Rockets: the offseason so far
the record
The desk keeps a day-by-day record of everything that happens to the Houston Rockets: results with the players who decided them, injury changes, roster moves, reports, milestones and the schedule ahead. The story of the offseason is written from that record every week; the timeline below is the record itself, each line linked to the page that proves it.
The projection
all 30 teams →The season depends most on Marcus Smart (10.7 wins without him), Amen Thompson (9.1 wins without him), Steven Adams (3.5 wins without him), Clint Capela (2.1 wins without him) and Kevin Durant (2.0 wins without him): on/off from 2025-26, details under Injuries. Computed Thu, Sep 10; the method is on the methods page.
Day by day
the record starts with the first news of the seasonThe franchise today
Updated 2026-09-09Now
Ime Udoka enters his third season as head coach with a roster built by trade and by draft. Alperen Şengün, Jabari Smith Jr., Amen Thompson, Reed Sheppard and Tari Eason all came through Houston's own draft picks, and last July 6 the Rockets traded Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks to Phoenix in a seven-team deal for Kevin Durant, turning a young rebuild into a win-now group. Marcus Smart and Steven Adams round out the core. Last season, 2025-26, Houston went 52-30, with a net rating that ranked 6th in the league, an offense that ranked 8th and a defense that ranked 5th. In the first round of the playoffs, the Rockets forced a game 6 against the Lakers after trailing 3-0, both of those wins coming without Durant on the floor, but they lost game 6 and were eliminated. The payroll sits at $205.5 million across 16 contracts, above the $200.4 million luxury tax line and closing in on the $209.0 million first apron, with Durant ($43.9M), Şengün ($35.6M), Fred VanVleet ($25.0M, player option) and Smith Jr. ($23.6M) as the four biggest deals. Houston holds or has swap rights on its first-round picks through 2030 but owes a 2028 second-rounder to Charlotte and a 2029 second-rounder to Memphis. The Rockets made no moves this summer; the roster is the same one that lost to the Lakers.
Identity and rivalries
Houston plays through size and defense now, not the pace-and-space era that made the franchise famous. The pace, under 97 possessions a game, sits well below the sprint style of the Harden-D'Antoni years, and the offense runs through Şengün at the elbow and the post rather than a barrage of threes. Durant adds a scorer who gets his own shot without needing pace, while Thompson and Eason chase plays on the defensive end. The rivalry that shaped this franchise's modern era runs through Golden State, which eliminated Houston from the playoffs four times in five years during the Harden era. The more immediate one now is the Lakers, who ended Houston's season last spring. Getting past a team like that in the first round, rather than just pushing it to the brink, is what this group has to prove.
Home, owners and numbers
The Rockets play at Toyota Center, an 18,500-seat arena in downtown Houston that has been their home since the 2003-04 season. Tilman Fertitta, the Houston restaurant and hospitality billionaire, has owned the team since 2017, when he paid $2.2 billion, a record price for an American pro sports franchise at the time. The names that still define the Rockets' identity are Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, the Phi Slama Jama-era Houston legends the team has repeatedly honored in its uniforms, most directly in the 2023-24 City edition built around their Cougars roots. Their era is still the measuring stick for everything the current roster is chasing.
What they are chasing
Houston is chasing a return past the first round, after a season that ended with a loss to the Lakers. The front office already sits above the luxury tax line, and the next threshold, a second apron at $221.7 million, is not far off if this roster gets bigger. Fans argue about whether ownership keeps paying into the tax to hold this Şengün-Durant core together, and whether a defense-first, below-league-pace team built around a 37-year-old Durant has enough scoring punch to get past a second round it hasn't reached in years.
The Houston Rockets have won two NBA championships and four Western Conference titles. The franchise began in 1967 as the San Diego Rockets, an expansion team founded by Robert Breitbard for a $1.75 million entry fee. Elvin Hayes, the first overall pick in the 1968 NBA draft, led the team to its first playoff appearance as a rookie. Financial trouble tied to the San Diego Sports Arena forced Breitbard to sell in 1971 to a Houston-based investment group, Texas Sports Investments, which paid $5.6 million and moved the team, making it the first NBA franchise in Texas.
In Houston, Moses Malone, acquired from the ABA, led the Rockets to the Eastern Conference finals in 1976-77 and to their first NBA Finals in 1981, where they lost to the Boston Celtics in six games. The 1984 draft brought Hakeem Olajuwon with the first overall pick; paired with 7-foot-4 Ralph Sampson, the "Twin Towers" reached the 1986 Finals, again losing to Boston. Ownership changed hands as George Maloof bought the team for $9 million in 1979, and Charlie Thomas and Sidney Shlenker purchased it for $11 million in 1982.
The franchise's peak came under coach Rudy Tomjanovich. In 1993-94, Olajuwon led Houston to a then-record 58 wins and the franchise's first championship, beating the New York Knicks in the Finals. With Clyde Drexler added, the Rockets repeated as champions in 1994-95, sweeping the Orlando Magic in four games. Charles Barkley joined in 1996 but the team could not get past the Western Conference finals, and Olajuwon, Drexler, and Barkley were all gone by 2001. Moses Malone, Olajuwon, and later James Harden combined for four MVP awards with the Rockets.
The early 2000s brought Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming, both hampered by injuries, and years of regular-season success without playoff breakthroughs. After Yao's retirement in 2011, the Rockets rebuilt around James Harden, acquired in 2012, who played nine seasons without a losing record and led two trips to the Western Conference finals, both losses to the Golden State Warriors. Under general manager Daryl Morey, the team became known for advanced statistical analytics in team-building and style of play. When coach Mike D'Antoni and Morey left before the 2020-21 season, Harden requested a trade to the Brooklyn Nets, starting a new rebuild.
The Rockets play home games at Toyota Center in Downtown Houston, having previously spent 29 seasons at The Summit starting in 1975-76. The team's identity carries the "Rockets" name from San Diego's "city in motion" theme and General Dynamics' Atlas missile and booster rocket work, and the classic yellow-and-red logo introduced in the early 1970s ran through the 1994-95 season. A longtime in-state rivalry with the San Antonio Spurs dates back to the 1981 playoff run.