Promising Rockets Defender to Undergo Surgery, Out for Season

Tari Eason Out for Remainder of Season

Out for four months, Tari Eason will be ready for the start of the 2024-25 season. It’s a tough blow for a Western Conference team with postseason aspirations. Particularly one that put their money where their mouth is in regard to their desire to be playoff contenders last offseason.

Eason, the 17th overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, complements the rotation nicely with his skillset. A promising defender, Eason provides a respectable scoring punch and has a knack for grabbing boards at 6-foot-8. In fact, when the Rockets signed defensive specialist Dillon Brooks last summer, one of the biggest questions was how it would impact Eason’s role moving forward. Given Brooks’ prowess and reputation on that end, it was a nice compliment for a player that had just wrapped up his rookie season.

With Eason last playing on Jan. 1 and having missed all but 22 games this season, Houston likely feels as if they caught a break by signing Brooks. Nonetheless, when fully healthy, Eason has every right to consider himself on par with the 2022-23 All-Defensive selection. His anticipation, hands, hustle, length, and quickness allow him to be a tremendously effective multi-positional defender, whether he’s on-ball or off-ball.

A Big Picture View

Whether this injury could be a recurring theme throughout his career is worth wondering.

According to Houston Rockets head coach Ime Udoka, the preexisting benign growth on Tari Eason’s lower leg bone is “something he’s had for a while.” However, multiple collisions near his knee area at the beginning of the season caused it to “flare up” in what would become a “pain tolerance” issue. Even more concerning, resting only seemed to provide temporary relief, as Eason experienced a high level of pain when the Rockets “ramped up” his injury rehabilitation process.

Of course, the hope for him and the Rockets is that surgery not only rectifies the current issue but prevents it from happening again in the future. To that end, Eason will get a “bone graft” and “rod put in,” per Udoka. With a four-month recovery timetable, Houston will have to wait until the summer to see how well the procedure worked. Nonetheless, with more than eight months until the start of the 2024-25 season, there’s ample time for Eason to get completely healthy and in game shape.

Ultimately, everyone in the Rockets organization will be pulling for Eason, who is as liked as a person as he is as a defender by all accounts. Furthermore, the surgery shouldn’t impact his performance at either end of the floor. Yet, it does legitimately cast a bit of doubt on whether he can remain healthy.