The Houston Rockets have one of the most exciting young star centers in the league. Despite that, they will go into next season with at least six players capable of playing the position. The jumbo-ball Rockets will give opposing coaches fits in 2025-26. Is it possible, though, that their deadliest lineup will be one of their smallest?
The Jumbo-Ball Rockets Are Just Barmy About Centers
The Young Turk
The Houston Rockets enjoyed a breakout season in 2024-25, improving from .500 in 2023-24 to 50 wins and the second seed in the follow-up. As a reward for their progress, they picked up a well-earned All-Star spot for starting center Alperen Sengun. He averaged 19.1 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 4.9 assists last season. The basketball wizard from Turkey will remain the hub of Houston’s offense going into next season as well. Former Rockets GM Daryl Morey used to have a philosophy of not heavily investing in backups for stars. The logic was that if the star wasn’t available, the team was going to be high and dry anyway. The current Rockets front office has taken a different tack. They’ve invested in the center position like no other.
The Old School Heavies
The extent of Houston’s investment in the center position was probably encouraged by the success they saw from it last year. The Rockets enjoyed the addition of eleven-year paint veteran Steven Adams in 2024-25. Technically, they’d added him the year before, but injury delayed his on-court debut.
Adams played 58 games for Houston last season, averaging 13.7 minutes per game. Unsurprisingly, with those minutes, Adams’ production was largely immaterial. His impact, however, was immense. Adams helped turn the Rockets into the best offensive rebounding team in the league. It became the foundation of their whole offensive identity (ignoring the sub foundation of how many shots they missed to begin with). The Rockets valued Adams so much that his role was greatly expanded in the postseason. Adams played 22.1 minutes per game in Houston’s seven-game clash with the Golden State Warriors. He played extensively in double-big lineups with Sengun that gave Houston some of its best sequences.
Now, in 2025-26, the Rockets will enjoy the addition of eleven-year paint veteran Clint Capela. Capela gives the Rockets the ability to lean even harder into double-bigs. For one thing, he can help make up for Adams’ availability issues. For another, his springier lob-catching game will give the Rockets’ offense a desperately needed extra scoring option. Capela or Adams can play in double big lineups with Sengun, or any of the three of them can hold down the middle alone amidst more perimeter-oriented players. The Rockets can play a post-scorer, a bruiser, or a rim-runner.
The Jumbo-Rockets’ Take on “Small Ball”
The Rockets aren’t limited to just three very different archetypes of traditional center, either. The team will also have the flexibility to experiment with various “small-ball” looks in 2025-26. None of them will really be all that small, though.
The Rockets added Kevin Durant this offseason. Durant is known generally as a jumbo-sized wing. In fact, this season, due to the Rockets’ roster construction, he’s likely to play as essentially an extra jumbo-sized guard. But the Slim Reaper has shown many times in his career that he can be lethal at any position, and that includes center. However, Durant’s greatest career achievements came playing power forward alongside another small-ball center in Draymond Green.
The Rockets are going to play jumbo-ball in 2025-26. But one version of that might be a jumbo small-ball lineup of players six-foot-seven and up. Six-foot-seven defensive anomaly Amen Thompson would operate as the nominal point guard in such a lineup and be surrounded by three-point shooters. Durant would obviously be the most dangerous of those, but others would be six-foot-seven Dorian Finney-Smith and six-foot-eleven Jabari Smith Jr. Any of the three could be the nominal center in such a lineup.
The less gimmicky version of such a lineup could be completed with six-foot point guard Fred VanVleet. The final touch the fans want to see, though, is six-foot-eight Tari Eason. Eason’s shooting is more theoretical than the other floor spacers, but he managed 34.2% from deep last season. Crucially, however, his defensive energy makes him a wrecking ball amidst opponents’ game plans. Eason would probably be perfectly capable of playing center in a small-ball line-up himself, but Houston has more experienced options available. Instead, they could feature him harassing ball-handlers and disrupting passing lanes as part of a merciless, switch-everything defensive scheme.
A Reality Check
The Rockets’ small-ball lineups will probably be deployed sparingly. Until Thompson can show otherwise, Sengun is easily Houston’s second-best player. The Rockets’ offensively uninspired coaching staff relies on his ability to generate points. That same staff, led by defensive drill sergeant Ime Udoka, is also clearly invested in the double big motif. The Rockets will experiment with their small-ball options at some point in the season, even if just for 12 minutes a game while Sengun rests. It would be malpractice not to. How much the coaching staff will invest in empowering those lineups to succeed is another matter.
The Last Word
The jumbo-ball Rockets are going to have to be creative in 2025-26. The roster construction demands it of them. Any absences for VanVleet will expose their chronic lack of guard depth, regardless. But even assuming VanVleet’s health (and Durant’s suitability to a de facto shooting guard role), they’re going to have to find uses for all their possible centers. Size is clearly central to Houston’s vision of success in the modern NBA. But their small-ball options scream opportunity. If opportunity knocks, the last thing you want is to have sent her away unanswered.
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