If you happen to have spent a certain amount of you life as foolishly as I have, writing about the Rockets, you, too, might have a sense that certain Rockets players are “yours” in a sense. It’s silly, I know, but the sense of it is very present. One of those players is Clint Capela. I liked him from the start, and I think he’ll probably never get the correct assessment of his career, which to me is “a star in his role”.
He’s also one of several Rockets non American bigs who looked absolutely fantastic
in terms of his stats and advanced measures, but seemed to garner little general draft interest (joining Alperen Sengun in that). Leading to one of my rules of drafting, which is, if a foreign big has amazing predictive stats, and will come cheap in a draft, just draft him. The other is, the rule for guards is “spray and pray” or, rather, draft a lot of them, you never know which one really can do things at the NBA level. Even just a decent guard, cheap, is a very valuable player in the NBA.
Anyhow, to Clint Capela. It seems like the comings and goings of Capela have marked significant milestones for the Rockets. The drafting of Capela back in 2014, was a decisive moment for the Rockets, even if nobody much knew it at the time. He’d be the perfect center partner for James Harden (find me one in all Harden’s wanderings he’s done better with) and also a very fine defensive center, and especially, rebounder. When Capela became the starter, the Harden Rockets really took off.
The trade of Capela, to Atlanta, in the 2020-21 season really marked the end of the Rockets ambitions as a serious title contender. There are intellectual reasons for the move, I suppose, but doubling down on Russell Westbrook never really worked for any team.
The return of Capela, through no fault of Clint’s, marked another watershed, in my mind, as it exposed flaws in both the front office and coaching. Hard capping a team in the summer is, well, a smug lawyerly thing to do. Let me explain. Law types are most often not the “adjust on the fly, finger tip feel for the moment” types. They are bad at improv for the most part. At their best, they’re thoughtful, and try to plan for contingencies. So contracts lawyer Rafael Stone had a lovely team in the off season of 2025. All tidy and ready to go. Then Fred VanVleet got hurt and Stone…froze? Chose to give up? Was hard capped by his “perfect lawyerly construction” of a team in the off season?
Then there’s Ime Udoka. Stone thoughtfully provided the Rockets with three playable centers, two of whom, Capela and Adams are in the top ten, ALL TIME, in offensive rebounding rates. When one center, Adams, completely unshockingly, got hurt early the season, you’d think the move would be just slot in Clint Capela. That’s exactly what Ime Udoka didn’t do. This despite the metrics of Capela in the few minutes he played (926) holding up well, career wise.
But you know, the vibes were wrong. Capela was heavier than his usual playing weight, and couldn’t move like the Baby Deer of old. If you’re a Vibes Coach, who just does stuff like not play shooters when the team absolutely needs a three, because of the vibes, then that means Capela is just bad. Play his way into shape? Figure out who he needs to play with to be effective, because he’s still grabbing boards like a demon? Nope. Absolutely not, unless forced to do so.
Capela said at Media Day that he’d dropped 4% off his total body fat number. That means he probably looks better in a uniform and can move better. So he’ll probably play more, right? Who knows? I certainly don’t. If Clint does play, expect roughly a repeat of last season (per36): 11pts/13rbs (6.2 offensive)/2ast/1.4blk/2.4stl if not a shade better, due to better conditioning than Clint had in Atlanta.
That looks like a great stat line for a backup center to me, but vibes, bro, vibes.
