The sky is falling! Sound the alarm! Catastrophize!
Dear God, why isn’t anybody catastrophizing?
That’s the vibe on Rockets X. The Rockets lost by three points to the Denver Nuggets. So the logical conclusion
is that the entire season is wasted.
That’s obviously absurd. Rockets fans should leave that for Stephen A. Smith and other purveyors of chicanery. Take a breath. Touch grass, as the youth are keen to advise. It’s going to be OK.
That said, a measured critique of this team’s approach is fair game. The Rockets are good, but they’d like to be better. There’s some low-hanging fruit to pick:
And I’ve got a strange hankering for figs.
Rockets need to move the ball more
Here’s the most negative thing I’m comfortable saying about the Rockets:
The offense is a bit gimmicky.
It is! Yes, the Rockets still boast an NBA-best 122.5 Offensive Rating. That’s great, but winning regular-season games was never the objective in 2025-26.
The regular season is a time to theorize. In the playoffs, it’s time for application. So, here’s the question:
Are the Rockets’ playoff opponents going to let them pummel them on the offensive glass for four to seven games?
That’s been the fundamental basis of the team’s success. The Rockets don’t have the league’s best offense because they run a sophisticated strategy. Their historic 40.9 Offensive Rebounding % simply allows them to get a lot more shots than their opponent every night. Strategically, the attack is rudimentary. The Rockets’ 57.1% Assist Percentage is dead-last in the NBA. Their 34.6% Pass Percentage ranks 26th.
In a vacuum, that’s fine. Aesthetic and function can be uncomfortable bedfellows. Just ask my wife, who prefers to have roughly one million pillows on the bed so we can spend a few minutes taking all but four of them off before we sleep every night.
In theory, fewer passers mean fewer turnovers. Some coaches opt to sacrifice ball movement in the name of ball security. Their offenses are designed to get their best scorers in isolation, using screens to make space for them instead of passes to create easier opportunities.
Only, the Rockets’ 15.7% Turnover Percentage ranks just 21st. This offense lacks dynamism, and it’s not even reliable enough to compensate.
Is this the worst best offense in the NBA in NBA history?
Rockets need to make small adjustments
To be clear, the sky is not falling.
The Rockets remain one of the best teams in the NBA. There’s plenty to be excited about. Alperen Sengun is approaching top-10 player status, Reed Sheppard is approaching potential future top-10 player status.
Sure, Amen Thompson has regressed. It’s likely part of the issue. His usage has spiked 17.2% to 20.3%, and so far, he’s not justifying the increased responsibility.
That’s a fair but overstated concern. Thompson established a high baseline in 2024-25. If the Rockets decide to abandon the point guard project at any point, they’ve got a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate with secondary playmaking on their hands.
Durant’s regression may be a larger concern. Don’t look now, but his 24.6 points per game would be his lowest since 2008-09, and his 61.0 True Shooting % (TS%) would be his worst mark since 2010-11. At 37, it’s fair to wonder whether this is his new form.
Yet, neither of those marks is poor on league-wide standards. As far as the long-term plan goes, Durant was always a stopgap. As for right now, the Rockets still flipped Jalen Green for a much better shot maker, so everything is roughly on schedule.
The Rockets’ Offensive Rating may be, to some extent, fool’s gold, but pyrite is often found near real gold, too. It’s good to dominate teams on the glass, and the Rockets will do that all year long. There’s no reason to make sweeping changes, but sharing the rock a little bit (or at the very least, turning it over less) might make the offense more playoff-proof.
If we’re lucky, it’ll lead to Rockets X shutting the (expletive) up a little bit, too.
