{"id":631671,"date":"2026-05-08T22:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T22:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/631671\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T22:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T22:03:11","slug":"what-the-rockets-offseason-should-look-like-after-a-first-round-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/631671\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Rockets’ Offseason Should Look Like After a First-Round Exit"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s clear after the Rockets\u2019 first-round exit against the Lakers<\/a> that the franchise has some things to shake up this summer, and all attention needs to be on offense. The last thing that makes sense is blowing up the roster, because there\u2019s enough talent here already. What\u2019s lacking is a consistent offensive identity.<\/p>\n

Defensively, Houston<\/a> already has the pieces they need. Back in December, they were sitting firmly in top-three territory in defensive rating and were borderline miserable to play against. Even after Steven Adams<\/a> went down in January and that number slipped, they still finished sixth in the league defensively<\/a> by the end of the season. He\u2019ll be back by preseason, so rinsing and repeating much of the earlier version of the defense is probably the move.<\/p>\n

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The glaring issue is that at some point this year, the offense went from performing like a well-oiled machine to \u201cgive KD the ball and hope something cool happens,\u201d which, to be fair, works a decent amount of the time because Kevin Durant<\/a> is Kevin Durant. There\u2019s still a huge difference between having a bailout option and building your entire offensive rhythm around emergency possessions.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the coaching staff has to evolve a little.<\/p>\n

Ime Udoka isn\u2019t going anywhere, nor should he. The defense alone earned him that security. But if Houston is serious about becoming an actual contender instead of just an annoying playoff team, the staff desperately needs another offensive-minded voice in the room \u2014 someone focused on movement, flow, spacing, anything that doesn\u2019t end with four guys watching KD dribble into traffic.<\/p>\n

Getting Fred VanVleet<\/a> back at the point and having Amen Thompson<\/a> develop a respectable jumper changes the geometry of the entire offense overnight. Reed Sheppard<\/a> still needs more structure around him offensively instead of being tossed random possessions and told to create magic. Alperen \u015eeng\u00fcn needs more movement around him instead of getting stranded at the elbow waiting for somebody to cut.<\/p>\n

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The hard part is already done. Houston spent an entire season proving they can defend, compete, and be taken seriously. Now they need to figure out how to stop making scoring look miserable for themselves.<\/p>\n

Eventually, \u201cwe\u2019ll figure it out offensively later\u201d stops being development and becomes the thing holding you back for another season, so the next step needs to be turning improv into intention and direction. The good news for Houston is this probably isn\u2019t as complicated as they\u2019re making it look.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s clear after the Rockets\u2019 first-round exit against the Lakers that the franchise has some things to shake…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[47943,17816,23140,7095,5556,355,60525,99,47940,43589],"class_list":["post-631671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-amen-thompson","tag-defensive-rating","tag-fred-vanvleet","tag-houston","tag-kevin-durant","tag-nba","tag-reed-sheppard","tag-sports","tag-steven-adams","tag-the-lakers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631671","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=631671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}