{"id":382455,"date":"2026-01-01T23:01:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T23:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/382455\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T23:01:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T23:01:18","slug":"former-auburn-standout-surging-as-kevin-durants-teammate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/382455\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Auburn standout surging as Kevin Durant\u2019s teammate"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Houston Rockets acquired Kevin Durant as part of a seven-team trade on July 6, the addition of the 15-time NBA all-star and four-time league scoring champ raised questions about Jabari Smith Jr<\/a>.\u2019s role with the team.<\/p>\n

But Durant\u2019s presence hasn\u2019t curtailed Smith\u2019s playing time. In his fourth NBA season, the former Auburn<\/a> star is playing a career-high average of 34.3 minutes per game as Rockets coach Ime Udoka has chosen to start the 6-foot-11 forwards with 6-11 center Alperen Sengun in the league\u2019s longest frontcourt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Smith heads into Thursday\u2019s game against the Brooklyn Nets with a streak of six consecutive games with at least 15 points, the longest since he joined Houston<\/a> as the third choice in the 2022 NBA Draft. Smith had two previous five-game streaks — one in March 2023 and one in November 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s just us playing together,\u201d Smith said<\/a> of his scoring surge. \u201cFeeling out each other, knowing where to be at. I mean, it ain\u2019t going to be perfect when we step on the floor for the first game of the year or the 10th game. You know what I\u2019m saying? It\u2019s going to take time. So I think it\u2019s just us playing together. Us being on the floor more, like, it\u2019s just more of a natural flow. Folks know where to be at. If you ain\u2019t in the right spot, you feel it. So I think it\u2019s just more so us just playing together and the feel type of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith is averaging 15.8 points and 1.9 assists per game and is making 38.4 percent of his 3-point shots and 53.8 percent of his 2-point shots. All are career highs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to need that going forward,\u201d Durant said<\/a>. \u201cMe and Bari talk a lot about taking the shots that we want to take, never letting the defense dictate what we do out there and just playing, using our length, using our size to get shots off, and Bari has just been tough to stop down in that post, knocking it down to three, so doing everything for us. So we\u2019re going to need that from him.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Rockets\u2019 most recent game, Smith had 21 points and 10 rebounds for his fifth double-double over Houston\u2019s past nine contests, along with two assists and three blocked shots, in a 126-119 victory over the Indiana Pacers on Monday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was great,\u201d Udoka said<\/a>. \u201cHe picked his spots when he got the shots. He\u2019s going to take those all the time. But \u2026 he was able to free up a little bit and take advantage of some matchups. Went to iso postups when he had them, and then the offensive rebounds are great. That energy and effort from him, it kind of rubs off on the group.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a 20-10 record after three victories in a row, Houston is fourth in the NBA West standings. The Rockets are continuing their trajectory since Smith joined. In his rookie season, Houston had a 22-60 record \u2013 two more victories than the Rockets had in the season before Smith came aboard. In Smith\u2019s second season, Houston went 41-41, then had a 52-30 record last season for its first playoff berth in five years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Houston Rockets acquired Kevin Durant as part of a seven-team trade on July 6, the addition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-382455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382455","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=382455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}