Yahoo Sports Gives Rockets High Grade for Offseason Activity

The Houston Rockets' rise in 2024-25 caught essentially everyone off-guard. It's not often that a team that misses the play-in tournament, let alone the playoffs, catapults to the second-seed in the conference the following season.

And especially not in the Western Conference. 

The next step, however, is much more difficult. Stockpiling young talent is par for the course during a rebuild. Landing lottery picks year after year is half the battle, as it puts you in a position to add one of the better players in their respective draft classes.

After four years of that, the front office faces tough decisions. Which players will be worth keeping around long-term?

Which players are dispensable?

This offseason was easily one of the most important offseasons in recent memory for the Rockets' brass. Sure, they won 52 games and made the postseason for the first time since 2019-20, but they clearly needed more.

At least if they want to be a legitimate contender.

The first order of business was finding a surefire, consistent scoring threat on a nightly basis. Enter Kevin Durant, who replaced Jalen Green (and Dillon Brooks, who will be missed on defense and from 3-point range).

Although Houston was unusually active this summer, Durant was easily their biggest domino. In fact, he may have been the biggest domino to drop in the entire league.

The Rockets' offseason has put them in play for potentially an even better 2025-26 campaign, drawing a stellar grade from Yahoo Sports, who gave them an A for their summer activity. 

"The Rockets traded Jalen Green, a wildly inconsistent 23-year-old, for Kevin Durant, one of the most consistent scorers in league history. It is a heck of an upgrade for this coming season — and maybe this coming season alone, as we have no idea how long Durant can sustain his greatness at 37 years old.

Still, Durant transforms them from a second-seeded pretender into a bona fide contender, giving them the reliable crunch-time scorer they so desperately needed. Meanwhile, Houston extended its rotation both on the wing and at center, where they respectively added Dorian Finney-Smith and Clint Capela."

The Rockets were one of only three Western Conference teams to earn an A, with the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder as the others.