The Houston Rockets have an identity.
They may not have much else. You may not like that identity. You still can’t deny its existence. When rival fans think of the Rockets, they have a clear image in their minds.
They’re scrappy. The Rockets are the best rebounding team in basketball. They’re among the best defensive teams. That’s who they are.
Tari Eason has been a huge part of it.
He’s permanently ingratiated himself with some fans as a result. Not all. Some are growing tired of Eason’s mental hiccups.
To be sure, if you were told that a Houston Rocket did something egregiously silly in last night’s game, and you were asked to guess which Rocket it was, you would guess Eason.
Eason is frenetic. He’s a bull in a China shop. Some of the stuff belongs to you, and some of it belongs to your jerk neighbour that you’d secretly wish every misfortune imaginable on. You’re rolling the dice.
How do you pay a guy like that?
Rockets should look at Eason’s production
The 2025-26 season was an odd one for Eason. A lot of the qualities that made him Tari Eason weren’t quite as pronounced, and for much of the season, he spawned into a knockdown three-point shooter, only to regress rapidly to the mean.
He was still quite Eason-y. Eason’s 7.7% Offensive Rebounding % ranked just outside of the top 100. That doesn’t sound impressive, but if you go sort the league’s top offensive rebounders, unsurprisingly, they’re almost exclusively bigs. We should also filter out guys like Mo Bamba, who led the league in his whopping four games played.
The number of guys who’d exclusively be characterized as non-bigs – meaning, I’m quite sure they didn’t spend time at the five – who also played a (reasonably) full slate of games and passed Eason in the stat is small. Like, both Thompson twins small. If we’re looking at Total Rebounding %, only Josh Hart surpassed Eason’s 11.6%.
His 25.7% Steal Percentage was unremarkable, but last season’s 35.1% ranked 4th in the league among players who played 50 or more games. This is significant. Playing the passing lanes with reckless abandon is integral to Eason’s game, and something he needs to get back to in 2026-27 (no matter what team he’s on).
Let’s talk offense. Eason hit 35.8% of his threes last year, which was roughly in line with his 35.0% career mark. Still, the suggestion that he had a comparable season would be misleading. Eason was the best shooter of all time until he hit a wall and became the worst shooter in the NBA (slight hyperbole may apply). Given his regression in the hustle stat areas, it’d be fair to say Eason wasn’t as good this year as he was the year before.
His offensive profile is a bit tough to square. There have been times when, if you squint, it’s looked like Eason can create for himself. His pull-up midrange can heat up for spurts.
That said, Eason is 25. It wouldn’t be fair to hard cap his ceiling, but he’s probably not getting a whole lot better. It would probably be best if he primarily functioned as a three-and-D wing.
Yet, that’s an oversimplification of who Eason fundamentally is. Three-and-D wings who are among the very best rebounders at their position who also land near the top of the league in Steal %, are not just three-and-D wings. Unless the Rockets plan on getting Hart, they don’t otherwise exist.
You don’t let an anomaly like Eason walk.
Rockets should pay Eason (within reason)
Eason is a walking market deficiency. He’s a three-and-D, but he’s also (please pardon the Gen Z slang, I teach high school now, I can’t avoid it) a possession maxxer. Maxxing possessions is, at a core level, the Rockets’ identity.
So, to me, Eason is worth somewhere between $20 and $ 25 million per season.
Let’s call it $20. In a vacuum, it’s closer to $25, but Eason’s frequent injuries should mitigate his dollar amount to some extent. Some health-related incentives could be beneficial as well.
If Restricted Free Agency (RFA) dictates it, Houston should go as high as $25 million. They also should not be handing Amen Thompson a full max, which is relevant enough here. Trying to project their long-term cap outlook feels like a task for an egghead in the comments. All I’m confident saying is, on a per-dollar basis, Eason should be a priority for this organization. He’s flawed, but he brings too much to the table to lose:
And he’s too foundational to the team’s identity.
