The Oklahoma City Thunder are no longer the benchmark for NBA contenders. After a back-and-forth seven-game series, that honor now passes to the San Antonio Spurs. The Houston Rockets’ recent core strategy might be a casualty of this change in the NBA hierarchy. So what does that mean for the Rockets’ contender aspirations?
New Strategy Needed To Make Rockets Contenders?
We might have seen the Rockets’ contender potential this season, save for some bad breaks on the injury front. As it turned out, between a broken starting point guard, a broken backup center, and a broken superstar playoff scorer, 2025-26 was never going to be their year.
Even so, nearly getting swept by a Los Angeles Lakers team missing Luka Doncic was a bad way to end the season. Now, with the Spurs leapfrogging the Thunder as leaders in the Western Conference, the goalposts have moved. Obviously, the Thunder are far from obsolete. They had injury misfortune of their own with the absence of Jalen Williams. Still, they will probably be motivated to upgrade for 2026-27. And who knows what Spurs neutron star Victor Wembanyama might add to his game this offseason?
Rather than catch up like they need to, it looks like the Rockets will fall further behind. Not to mention that now they’re trying to catch a different team.
One thing that theoretically ought to work in the Rockets’ favor is that the Thunder and the Spurs actually have faintly similar styles. Both teams play hyper-aggressive perimeter defense, backed up by DPOY-level shot blocking in the paint. Of course, the Spurs’ version looks different since their DPOY-level shot blocker is quite possibly the best defensive player in NBA history. Stylistically, though, the two teams have a lot in common.
That ought to be good news for the Rockets’ unusual roster-building strategy. Their perimeter shot creation is extremely limited. However, some of the league’s most dynamic perimeter scorers have struggled against the Spurs’ and Thunder’s harassing style. Every dribble is a vulnerability. Every pass risks starting a fastbreak going the other way.
So the Rockets have focused their offensive priorities elsewhere — specifically on the glass. The Rockets led the league in offensive rebounding despite missing their best offensive rebounder, Steven Adams, for over half the season.
How the Rockets Matchup vs. the Thunder
While the Rockets’ obsession with size and rebounding might seem gimmicky, it serves a strategic purpose. The Thunder’s league-breaking defense wants to do two things. It wants to harass ball handlers into sloppy offense, and it wants to ward off the paint with a roaming shot blocker. Giving up offensive rebounds is the theoretical weakness of both of those strategies. If defenders are attacking passing lanes and playing tight coverage whenever possible, then they are naturally drifting out of position to secure defensive rebounds. If the defensive center is roaming to contest shots in the paint, then the offensive center is getting boxed out by a smaller player, if at all.
Accordingly, the Thunder gave up the seventh most offensive rebounds per game this season. Of course, they still manage a middle-of-the-pack defensive rebounding rate and the eighth-fewest opponent second chance points. But considering they allow the lowest opponent field goal percentage, fewest fastbreak points, the second-fewest points in the paint, and the second-fewest points off turnovers, only the eighth-fewest is getting somewhere.
On opening night, the Rockets wound up losing to the Thunder by a single point. In that game, the Rockets outscored the Thunder 24-12 on second-chance points. They also outscored them 25-10 in another loss in January. Funnily enough, the Thunder outscored the Rockets 21-12 in the Rockets’ lone win in February. But no Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in that game meant the Thunder were playing an atypical offensive style.
Houston has a history of designing its teams to exploit perceived weaknesses in rival contenders. Along with 3-point shooting, it was what defined the Daryl Morey Rockets era. But there’s a problem.
How the Rockets Matchup vs. the Spurs
Despite stylistic similarities to OKC, the Spurs still found a way to lead the league in defensive rebounding percentage this season. As a result, they allowed the fourth-fewest opponent second-chance points. Normally, a focus on shot blocking makes offensive rebounding easier. Unfortunately for Houston, Wembanyama’s shot blocking transcends that convention.
The fact that Wembanyama led the league in blocks by over a whole block per game is almost irrelevant. Wembanyama has gameified shot blocking. Unlike a traditional shot blocker, he doesn’t get out of position to try to block shots. Instead, he tries to trick opponents into taking shots so he can block them from halfway across the court. He can still struggle to technically box out some of the stronger centers in the league, but it often doesn’t even matter. He can simply reach so much higher than anybody else that he’s first to touch the ball anyway.
In four games this season, the Rockets failed to outscore the Spurs in second-chance points a single time. 33-21 Spurs in November, 23-13 Spurs and 11-9 Spurs in January, and 12-12 in March. In the Rockets’ defense, Adams was only available in one of those games.
It doesn’t help the Rockets that one of their best players, Amen Thompson, is a non-shooting wing. Wembanyama embarrassed Thompson in one matchup this season, as Thompson was unable to punish the alien for helping off of him. The Rockets’ other core player (also a non-shooter), Alperen Sengun, has at least a slightly more nuanced matchup because Sengun can still muscle Wembanyama around under the basket.
But when the Rockets’ core strategy blatantly doesn’t work against the best team in the conference, it’s pretty clear that change will be needed. For the Rockets’ contender aspirations to be realized, they’ll need to try something new.
It’s possible the Rockets’ rebounding focus was never about combating OKC. It may just be what they wound up with. Despite four consecutive top-four draft picks, the Rockets never got a clear franchise player. The Kevin Durant trade was a low-risk, opportunistic gamble. Superstars Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kawhi Leonard might be similarly available this offseason. Whether the Rockets want to go all in on Leonard or something else, the real Rockets contender push may be yet to come. This offseason should reveal some of the team’s thought process. As ever, out West, you gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, and know when to try to go on a run.
© Troy Taormina-Imagn Images
