The Houston Rockets may not be among the favorites to land LeBron James this offseason. In fact, Rockets star Kevin Durant has his own LeBron prediction. But the Rockets did steal away another Los Angeles Lakers free agent. The Rockets’ Marcus Smart will join a team that exhibited a dire need at point guard last season. But is the 12-year veteran the right man for the job?
What To Expect From Rockets’ Marcus Smart in 2026-27
Smart played well with the Lakers last season. He started 54 of 62 games at 28.5 minutes per night. He averaged 9.3 points, 2.8 rebounds, 3.0 assists, and 1.4 steals per game.
Alongside the playmaking trio of James, Luka Doncic, and Austin Reaves, Smart was listed at shooting guard in 2025-26. He’s gone back and forth between the two guard positions over his whole career.
How Rockets’ Marcus Smart Signing Affects the Defense
The main reason for Smart’s flexibility is his renowned defense. The 2022 Defensive Player of the Year can guard just about anyone, including players much larger than his own six-foot-three, 220-pound frame.
Undoubtedly, it’s that defensive flexibility that most enticed the Rockets to sign him. It’s no coincidence that Rockets head coach Ime Udoka just so happens to have been Smart’s coach during his DPOY season.
Udoka must have designs on how to incorporate the first-to-the-floor, non-stop hustling guard into his defensive schemes. At a minimum, Smart is another body who can seamlessly fit into the Rockets’ preference for switches. He can also fight through screens to keep players like star center Alperen Sengun out of unfavorable mismatches.
Smart’s Flexibility
But Smart’s flexibility at the guard position will also have relevance to Houston on offense. The fact is, the Rockets’ point guard situation remains a major unknown this season. 2024-25 starting point guard Fred VanVleet should be ready for training camp after missing all of last season with a torn ACL. But being ready for training camp doesn’t mean he’ll be ready to play at the same level he did before the injury.
At 32 years old, VanVleet’s ACL recovery progress will be a closely watched storyline for the Rockets this season. The benefit of the Rockets’ signing of Marcus Smart is that he will be useful regardless. If VanVleet has to start with a minutes restriction, or struggles to perform right out of the gate, Smart can fill in extra time at point guard.
While not the same caliber of game manager as VanVleet, Smart’s pure passing skill is almost certainly higher. It would be a slightly different look for Houston with Smart at the point. Most importantly, it would be a definite upgrade over no point guard at all. Probably the biggest struggle Houston had last season was reliably executing entry passes to Sengun. Smart should help with that enormously.
Additionally, if VanVleet plays at a high level, Smart can still be additive. The two can easily share the court thanks to their defensive versatility. VanVleet’s game management and Smart’s passing could be a potent offensive combination.
How Rockets’ Marcus Smart Signing Affects the Offense
There is one tiny snag, though. Houston missing a point guard last season was far from their only offensive issue. Besides a lack of playbook creativity, the other biggest one was the team’s three-point shooting. They were bottom-three in three-pointers a game because of their plethora of rotation non-shooters.
Most problematically, the lack of respect for Houston’s perimeter players made the paint easier to collapse on. Smart doesn’t exactly help with that.
Smart’s career 32.4% from three on 4.9 attempts per game is not going to help Houston with their spacing issues. Furthermore, if Smart does wind up playing a lot of point guard, the Rockets could find themselves in a similar position to last season.
Last year, the Rockets tried to cover the starting point guard position with athletic wunderkind Amen Thompson. As a result, Thompson had a career year in points, assists, field goal attempts, usage, offensive box plus minus, and PER. As a result of that, the Rockets are looking at a large Thompson extension this offseason. Unfortunately, it was also clear that his limited three-point shooting significantly limited his ability to run the offense.
Smart Is Never Shy
To be fair to Smart, he is not as bad and certainly not as unwilling a shooter as Thompson. Thompson shot just 21.6% on only 1.5 attempts per game last season. But Smart’s willingness to shoot more often can be a double-edged sword. Teams leave him open because they want him to shoot. How Udoka handles Smart’s wilder tendencies on the court will be a major test for the team.
Those wilder tendencies make it no easy feat to figure out what to expect from the Rockets’ Marcus Smart signing. The Rockets certainly didn’t expect him to light them up from three to the tune of 44.8% on 4.8 three-point attempts per game in last year’s playoffs.
The one thing Rockets fans can be sure of is that the highs will be heroic and the lows will be laughable. It may not always look like smart basketball, but, as Rockets fans well know, when he beats you with it, it definitely smarts.
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