CLEVELAND, OHIO – JANUARY 25: Amen Thompson #1 and Fred VanVleet #5 of the Houston Rockets listen to head coach Ime Udoka during the fourth quarter against the Cleveland Cavaliers at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse on January 25, 2025 in Cleveland, Ohio. The Rockets defeated the Cavaliers 135-131. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)
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The 2025-26 NBA season hasn’t even tipped off yet, but the Houston Rockets have already suffered a devastating blow. ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Monday that starting point guard Fred VanVleet tore his ACL and could miss the entire season.
VanVleet led the Rockets with 5.6 assists per game last season, was third on the team in points (14.1) and was second in made three-pointers (2.7), trailing only the now-departed Jalen Green. The Rockets have other playmaking options, including starting center Alperen Şengün, Amen Thompson and offseason addition Kevin Durant, but they’re going to miss VanVleet’s steady two-way play.
The Rockets’ best healthy point guard is now Aaron Holiday, a 28-year-old journeyman with only 66 career starts in his seven NBA seasons. In other words, VanVleet’s injury will force head coach Ime Udoka to get creative.
Thompson, