{"id":162321,"date":"2025-10-11T11:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T15:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=162321"},"modified":"2025-10-11T10:05:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T14:05:42","slug":"rockets-preseason-showcasing-new-offensive-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/10\/11\/rockets-preseason-showcasing-new-offensive-potential\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets Preseason Showcasing New Offensive Potential"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Houston Rockets’ preseason will resume on October 14th against the New Orleans Pelicans. So far, in only two games, fans have seen plenty to get excited over. Reed Sheppard<\/a> has avoided disaster in his tryout as the injury replacement<\/a> for Fred VanVleet<\/a>. JD Davison<\/a> has shown enough to constitute unexpected guard depth<\/a>. Superstar league-trotter Kevin Durant<\/a> has finally debuted in Rocketeer red<\/a>. Most importantly, the Rockets are conducting experiments around their offensive nucleus, Alperen Sengun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rockets Preseason Showcasing New Offensive Potential<\/h2>\n

So far in preseason, the Rockets have the second-highest offensive<\/a> rating in the NBA. With only a two-game sample size, there obviously isn’t a lot to be drawn from that long term. Still, the Rockets had Durant in only one game, and an established starting point guard in neither. Unsurprisingly for the jumbo Rockets<\/a>, the sheen on their offense comes partially from their ability to clean the glass. They are second in the preseason<\/a> in offensive rebounding percentage. But there has been a little more nuance to proceedings than simply nudging smaller players out from under the rim.<\/p>\n

The Rockets have clearly made a conscious effort to feature a varied offense over their two preseason games. There have been post-ups, hand-offs, and even pick-and-rolls for the likes of Jabari Smith Jr<\/a>. It’s easy to assume that Houston’s defense will remain elite in year three under coach Ime Udoka<\/a>‘s tutelage. The question marks pertain mostly to their offense. The Rockets are using these games for much-needed experimentation. Creative playcalling was not exactly a strength of the club last season.<\/p>\n

The Rockets’ 2024-25 Offense<\/h3>\n

The Houston Rockets were ninth in isolation possessions<\/a> with 9.9 per game in 2024-25. That put them at eleventh in frequency. That doesn’t seem very remarkable until you consider that the Rockets didn’t really have any prototypical isolation scorers. In fact, their best \u201cisolation scorer\u201d largely didn’t even count.<\/p>\n

The Rockets were fourth in post-ups<\/a> per game in 2024-25. That makes plenty of sense, considering they had one of the league’s premier low-block craftsmen in Sengun. You might think it would explain their isolation frequency as well. After all, post-ups might seem like just a variety of isolation.<\/p>\n

However, the point of the post-up is often to create a passing hub that can enable high percentage cuts to the rim. The actual isolation stage of the post-up is more like a failsafe. For example, the Denver Nuggets had only 5.7 \u201cisolation\u201d possessions per game in 2024-25. Yet they had 8.1 \u201cpost up\u201d possessions per game in the same season. Like the Nuggets, the Rockets have a big man capable of finding good shots when they’re out there. Sengun put as much on full display in Wednesday’s game against the Jazz<\/a>, tallying 13 assists.<\/p>\n