Rockets guard Fred VanVleet has sustained a torn ACL, reports Shams Charania of ESPN.
According to Kelly Iko of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link), VanVleet suffered the right knee injury at an unofficial team mini-camp in the Bahamas. The one-time All-Star and 2019 NBA champion will undergo surgery this week, Iko adds.
It’s a devastating blow for both Houston and VanVleet, who re-signed with the Rockets this summer on a two-year, $50MM contract.
VanVleet will earn $25MM each of the next two seasons, with a player option for 2026/27 he seems likely to exercise now that he appears destined to miss the entire ’25/26 campaign with a major knee injury.
VanVleet, 31, has been one of the keys to Houston’s dramatic turnaround. The Rockets went 17-55, 20-62 and 22-60 in the three years before he signed with the team as a free agent in 2023. With VanVleet as the starting point guard, Houston had a 41-41 record in ’23/24, followed by a 52-30 mark last season.
While VanVleet took a minor statistical step back last season in several categories, averaging 14.1 points, 5.6 assists, 3.7 rebounds and 1.6 steals while shooting 34.5% on three-pointers in 60 regular season games, the Rockets were consistently better when he was on the court (+6.2) than when he was off it (+2.9).
VanVleet also had a strong playoff showing in Houston’s first-round loss to Golden State, averaging 18.7 PPG, 4.4 APG, 4.1 RPG and 1.1 SPG while shooting 43.5% from long distance in the seven-game series. When he was on the court in the playoffs, the Rockets had a +3.9 net rating in 280 minutes; in the 56 minutes he didn’t play, their net rating was an abysmal -17.1.
As ESPN’s Bobby Marks notes (via Twitter), the Rockets will likely apply for a disabled player exception in the wake of VanVleet’s injury. However, they’re hard-capped at the first apron and are currently only $1.25MM below that threshold, meaning they’re not in position to use that DPE to add a 15th man to the roster.
Given their position relative to the hard cap, the Rockets won’t be able to even sign a free agent to a minimum-salary contract until January unless they reduce their team salary in a trade.
Reed Sheppard, Amen Thompson and Aaron Holiday are among the candidates to receive more minutes and ball-handling duties for Houston in the wake of VanVleet’s unfortunate injury.