Harden’s Debut Means Party Just Getting Started in Houston
Wow. James Harden, playing in his Houston Rockets debut after just two days of practice, exploded for 37 points, dished 12 assists, grabbed 6 rebounds and picked 4 steals in a 105-96 win over the Pistons on Halloween night. It was an eye-popping start for the Rockets’ $80 million man.
James Harden, playing in his Houston Rockets debut after just two days of practice, exploded for 37 points, dished 12 assists, grabbed 6 rebounds and picked 4 steals in a 105-96 win over the Pistons on Halloween night. It was an eye-popping start for the Rockets’ $80 million man.
Two things really drew my attention.
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First, Harden’s elite-level ability to attack the basket. He showed tremendous quickness and zero fear in going to the cup. As the highlights video shows, he did it time after time after time. Before his debut I was a bit embarrassed in saying that Harden reminded me of a young Dwyane Wade, usually adding “a poor man’s” or “similar to” as a qualifier, but in simply his ability and willingness to penetrate, he does remind you a bit of Wade (or a Manu Ginobili).
Secondly, his passing ability. As Rudy T would say, “Kapaya!” Harden was lethal in the pick-and-roll and multiple times would thread bounce passes through traffic to a cutting teammate. 12 assists in his first outing when he barely knows his teammates — the game is in his blood.
That was the most excited I’ve been watching a Rockets game since the 2009 playoffs, and I don’t think it’s even close. Granted, the half dozen Twix bars I downed may have contributed to the energy level, but that was reminiscent of watching an early years Steve Francis, a newly acquired Tracy McGrady or a rookie Yao Ming in his 20 point breakout game against the Lakers.
The game has absolutely changed. There’s a future again in Houston.
This is not about now — the Rockets may surprise and compete for the playoffs this year in a deep Western Conference or they may not — but rather how Harden changes everything moving forward. You now have a piece, a legitimate untouchable on your roster. A 23-year old guard, capable of putting up 37 points, unselfish in his style of play, loved by his teammates and now locked in for six years, is going to be a magnet.
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You need a star to get a star — that’s the reality of today’s NBA. The Rockets, miraculously, found a shortcut and now have one. They now sport a backcourt with potentially ten+ years ahead of them that is arguably the league’s most marketable right now, playing in a diverse city with no state income taxes and warm weather. Did I mention there’s a maximum contract slot soon to be available? I strongly suspect the stigma that has plagued the Rockets the past few years is ancient history and young, up-and-coming players could now eye Houston as a top NBA location for the coming years.
Credit Daryl Morey, Sam Hinkie, Gersson Rosas and the Rockets’ front office. They stuck to their guns, even when their approach got heavier criticism after amnestying Luis Scola, selling off quality players for draft picks and falling short in their pursuit of Dwight Howard.
As we talked about in the podcast yesterday, the team’s offseason consisted of signing three key acquisitions, Harden, Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik, to contract amounts that their previous playoff teams were unwilling or unable to give because of their limited roles with those teams.
“$25 million to a guy for two weeks of Linsanity?”
“$25 million to a backup center?”
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“$80 million to a sixth man? LOL!”
Asik was playing behind one of the league’s best defensive centers in Joakim Noah. Harden was behind two top ten players in Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. With each addition, most notably Asik and Harden, the plan was an increased role and responsibility in Houston. It’s quite possible that at the end of the year, some if not all of those contracts, criticized by many at the time, will look like good values.
And in the case of Harden, I must confess — I’ve long believed that the Moreyball approach of finding underutilized value is the correct one when you have a superstar or two and you need to maximize quality around them in a league where salary management is king. The Rockets executed this very well in the original Kyle Lowry trade, where Lowry was stuck as a third string point guard on the Grizzlies, and the Luis Scola trade, where the Spurs couldn’t quite pay Luis to bring him in from overseas.
But a superstar? A 12-year old fan could spot them. It’s just a matter of wooing them, which is difficult for anyone.
