The Houston Rockets are expected to be one of the teams taking the biggest steps forward this season after a major overhaul this summer that started with hiring Ime Udoka as head coach and continued with the signings of Fred VanVleet and Dillon Brooks (among others) in free agency.
The youth movement in Houston is still going on, but those young players now have an infrastructure around them to provide the needed support to start winning basketball games. The “talent acquisition” phase for the Rockets should be over and, with what they hope is an environment more conducive to winning, the real evaluation of guys like Jalen Green, Alperen Sengun, Jabari Smith Jr., Amen Thompson, and Tari Eason can begin. The Rockets are almost assuredly going to win more games and be more competitive this year, but it will require a massive leap forward to go beyond that to fight for a Play-In spot in the very crowded Western Conference. If that is to happen, one major question looms and one of their young players holds the key to unlocking a higher ceiling.
Biggest Question: How Big A Leap Can They Take On Defense?
The reason Udoka was hired was to bring a defensive identity to a team that has been lacking one for two years. It’s also why VanVleet was the target over James Harden in free agency, and why they are willing to deal with Dillon Brooks’ at times frustrating antics to bring in an All-Defense caliber wing. It’d be hard not to take a step forward defensively from last year, when they were 29th in defensive rating (per Basketball-Reference), but it remains to be seen how big that step can be.
At this point, they should have enough on the perimeter and wing to be able to always have a couple good defenders on the floor at all times, which is a considerable upgrade from where they’ve been. VanVleet and Brooks are proven pests on the perimeter, while Eason and Thompson have the frames, athleticism, and profile to be very good on that end, they just need the structure around them. The real question on defense is whether they have enough rim protection, as they weren’t able to land the defensive upgrade they hoped for in free agency when Brook Lopez balked and returned to the Bucks. As such, Sengun will be back starting at the five, where he doesn’t provide much in terms of rim deterrence (0.9 blocks per game a year ago) but also was not being helped much at all by a very leaky point of attack defense.
Houston will be a really interesting test of how much improving your point of attack defense can raise your defensive level overall if you still lack elite rim protection. Sengun shouldn’t be left on islands trying to cover two guys at once as much as last year and can focus more on being in the right position, which should help him be more effective, but there’s a ceiling to his impact on that end. They have a chance to be special offensively if things click for enough of their youngsters at once, but they’ll need to climb out of the bottom third of the league on defense to have a chance at a really surprising leap into Play-In contention.
X-Factor: Alperen Sengun
As noted in the above section, Sengun holds a lot of importance to this team because they are going to need him to be at least passable on defense. It’s certainly possible he gets there with better structure around him, as he has good hands and could be disruptive in his own way without being a dominant paint defender. The reason that’s so important is because he is the one that unlocks a lot of what this team can be on the offensive end. There will, rightfully, be a lot of attention paid to Green and Smith Jr.’s development this season, as both need to take strides forward in terms of efficiency and should benefit greatly from playing next to a real veteran point guard in VanVleet.
However, I think Sengun stands to benefit more than just about anyone else from having a better facilitator on the floor with VanVleet. I’d expect those two’s minutes to be paired an awful lot, because having a point guard that can get him the ball on time and on his spots will only make him a more effective and efficient scorer, while also needing to be paired with a solid screen navigator on defense. Sengun has tremendous offensive upside both as a scorer and playmaker, and I’m fascinated to see how Udoka deploys him and tries to maximize his skillset this season. Playing on a team with a coherent identity should allow Sengun to show his full abilities on the offensive end. A year ago, Sengun was second on the Rockets with 3.9 assists per game, and I’d expect them to continue leaning on his playmaking abilities even more this season.
Part of what makes Sengun so important to this Rockets is they don’t really have anyone else capable of impacting the game the way he can on offense. Jock Landale is a very solid backup big man and will give Udoka an option for a solid rim protector off the bench, but is not anywhere close to as dynamic on offense as Sengun. While there are some overlapping talents elsewhere on the roster, they are banking heavily on Sengun at the center position right now. As such, if he stagnates this year, the Rockets will probably end up right around their win total projection of 30 or so wins and be a mid-lottery team. However, if he continues to grow and the structure around him improves to augment all the things he seemingly can do, that could unlock that higher level for Houston to allow them to start dreaming a bit earlier of a Play-In chase.
