{"id":171114,"date":"2025-09-26T20:11:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T20:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/171114\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T20:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T20:11:07","slug":"rockets-tari-eason-situation-is-unravelling-into-a-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/171114\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets&#8217; Tari Eason situation is unravelling into a nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5f\">The Houston Rockets have <a href=\"https:\/\/spacecityscoop.com\/tari-eason-future-rockets-crystal-clear-jabari-smith-jr-deal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">not extended Tari Eason yet.<\/a> They need to make him feel valued before it&#8217;s too late. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5i\">Lately, Eason&#8217;s social media activity has been troubling. That&#8217;s not a knock on him. He&#8217;s been voicing discontent over being left off <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/46304114\/nba-rank-2025-2026-flagg-beal-reaves-best-players-100-51\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ESPN&#8217;s Top 100 list: <\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5l\">And he&#8217;s entirely right. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5o\">You know that. You&#8217;re a Rockets fan. The Rockets had better know it, too. Eason is a top-100 player in this league by any measure: <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5r\">Rest assured, he knows it. <\/p>\n<p>Rockets&#8217; Eason feels snubbed by new list <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5x\">Eason posed a simple <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TAR13ASON\/status\/1971361085531082765\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">question on social media: <\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"60\">&#8220;Who makes these lists?&#8221; <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"63\">Well, ESPN. The question is: How did they overlook Eason? <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"66\">RJ Barrett rounds out the list at 100. Stephon Castle comes in next at 99th. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"69\">Let&#8217;s skip ahead. Even if ESPN is factoring durability into their equation, there are at least 20 players Eason should be ahead of on this list. It&#8217;s a snub by any measure. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6c\">Last year, his 3.3 steals per 100 possessions ranked fourth in the NBA. Eason had a 3.6 Box Plus\/Minus (BPM). This is a top-tier wing defender who also provides some scoring punch. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6f\">Ultimately, it should be seen as inconsequential. Ranking the 100 best players in the NBA is no small task. Mistakes will be made. ESPN likely just overlooked a young bench wing who&#8217;s spent too much time on the injury report. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-13\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6i\">The Rockets can&#8217;t afford to make the same mistake. <\/p>\n<p>Rockets must value Eason <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-15\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6o\">The timing here could not be worse. If you haven&#8217;t heard, Eason is eligible for a rookie scale extension as we speak. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-16\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6r\">The Rockets&#8217; books are getting messy. It&#8217;s a consequence of accumulating so much talent. Kevin Durant will need an extension soon. Alperen Sengun, Fred VanVleet, and (arguably) Jabari Smith Jr. are all on below-market deals, but they&#8217;re still considerably large. The Rockets need to keep room on the sheet for <a href=\"https:\/\/spacecityscoop.com\/rockets-amen-thompson-favorite-prestigious-award-close\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Amen Thompson above all else. <\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-17\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6u\">They still need to prioritize Eason.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-18\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6x\">It wouldn&#8217;t be controversial to say that he&#8217;s been more impactful than Smith Jr. so far. Eason&#8217;s injury history will factor into his negotiations, but his undeniable production should as well. ESPN can overlook Eason, but Rafael Stone cannot. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-19\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"70\">For now? Eason should use this as fuel. He&#8217;s more than capable of showing the world that he belongs on this list. If he can stay healthy, who knows how high Eason could rank ahead of 2026-27? <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-21\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"76\">He&#8217;d better be entering the season as a Rocket. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Rockets have not extended Tari Eason yet. They need to make him feel valued before it&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-171114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}