Maybe I was wrong. Without a doubt, everyone in the league knew that Harden was a very good player and I wouldn’t even hint otherwise, but he was coming off the pine in OKC whereas Morey and company brought him here to take center stage and be the alpha dog. There’s a difference. Is it possible that the Rockets front office used their same approach to find underappreciated value to actually identify a true superstar?
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Hey, one game against the paltry Pistons does not a superstar make, so time will tell, but the buzz right now? That’s unmistakable.
Armed with a bizarre fascination for Mario Elie and a deep love of the Houston Rockets, Dave Hardisty started ClutchFans in 1996 under the pen name “Clutch”.
All three were commanding victories, starting with a road victory on Christmas over the Los Angeles Lakers, and they all came with Finney-Smith as a new addition to the rotation. Though he signed with the Rockets in July, Finney-Smith sat out the first 27 games of the 2025-26 regular season due to offseason ankle surgery.
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In 45 minutes over those three games, the Rockets have a +21.0 net rating differential with Finney-Smith on the floor. By defensive rating, they are 14.3 points better when he plays.
Offensively, the versatile 6-foot-7 forward is making 42.9% of his 3-pointers, and that’s coming off a 2024-25 campaign in which he shot a career-best 41.1% from distance (with the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets).
“He’s an underrated feel-for-the-game guy,” Pacers head coach Rick Carlise said prior to Houston’s victory over Indiana on Monday night. “He’s a quiet connector for a team. He’s about all the right stuff. He’s a winner.”
Carlisle previously coached Finney-Smith for multiple seasons with the Dallas Mavericks.
“It feels amazing,” Finney-Smith said of his health and how he’s currently feeling. “Just happy to be out there. Once I’m on the court, I don’t feel anything. Winning is the most important thing, and I’m just grateful to be out there.”
Ime Udoka, head coach of the Rockets, pointed to “more versatility” as one of the primary benefits of Finney-Smith’s return.
“He is a seasoned veteran, high IQ, and communicator,” Udoka said (via Brian Barefield, Rockets Wire) “Something we have lacked at times is our communication. I think his awareness of every situation is really high. He has been around and done all those roles.”
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For the time being, Finney-Smith is limited to approximately 15 minutes per game. Prior to his three appearances in recent days, he hadn’t played in an NBA game since last April, so the Rockets will be understandably cautious as they ramp up his activity.
But that minutes limitation is expected to gradually increase over the weeks ahead, and the Rockets are hopeful that Finney-Smith will be a major contributor by the time the 2026 Western Conference playoffs begin in April. Ideally, he can replace much of what the Rockets lost when they sent Dillon Brooks to the Phoenix Suns in the Kevin Durant trade.
“Whether it is off the bench or starting, he gives us a little more depth at the wing, and he can guard up or guard down,” Udoka says of Finney-Smith. The 32-year-old is widely known around the league for his “3-and-D” skill set on the wing, when healthy.
With an improving defense, Houston (20-10) enters calendar-year 2026 with three consecutive victories and a spot at No. 4 in the Western Conference standings. Next up is a New Year’s Day clash at Brooklyn, where Finney-Smith played for portions of the past three seasons.
In this roundtable conversation, ClutchFans Editor Dave Hardisty joins Ben DuBose and Paulo Alves to preview the NBA’s upcoming transaction window and its potential implications for the 16-7 Houston Rockets.
December 15 is when players who signed contracts in the preceding offseason become trade eligible, so the period from Monday until the in-season deadline of February 5, 2026, is likely to be among the most active on the 2025-26 calendar.
Discussion topics include roster needs and potential trade targets across the board, including the likelihood of bigger-name deals (such as Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jrue Holiday, and James Harden) and smaller acquisitions along the lines of Keon Ellis, Chris Paul, and Ayo Dosunmu.
The show also explores Houston’s potential desirability on the buyout market and the team’s long-term timeline for title contention, and specifically why those factors might make this a relatively quiet trade window for the Rockets.
