Van Vreett s serious injury may bring surprises? Rockets are forced to bet on two young defenders

Translator's note: The original text was published in The Athletic. The data in the article were as of the time of publication (September 23 local time). The dates and times involved are all local time

. Well, I chose this time point so impeccable.

Originally, The Athletic was about to publish a column today about five NBA teams that I don't think they can meet the expectations of regular season wins. One of the teams is the Rockets, and a key statement in the article is:

"In addition to Fred Van Vreet, there must be someone else who has to come forward to help (Kevin) Durant and hit the outside shot. And if 31-year-old Van Vreet misses the game, the back line will immediately become stretched."

Well... Is it miserable now?

News on Monday that Van Vreet, the only starting defender in the team, suffered a torn ACL, immediately poured cold water on the Rockets' hopes this season. Maybe this is not a fatal blow, and in some ways, there may be a glimmer of hope, which I will talk about later. But yes, that's awful. The whole point of getting Durant in the

trade is to allow the Rockets to launch a rush to the Western Conference Championship this season, but other parts of the roster have exposed some weaknesses, and Van Vreet's injury has magnified these weaknesses exponentially. As of September 19, according to BetMGM, the Rockets' regular season Las Vegas wins gave a radical 55.5 win, which, frankly, seems more of a product of the atmosphere "We got Durant!" than a calm analysis of the lineup.

Yes, the Rockets ranked second in the West last season, but for a second seed, they had relatively low wins (52 wins), and the gap between the top seven teams in the West is very small. Although the Rockets rank second, their basic data is almost no different from the Warriors, Nuggets, Timberwolves, Clippers, Grizzlies, and even the Warriors who beat them at critical moments in the playoffs. It seems that the title of "Second in the West" has played a big role.

Van Villet's injury is so far-reaching because the Rockets' offseason operation has caused them to be too bloated in the big forward and center position, and are seriously insufficient in the back line, especially after Durant sent away Jaylen Green in the trade. Specifically, for a team that already has two All-Star Front Stadium players, Durant and Alperen Shinkin, the decision to offer Steven Adams, Dorian Finney Smith, Clint Capela and Jabbarri Smith Jr., to many years of contracts, it seems to be a clear over-staffing, especially because even the "little guys" they signed (Jessan Tate and Josh Okogie) are best at guest-starring power forwards.

With six rotational power forwards plus a substitute Jeff Green, that's a luxury, but when you have only 14 players in total, and three of them are pure centers, that's not the case.

At the same time, the most accomplished pure defender in the team is actually Aaron Holiday? And while signing all these big guys, the Rockets also make themselves vulnerable on the other hand: a team that is already inadequate in shooting ability, and now even with Durant, the shooting ability is extremely short. The Rockets ranked 27th in three-point shooting frequency last season, 21st in shooting percentage, and more than half of the hits came from Van Vreet, Jaylen Green and Dillon Brooks. Of course, Durant can make up for some, but who will open up space for Durant? Van Vreet should have been that person. Another dilemma for the Rockets is that filling Van Vreet's rotation position can be difficult. While the Rockets could apply for an injury special of $12.5 million (half of Van Vreet’s salary), they signed Finney Smith with a non-luxury tax middle class special, which has triggered the No. 1 tyrant line of the Labor Agreement and has introduced Capela quite unnecessarily, leaving them only $1.3 million away from the No. 1 tyrant line ($195.9 million). If the Rockets start badly, they may instead cut their wages, trying to cut $6.8 million to below the luxury tax line, thus avoiding the cumulative luxury tax triggered by renewing Amen Thompson and Tari Ethan in the future.

Speaking of Thompson, we also need to talk about the so-called silver lining of this injury: the Rockets can test their high expectations. Now, either Amen Thompson is successful in being the point guard, or the team will be in trouble, and behind him, Reed Shepard will either sink or rise.

Thompson is the only player who can reasonably serve as the main controller in the starting lineup. His weakness of not being able to shoot would allow his opponent to put him a few meters away in the cover and bet he wouldn't beat them without the ball, and if the Rockets wanted to reuse the Shinkyung-Adams combination (like they did last season), the space on the court could get unusually bad (also as they did in the late last season).

However, Thompson is the Rockets' most talented young player. He is not as accomplished as Shin Kyung, but the ceiling is much higher. "Tear off the Band-Aid" may be the only way to figure out whether this system will work. It is possible that the offense will be a little bad, but the defense line led by Thompson and Ethan will become extremely high and oppressive enough to make the offensive problem seem insignificant.

Behind Thompson, the Rockets have the safety net of Holiday, who is a slightly higher than the rotation level, can hit open shots and try their best on the defensive end. But as an organizer, he has limited abilities, and considering that there are only a few people on this team who can dribble (I only have a little bit of exaggeration), this problem is magnified.

Realistically speaking, it must be Shepard's time, and the 21-year-old should be the first defender to play on the bench. As the Rockets have lowered their expectations, there is no reason to press the 2024 Tanhua Show on the bench. Although he has been healthy almost the whole season last season, he only played 652 minutes as a rookie, which is surprisingly small for a player with such a high pick. Except for injured Nikola Topic and Devin Carter, and Timberwolves' Rob Dillingham, all other 2024 lottery picks played at least 1,000 minutes.

When getting the chance, Shepard's performance was not amazing - the PER was 9.7 and his shooting percentage was 35.1% - but the Rockets need to give him enough chance to succeed.

Of course, ironically, if Van Vreett wasn't injured and took 2,000 minutes of playing time, it would be much harder to get a lot of chances to test Thompson as a point guard and get Shepard into the rotation. His injury obviously made the Rockets worse – my prediction model shows that it would give them 4 less wins – but they have the chance to turn the crisis into a more forgiving environment by relying on Thompson and Shepard.

Alas, but this is not the same as being ready to go and striving to win the championship with all your might.

Author: John Hollinger

Translator: GWayNe