Rockets Season Grades: Judging Houston's Year After Disappointing First-Round Exit to Lakers

This season was an interesting one for the Rockets. Pegged as a top-tier title contender after swapping Dillon Brooks and Jalen Green for Kevin Durant, things went off the rails before the season even started when Fred VanVleet tore his ACL in September. The lack of a true point guard was immediately obvious as Houston struggled to score at a high level-but won lots of games anyway by bludgeoning opponents defensively and on the boards. Then Steven Adams, a key part of both aspects, suffered a season-ending injury of his own in January.

That turned the Rockets into the team we saw during these playoffs: a talented but imbalanced team overly reliant on a 37-year-old Durant to score points. And when he went down in the first round, Houston couldn't compensate. The result? A five-game series loss to the Lakers.

It makes for a mixed bag of a year for the franchise. Let's try to make sense of all that happened and whittle everything down to a final grade.

Regular season: B

Given the two disastrous injuries the Rockets suffered.... finishing the year with 52 wins is pretty good.

Their trade for Durant was immediately a win, especially for the relatively low cost they paid to bring him to town. The future Hall of Famer averaged 26 points per game while just missing out on the 50/40/90 club in another typically excellent year for the longtime bucket-getter. Did Houston overly rely on Durant? Certainly. Coach Ime Udoka definitely wishes he could've kept KD's playing time lower than the 36.4 minutes per game he finished the year with. But there is no questioning he delivered what the Rockets were hoping for by acquiring him.

In tandem with his skills, another All-Star campaign from Alperen Şengün and the entire roster committing to dominating the offensive boards (the Rockets led the NBA with 15 per game), Houston was able to finish with the eighth-ranked offense in the league by net rating.

On the other end, the Rockets continued to build their reputation as a physical, intense defensive team under Udoka. They finished eighth in defensive rating, one of only five teams to finish top-10 in both offensive and defensive rating. Amen Thompson was a demon yet again on that end and Houston won many games with its defensive prowess when the offense sputtered. It was exactly what we'd expect from an Udoka squad.

The results were mostly there. But in the big picture the Rockets won 52 games last year, traded for KD to become contenders, and then won 52 games again. They should be pleased the injuries didn't result in the wheels coming off, but shouldn't be celebrated for not improving in a quantifiable way year-over-year as a team. So a B feels fair.

Playoffs: C

The wheels did come off once the postseason hit.

In the lead-up to their first-round series against the Lakers. who were missing both Austin Reaves and Luka Dončić, the Rockets were widely considered favorites. But Durant, after finishing the year ranked second in total minutes played, got hurt during practice-and Houston was exposed to start the series. The roster at large proved completely inept without KD, unable to generate offense against a flawed opponent to a genuinely shocking degree.

All of that put the Rockets in a 3–0 hole. They showed some resilience in earning a Game 4 win to avoid the sweep and then flying to Los Angeles for a gutsy Game 5 victory to bring the series back to Houston for Game 6. Their season ended there, but it would have been very easy to roll over against LeBron James with how poorly things went in the first three games.

It doesn't lessen the significance of the weaknesses revealed by how the series played out. There remain many questions about this roster's viability in postseason play and to what degree Durant can be counted on after a long regular season. However, the grit and determination showed by a group of players everybody counted out after Game 3 counts for something. At the very least it turned this playoff run from a disaster beyond words to merely a disappointment, with moments to be proud of.

The end result still makes this a C grade but there are positives to take away-something we couldn't imagine saying after they blew a six-point lead in 30 seconds in Game 3.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Rockets Season Grades: Judging Houston's Year After Disappointing First-Round Exit to Lakers.

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This story was originally published May 1, 2026 at 9:28 PM.