{"id":181679,"date":"2025-09-25T22:11:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T22:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/181679\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T22:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T22:11:08","slug":"underrated-guard-is-the-perfect-rockets-trade-target-after-fred-vanvleet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/181679\/","title":{"rendered":"Underrated guard is the perfect Rockets trade target after Fred VanVleet"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Fred VanVleet likely to miss the entire 2025-26 NBA season with a torn ACL, the Houston Rockets should look up north and target Immanuel Quickley in a potential trade. The Toronto Raptors guard offers a bit of everything, excelling in manners that directly align with Houston’s needs.<\/p>\n

Compounded by the uncertainty surrounding Toronto’s vision in the aftermath of Masai Ujiri’s departure, the Rockets could land a perfect fit at a reasonable cost in Quickley.<\/p>\n

Quickley, 26, is entering the second season of a five-year, $162.5 million contract with a flat annual salary of $32.5 million. It’s an admittedly steep cost that could give Houston pause as it weighs its options on the trade front, particularly with four fully guaranteed seasons remaining on the deal.<\/p>\n

After playing just 33 games in 2024-25, there’s even more reason to press pause on a potential move for a player who isn’t exactly checking the boxes at first glance.<\/p>\n

Quickley had never missed more than 14 games before the 2024-25 season, however, and has proven capable of adapting to a variety of roles. He’s thrived as a starter and sixth man, as well as a scorer and playmaker while simultaneously embracing the nature of a defensive-minded head coach.<\/p>\n

With the offensive skill set and underrated defensive proficiency to fit the Rockets’ culture and needs<\/a>, Quickley is the epitome of a high-reward target at a time of need.<\/p>\n

Immanuel Quickley is the missing piece for Rockets’ championship vision<\/p>\n

Quickley boasts career averages of 14.0 points, 3.7 assists, 3.4 rebounds, and 2.1 three-point field goals made per game on .421\/.375\/.858 shooting. Important context, however, is that he didn’t average more than 23.1 minutes per game until his third season.<\/p>\n

On a per-36 basis, Quickley’s career averages translate to eye-opening marks of 19.7 points, 5.2 assists, 4.8 rebounds, 1.0 steal, and 2.9 three-point field goals made.<\/p>\n

Quickley has taken his game to a new level over the past three years, starting with when he finished second in Sixth Man of the Year voting in 2022-23. He’s shot 38.1 percent from beyond the arc during that three-year stretch while being tasked with playing as both an on and off-ball scorer, as well as a playmaker.<\/p>\n

Since joining the Toronto Raptors in 2023-24, Quickley has averaged 17.9 points and 6.3 assists per game\u2014shooting 38.7 percent from beyond the arc and committing just 1.8 turnovers per contest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That type of versatile offensive value could prove significant to a Rockets team that projected to rely heavily upon VanVleet in 2025-26. VanVleet isn’t just an NBA champion and proven postseason performer, but Houston’s most reliable playmaker.<\/p>\n

Without VanVleet, the Rockets will likely lean on Reed Sheppard, who went No. 3 overall in the 2024 NBA Draft but has yet to receive consistent opportunities in the NBA.<\/p>\n

Quickley, meanwhile, is a more proven commodity who can offer reliable production and quality as a team defender. The hurdle, of course, will be lining up the necessary contracts and draft assets to complete a mutually beneficial trade.<\/p>\n

Fair a concern as that may be, if the Rockets decide that Sheppard isn’t the immediate answer, they could realistically put a package together to land Quickley once trade restrictions are lifted on Dec. 15. In the process, Houston could take a significant step toward contending.<\/p>\n

Quickley is an expensive player to target, but the Rockets’ vision of winning a championship would be instantly legitimized by acquiring his talents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Fred VanVleet likely to miss the entire 2025-26 NBA season with a torn ACL, the Houston Rockets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-181679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}