{"id":164273,"date":"2025-10-26T08:57:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T12:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=164273"},"modified":"2025-10-26T08:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T12:57:11","slug":"dorian-finney-smith-debut-bolster-rockets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/10\/26\/dorian-finney-smith-debut-bolster-rockets\/","title":{"rendered":"Injured Player’s Debut Could Bolster Rockets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Houston Rockets’ 2025-26 season hasn’t started out quite as the team had hoped. However, the season-long absence of starting point guard Fred VanVleet<\/a> was always going to necessitate an awkward adjustment period. And, even as the Rockets are down 0-2, there are signs of encouragement<\/a> in their play. But they also await the debut of another injured player. It’s more than just bluster to believe that that player could bolster the squad.<\/p>\n

Injured Player’s Debut Could Bolster Rockets<\/h2>\n

Dorian Finney-Smith<\/a> signed with the Rockets this offseason for four years and $53 million. The six-foot-seven defensive forward just enjoyed a career year from three-point range, playing with the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers. He even managed 43.5% in the part of the season where he wasn’t playing alongside LeBron James<\/a> and Luka Doncic<\/a>. At 41.1% on 5.0 attempts per game overall, it was the kind of performance that let Finney-Smith nab a fourth-year player option for his age-35 season. A rock-solid wing-defender with a reliable three-point shot is a high-value commodity for any contender. Unfortunately, enthusiasm over the signing was necessarily dampened by offseason ankle surgery. Finney-Smith missed the preseason and is still out for rest and recovery. However, his debut may be impending.<\/p>\n

Finney-Smith’s Rockets Debut<\/h3>\n

Finney-Smith was held out of Friday night\u2019s game against the Detroit Pistons as a \u201cgame time decision\u201d. He’s currently listed as the same<\/a> for Houston’s next game against the Brooklyn Nets on Monday, October 27. This Houston team tends to play its injury status pretty close to the chest, so it’s hard to predict when Finney-Smith will actually debut. It’s also hard to predict exactly how he’ll play when he does.<\/p>\n

The thing about “career years” from three is that players usually regress to their career average<\/em> beforehand, right afterwards. However, despite difficulties coming into the league, Finney-Smith has been an adequate three-point shooter for quite some time. His career average currently sits at a respectable 36.2% on 4.3 attempts per game. Of course, that’s hardly high-volume bomber territory, and the shine is further diminished by his occasional reluctance to take anything but the “Luka just did something bewildering” wide-open ones. When it comes to three-point shooting right now, though, the Rockets are a team that cannot afford to be choosers.<\/p>\n

Rockets’ Shooting Woes<\/h3>\n

It’s too early in the season for the Rockets’ clunky three-point stats to have overcome game-to-game variance. So far, the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder are only the second-worst<\/a> three-point shooters at 29.8%. Houston is already bottom-seven<\/a> in attempts, though, and unlikely to climb much higher.<\/p>\n

The addition of Kevin Durant<\/a> does help Houston’s offense tremendously. They have a legitimate one-two punch now between him and center Alperen Sengun<\/a>. The trouble is that the rest of the team combined can’t make a three. Houston arguably does itself no favors starting double-big lineups featuring Steven Adams<\/a> as a second, and thoroughly non-shooting, center. Head coach Ime Udoka simply feels more comfortable gimping his offense than he does gimping his defense with a developing player like Reed Sheppard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finney-Smith Finna Fix Some Things<\/h4>\n

The Rockets having Finney-Smith available could go a long way towards resolving some of their issues. Udoka is more likely to trust Finney-Smith’s defensive instincts enough to part with his beloved second big<\/a>. More shooting around Sengun and Durant dribble-handoff\/pick-and-roll actions should improve Sengun’s conversion rate around the rim. It all depends on Finney-Smith coming back in the same form he had last season. If not, then down the road, teams less endowed on the wing may still value him as a deadline trade asset<\/a>. Perhaps even enough to send a guard back to Houston that Udoka would actually play.<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

The Rockets are in a decent spot. Their two losses have both been absolute barn burners. That makes great content for the NBA, but it would be a lot more economical for the Rockets if they could just go into the barn and shoot the rats instead (for the sake of the barn-burning\/three-point shooting joke, please forgive any disquieting interpretations of that analogy). Finney-Smith returns to Texas with his hunting license in good order. With or without him, the team will go balls-to-the-wall to get its first dub, but their efforts would certainly be bolstered by another player who understands balls-to-the-basket is how you actually win.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Troy Taormina-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Houston Rockets’ 2025-26 season hasn’t started out quite as the team had hoped. However, the season-long absence of starting point guard Fred VanVleet was always going to necessitate an awkward adjustment period. And, even as the Rockets are down 0-2, there are signs of encouragement in their play. But they also await the debut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5223,"featured_media":164292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,31,62],"tags":[2272],"class_list":["post-164273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-rockets","category-nba","tag-dorian-finney-smith"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164273"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164293,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164273\/revisions\/164293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}