Kevin Durant Has Not Helped The Houston Rockets

When the Houston Rockets made a headline trade for Kevin Durant in the offseason, they confidently believed they were adding the missing piece to a championship puzzle. However, as of Christmas Day, the team actually has a worse record than they did a season ago. By the time Santa finished dropping off his presents in 2024, the team was 20-9; this year, they are 18–10. Of those ten losses, five have come in December to the Western Conference bottom feeders, the LA Clippers, Sacramento Kings, New Orleans Pelicans, Dallas Mavericks, and Utah Jazz. 

The Durant trade came at a steep cost: Jalen Green's explosive scoring and Dillon Brooks' defensive grit, the very elements that fueled last season's success. Yes, losing Fred VanVleet's steady hand at point guard for the season with a torn ACL put a monkey wrench into the plan, but the Rockets willingly gave up Brooks, whose intensity set the team's defensive tone and who relished taking on the toughest assignments night after night.

Last season, the young Rockets were a chaotic, scrappy team, hounding opponents on defense and pushing the pace on offense. They traded away Green, who thrived alongside Alperen Sengun in a system built around their development and spontaneity, to slow down for a 37-year-old's isolation-heavy game. That high-octane offense has naturally slowed, and there now seems to be an unspoken pressure on the remaining young players to defer to Durant rather than play with the fearless energy that made them dangerous.

Now, Durant wasn’t brought in just to help during the regular season; he was brought in to help the Rockets during the clutch moments, especially during the playoffs, a time in which Green struggled. However, such has not been the case during the first 27 games of the season, as the future Hall of Fame forward sits fourth on the team in clutch time usage rate (16.9%) behind Sengun (31.7%), Aaron Holiday (25%), and Amen Thompson (17.5%).

Currently sitting sixth in the Western Conference, just two games ahead of the Phoenix Suns and a play-in berth, the Rockets and Durant still have plenty of time to create an identity and find cohesion, but the clock is ticking. If the Rockets can't figure out how to balance Durant's game with the young core, they risk proving they gave up too much, too soon, sacrificing what already worked for a big name instead of building on their momentum.