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Editor’s note: Hardisty and DuBose also host regular “ClutchFans Live” postgame recap shows on YouTube, while DuBose and Alves are co-hosts of the Rockets LaunchPod podcast, presented by ClutchFans and with support from SportsTalk 790 — official flagship radio station of the Rockets. Tune in to both shows for more coverage!
At 15-6, the Rockets are currently tied for the second-fewest losses in the Western Conference standings, and they own the NBA’s No. 2 net rating.
And yet, just two years ago, Houston was coming off three straight rebuilding seasons with the worst record in the West.
It’s been a remarkable rise under the guidance of general manager Rafael Stone, who has combined the development of young players such as Alperen Sengun, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr., and Reed Sheppard with the acquisition of impact veterans — namely, Kevin Durant, Steven Adams, and the injured Fred VanVleet.
Making matters even better, the Rockets added and developed all that talent while still retaining several high-end future draft assets, to boot. Houston believes that draft equity can make it a sustainable contender for years to come, both in terms of having desirable trade assets and an ability to replenish its roster depth in cost-efficient ways.
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With the 2025-26 regular season now at approximately its quarter pole, The Athletic recently canvassed 36 executives across the league — presidents, general managers, vice presidents, and assistant GMs — to rank the NBA’s top front offices.
Led by Stone, the Rockets’ front office comes in at No. 3, trailing only the last two champions — the Oklahoma City Thunder and Boston Celtics.
“High-end talent, a willingness to be bold, (and) good asset management,” one executive told The Athletic, when asked to sum up the Rockets.
Time for our annual crowdsourcing to determine the NBA's top front offices – ranked by the NBA's front offices. We found 36 team executives to give us their picks of the best ones right now, and their pick of one FO that is up and coming. In @TheAthletic:https://t.co/9QRrkK8R0b
Houston finished with one first-place vote; six second- and third-place votes, apiece; five fourth-place votes; and three fifth-place votes.
“They have drafted well, built a deep team in a tough Western Conference while managing tax aprons,” said one executive who voted the Rockets second. “(They) hired a good coach (Ime Udoka) and built an overall team identity, then added KD for cheap. From where they were only a few years ago, they have done a good job turning it around.”
Per Sam Amick of The Athletic, Stone “values this young core greatly and has frequently resisted the temptation to reach for overpriced roster shortcuts.” Udoka has an “influential voice” with the front office, as well, Amick adds.
Amick notes that the Durant trade came at a relatively low asset cost, adding that the Rockets are uninterested in pursuing a trade with the Memphis Grizzlies for disgruntled star Ja Morant.
The Athletic’s complete front-office rankings can be viewed here. This time a year ago, in the same exercise, Houston finished in a tie for the No. 11 spot.
After their Emirates NBA Cup 2025 elimination, the Rockets (12-4) learned two additional December dates for their 2025-26 regular season.
As announced Saturday by the league office, the Los Angeles Clippers (5-14) will visit Houston on Thursday, Dec. 11. Tipoff at Toyota Center will be at 7:00 p.m. Central.
Meanwhile, the Rockets (12-4) will then head to Denver on Monday, Dec. 15, where tipoff versus the Nuggets (13-5) is at 8:30 p.m. Central.
During Cup games, all three of the Clippers, Nuggets, and Rockets went 2-2 in Western Conference group-stage play. Because only four teams out of the 15 in each conference advance to the knockout rounds, a 2-2 record in group games isn’t usually enough to finish among the top four, and that was again the case this year.
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To ensure that all teams play 82 regular-season games, teams who don’t advance then have two additional December games scheduled versus same-conference opponents who also did not advance.
In most cases, these add-on matchups come down to a formula. Taking Houston as an example, each season’s schedule includes two games (one home, one away) versus all East opponents and four games (two home, two away) versus most West opponents.
However, if that was the case for all same-conference opponents, the schedule would be at 86 games in length. So, there is a select group — rotating each year — of same-conference opponents on the docket only three times.
