The Houston Rockets entered the 2025 offseason comfortable running it back with their core group, but decided to pivot to a major trade of Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks when the asking price from the Phoenix Suns for Kevin Durant was lower than anticipated.
“Nobody was trying to move guys,” general manager Rafael Stone told ESPN.
“If Kevin didn’t want to come and wasn’t available, we would’ve been fine coming back with the same team,” Ime Udoka said. “We went into the playoffs looking at the big picture, like, ‘Let’s see what we’ve got with our young guys.’ The plan was to win that series and get more experience. But once we didn’t and were disappointed by it, we still took the positives from it and the plan was to come back with that same group.”
Durant’s availability changed everything.
“Jalen and Dillon, we love those guys,” Stone said. “Everybody does. Not a single person on this team felt they needed to be moved out. And you’re never trying to give away the 10th pick of the draft because that’s still a really good player. We did it because of the opportunity. Kevin’s a very unique player. His archetype is unique. He’s this high-volume efficient scorer who doesn’t have to have the ball in his hands 24-7. In that sense, he’s kind of a unicorn. He’s also a two-way player. There just aren’t a whole lot of Kevin Durants. We’ll just have to see how he ultimately fits.”
Durant described joining the Rockets as “organic.” Durant reunites with Udoka along with former teammate Jeff Green as well as fellow University of Texas alums in Dexter Pittman, D.J. Augustin and Royal Ivey.
“We know who he is and we’re also not asking him to be something he’s not,” Udoka said. “We understand the way that he leads is not how everybody may prefer him to. But we understand the importance of his everyday approach, his professionalism, work ethic, and all those things rub off on a young group of guys. They want you to be a certain way, vocal or whatever. He talks more than people think. He’s not a rah-rah guy out in front of everything. But some of the people that have the most profound words are the ones who say less and say things at the right time.”
