CBS Sports Names Rockets as NBA's Third-Best Team

The Houston Rockets have been one of the league's best teams in 2025-26. Unsurprisingly, as they were the second-best team in the Western Conference last season and added Kevin Durant over the summer.

Even though they lost their floor general and vocal leader in Fred VanVleet, they didn't get worse, as a team. In fact, 23 games in, the Rockets are 16-7. This time a year ago, they were 15-8.

Granted, the Rockets haven't won this season against any of the top two seeds in the West, as they lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder on opening night and dropped both games against the Denver Nuggets. However, they've been close games.

For example, the game against the Thunder went to double-overtime, in spite of bad performances by Reed Sheppard and Tari Eason (both of which self-corrected almost immediately after, in a major way). The first game against the Nuggets was a three-point contest, with the game coming down to the wire.

The second game against the Nuggets this past Monday was seemingly Houston's game to win. The Rockets held a 117-116 lead with two seconds left, then things took a bad turn.

Amen Thompson was hit with a away-from-the-play foul, with the officials determining that Thompson tripped Tim Hardaway Jr.

The contact was very clearly incidental, but the acting job is always the determinant, if particularly if/when the contact is sold. Hardaway fell to the ground and the camera monitors showed Thompson and Hardaway's legs getting tangled up.

Houston lost in overtime, falling 128-125.

After the game, Rockets coach Ime Udoka tore the refs to shreds, prompting a $25,000 fine.

Udoka noted that the game was the "most poorly officiated game I've seen in a long time."

He divided the criticism up between each member of the officiating crew.

"Two have no business being out there and the crew chief was acting star struck."

He continued.

"We were seeing all kinds of inconsistent calls, and I'm sure we should have got a few more techs."

Interestingly enough, the Rockets rose on CBS Sports' latest power rankings, in spite of the loss, albeit just one spot.

"The Clippers don't look like much in the standings but on any given night they do have major talent, and the Rockets caught them on one of those given nights and won in fitting fashion: Amen Thompson's go-ahead tip-in on the FOURTH offensive rebound of a single possession. Then, as detailed above, the Rockets took Denver to the wire and perhaps would've won if not for a phantom call on Thompson when Tim Hardaway Jr. actually tripped over his own feet."

The writer, Brad Botkin, also added more context to the game between Houston and Denver, who he ranked one spot ahead of the Rockets.

"Denver won a heavyweight bout against the Rockets on Monday for their fifth straight victory.....It took a terrible call to get them to overtime."

All told, the top three teams on their power rankings are the Oklahoma City Thunder, Nuggets and Rockets.

The Boston Celtics dropped out of Botkin's top three, making room for Houston to climb.