{"id":439688,"date":"2026-01-28T23:56:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T23:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/439688\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T23:56:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T23:56:07","slug":"rockets-center-steven-adams-has-season-ending-ankle-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/439688\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets center Steven Adams has season-ending ankle surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston is a dozen games above .500 and played its way into the top four in the West despite playing the entire season without starting point guard Fred VanVleet.<\/p>\n

Now the Rockets are down another starter for the rest of the season: Center Steven Adams has undergone season-ending left ankle surgery, a story first reported by ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania<\/a> and confirmed by others, including Adams himself. <\/p>\n

Adams sprained his ankle 10 days ago against the Pelicans and has been out since with a Grade 3 sprain, according to the team. Adams needing surgery was always a possibility.<\/p>\n

While his counting stats are not eye-catching \u2014 5.8 points and 8.6 rebounds a game, on 50.4% shooting \u2014 his elite offensive rebounding was critical to a team with the fourth-best offense in the NBA despite having the 17th-ranked True Shooting Percentage. Adams averaged 4.5 offensive rebounds a game, leading a Rockets offense that grabs the offensive board on a league-leading 40.6% of their missed shots \u2014 those second chances are what drive Houston\u2019s offense. The Rockets have a +11.2 net rating when Adams is on the court this season.<\/p>\n

In the four games without Adams since his ankle injury, that offensive rebound rate has fallen to 35%, and the Rockets\u2019 offense is 16th in the league in that stretch.<\/p>\n

Look for coach Ime Udoka to give Clint Capela more run, plus lean into small-ball lineups with Jabari Smith Jr. at the five. Also, expect the Houston front office to at least explore trading for a center before next week\u2019s trade deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston is a dozen games above .500 and played its way into the top four in the West…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-439688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}