What is the Rockets' Long-Term Plan for JD Davison?

The Houston Rockets' weakness all season has been point guard play. It's the position that they've invested the least in, over the years.

And to be fair, they had one of the most reliable, sure-handed point guards in Fred VanVleet, who has masked many of Houston's issues over the last several years.

VanVleet has also seen the highest of highs, having won a championship with the Toronto Raptors and having been an All-Star, despite being a smaller point guard. Well, relatively smaller. Fairly smaller, let's just say that.

However, Houston’s calculus, as it pertains to the position, changed entirely when VanVleet went down due to what's sure to be a season-ending knee injury that required surgery to repair his torn ACL.

The Rockets have tinkered with Amen Thompson as the on-ball guard and have turned to Reed Sheppard as the team's offensive initiator, on many possessions. Which is a better fit and closer skillset match to VanVleet than Thompson, who is better suited on the wing.

One player with the ability to contribute to the point guard room is JD Davison -- who the Rockets signed to a two-way deal last summer. Davison won the G-League MVP, with unrealistic stats, averaging 25.1 points, 7.6 assists, 5.2 rebounds and 60.1 true shooting last season, in the G-League's 2024-25 calendar year. In the preseason with the Rockets, Davison averaged 10.5 points, 48.4 percent from the field, 47.1 percent from three and 3.5 assists.

Davison has also been reliable and trusted during the season, as we've seen Rockets coach Ime Udoka insert him in closing lineups. However, lately the Rockets haven't played Davison much at all, despite their need for someone capable of bringing the ball up the court.

The Rockets have been trying to preserve Davison's two-way eligibility, which limits him to just 50 NBA games. Davison has already been activated for 47 games, so he'd need a standard deal relatively soon.

And according to USA Today's Ben DuBose, that could be happening in the near future for Davison, although DuBose made it clear to note that he wasn't speaking on sourced information or inside intel.

"The expectation is that JD Davison is gonna get his contract converted before the playoffs so they can have another ball handler. They have the open roster spot. And I think they like what JD has done this year."

DuBose continued.

"JD Davison, they do want one more ball handler for the playoffs, so I think now that you're getting in the true home stretch, you'll have JD get converted. He hasn't been available lately because they've been preserving the final games on his two-way."

DuBose stated that Davison's conversion is likely to happen sooner rather than later, which should be encouraging for Rockets fans to hear.