support. If you’re new to the channel, definitely thank you for checking us out. Like I said, I’m a credential reporter, so I will definitely bring you all the behind the scenes, the interviews, um the events throughout the year, the practices, um any breaking news, I will definitely be bringing that to you, um throughout, you know, of course the rest of season, but definitely throughout the season. So, if you’re new to the channel, definitely welcome in. And if you’re not subscribed to the channel, please subscribe because we are over 5,000 subscribers. I want to get to 10,000. I know it’s a big number, but I want to get to 10,000 by the end of this NBA season. And I think with all the excitement around the rocks, I think we can definitely get there. And I appreciate all the people that have already subscribed. So again, I appreciate everybody checking out the channel, checking out the show. So make sure you check out the next episode of the Rockets Fuel Podcast. [Music]

Houston Rockets Schedule Release! What Stood Out? I take a quick look at the Rockets’ first ten games and what stood out about the rest of the schedule.

Follow us on:
Twitter: @RocketFuelPod: @BinkleyHoops
Apple Podcast:
https://apple.co/46aZMfJ
Spotify Podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/show/1JOapo0QoVJthV2HCg0qjN

#nba #houstonrockets #alperensengun #kevindurant #nbaschedule