To trim down to 80 games (to account for the possibility of Cup advancement), the six West teams with only three dates on Houston’s initial 2025-26 schedule were the Clippers, Nuggets, Warriors, Oklahoma City Thunder, Minnesota Timberwolves, and Los Angeles Lakers.
Add-on games are typically chosen from that group, and the Thunder and Lakers advanced in Cup play, thus taking them off the table. So, it came down to two teams from the other four.
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Led by James Harden, the reeling Clippers have yet to play Houston this season, though they will meet again on Dec. 23 in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, the Nikola Jokic-led Nuggets enjoyed a close Nov. 21 victory in Houston. For the Rockets, Kevin Durant and Alperen Sengun each struggled in that game.
Now, less than a month later — in a matchup that could prove pivotal in the West standings race — Durant and Sengun (assuming health) will get an opportunity to make amends.
Denver and Houston are currently tied for the No. 3 spot in the West (trailing the Thunder and Lakers), though the Rockets are technically ahead by percentage points due to playing two fewer games. Thus, that Dec. 15 rematch could have significant stakes for both sides.
Relative to their expected formula from the 2025 offseason, the Rockets were missing five rotation players in Wednesday’s Thanksgiving Eve playoff rematch versus the Warriors.
Kevin Durant (personal reasons), Steven Adams (right ankle tendinopathy), and Tari Eason (right oblique strain) were all sidelined, and veterans Fred VanVleet (right knee) and Dorian Finney-Smith (left ankle) remain on the shelf after offseason surgeries.
Yet, the Rockets (12-4) still won for a 12th time in 14 games, and they overcame a 14-point road deficit against a high-profile Golden State squad featuring the likes of Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, and Draymond Green.
The biggest reason was second-year guard Reed Sheppard, who set career-highs in points (31) and rebounds (9) while making 12-of-25 shots (48.0%), including four 3-pointers.
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“He was big,” said head coach Ime Udoka, whose Rockets won despite shooting below 40% overall and 30% from 3-point range. “Reed really held us together when guys were struggling.”
For the season, Sheppard — a starter for Udoka over the past two games — is averaging 14.3 points, 3.3 assists, 2.8 rebounds, and 1.6 steals in 24.9 minutes per game. He’s shooting 48.8% overall and 45.5% on 3-pointers, with the latter figure coming in at No. 11 among hundreds of qualified NBA players.
But the advanced metrics are even more impressive. Per Basketball Reference, here’s where Sheppard ranks among his NBA peers in several impact categories:
The only players with a superior BPM are a quartet of annual Most Valuable Player (MVP) frontrunners in Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Luka Doncic. At the moment, Sheppard is the league’s highest-rated American player!
To say the least, those are remarkable efficiency metrics for a 21-year-old in his second NBA season. And it’s not as if Sheppard is posting those in low-leverage minutes, as evidenced by the key plays he made in the fourth quarter to help put the Warriors away.
“Defensively is where he’s shown the most improvement, overall,” Udoka said from San Francisco. “I think he’s taking on the challenge. The blow-bys are getting less and less. He’s catching up with the physicality of the game. Teams are going to try to attack him, at times, but like we said last year and during this summer, make them go east and west and stay in front of them. Help will come. He’s doing a great job of that.”
Sixteen games in, it’s no longer a particularly small sample. Rounding, it’s actually 20% of the 82-game regular season!
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Assuming relative health, the 2025-26 Rockets had a high floor entering the season due to the All-Star presence of Durant and Alperen Sengun. But whether they could achieve a championship ceiling likely depended on further leaps from young players — most notably, the high-upside ones like Sheppard and Amen Thompson.
With Durant out, Thompson was the headliner in Monday’s road victory in Phoenix, and Sheppard stole the show two nights later at Golden State.
For everyone surrounding the organization, it’s an appropriate time to be thankful. With these leaps being shown from players who are extremely young and still improving, the Rockets appear set up to be a force in the Western Conference for quite some time.
“It’s going to be exciting when we get fully healthy and whole,” Udoka surmised.
