Rockets Earn Interesting Grade in Re-Evaluation of Summer Blockbuster

The 2025-26 NBA season has been a fruitful one for the Houston Rockets, thus far, despite them being struck extensively by the injury bug. The team ranks second in the Western Conference despite not being at full strength.

Tari Eason has missed roughly half of the season, while both Dorian Finney-Smith and Fred VanVleet have each missed the entire season, to date. Although Finney-Smith is nearing his Rockets debut according to Rockets coach Ime Udoka.

In spite of Houston's absences, they rank second in offensive rating, defensive rating, and net rating.

And they have the league's second-best long range clip, at 40.1 percent. Although they still take the league's fewest attempts from deep, at 29.7.

The Rockets have yielded a great return on the Kevin Durant trade this past offseason, in which they shipped off Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the tenth overall draft pick from the 2025 NBA Draft and a total of five second-round draft picks.

Durant has averaged 25.2 points, five rebounds, 3.9 assists, 50.2 percent from the field, 38.6 percent from deep, 88.6 percent from the foul line and 62 percent true shooting.

Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes did a re-grade of last summer's blockbuster move, based on the early showings thus far, and gave the Rockets a B.

The writer explained.

"Durant isn't quite meeting his own high efficiency standards, but he's still a more effective scorer than roughly 90 percent of players in the league. He's on pace to post a true shooting percentage above 60.0 percent for the 16th straight season.

The Rockets ended November with the NBA's No. 2 offense, and Durant's shotmaking has been a valuable bailout option when opponents force the rock out of Alperen Sengün's hands

Houston hasn't missed Green's low-efficiency scoring, and its No. 2 defensive rating suggests Brooks' absence hasn't hurt either."

In his assessment, the Phoenix Suns graded out even worse, drawing a B minus.

The writer noted the Suns' ability to make away with a first-round pick in the move but also noted Khaman Maluach, the player they selected, being not quite ready to make a meaningful impact for Phoenix.

All told, it feels like the Durant trade should be viewed higher than what the writer gives Houston credit for. Durant is on pace for an All-NBA season and potentially even an MVP finalist type of season.

That type of player would usually require a more significant haul.