The 2025-26 NBA season was supposed to be a big year for Tari Eason. At least, he was banking on it from a contractual standpoint.
Eason was essentially the only player Houston drafted and developed that didn’t land a contract extension. Thus far, at least.
Jalen Green secured a long-term deal before getting traded for Kevin Durant, and both Alperen Sengun and Jabari Smith Jr. secured rookie-scale extensions alike. Amen Thompson will certainly be getting one.
Houston’s brass offered Eason a $100 million
dear, with an injury guarantee. In other words, a non-fully guaranteed deal, which Eason understandably rebuffed.
At the start of the season, it seemed like a wise gamble. The fourth-year forward was shooting 50.9 percent from long-range through the first 11 games of the season, while also averaging 11.5 points off the bench.
Then he got injured (for the first time), causing him to miss 14 games. Eason returned with a bang, averaging 12.5 points, 6.8 rebounds and 41.9 percent from deep over the next 10 games after his return.
Eason got re-injured in Houston’s back-to-back stretch against the Portland Trail Blazers and missed five games before returning, playing 10 games before the All-Star break. During those games, he averaged 12.7 points, 6.4 rebounds and 44.4 percent from deep.
In the 12 games since the All-Star break, however, he hasn’t been nearly as effective. During the Rockets’ current stretch, he’s averaging 7.3 points, 6.6 rebounds and 15.6 percent from three.
Ouch.
Eason has now gone four consecutive games without making a single three-pointer. He’s gone 1-of-19 from long-range in Houston’s last six contests.
And defensively, he’s definitely cratered. He’s generally a high impact defender, but lately, it’s become rather commonplace for him to get beat on that end. And that doesn’t even account for the amount of utterly foolish fouls we’ve seen him commit of late.
So what’s happened to Tari Eason? There’s speculation that he’s still playing injured.
There would seem to be merit to that theory, as he definitely came back rather quickly from his ankle injury suffered earlier in the season.
And if that is, in fact, the case, Ime Udoka would be wise to let him get fully healed before the playoffs start. Houston is going to need the version of Eason from earlier in the season.
Let Josh Okogie get more run while Eason rests up and gets fully healed. (Remember when we thought Okogie was the perfect role player?)
Whatever the case, the Rockets will certainly have to get better play from Eason. Expeditiously. He needs it too.
This season was essentially supposed to be a job interview for the entire league. It seems as though he misjudged his value a bit last summer.
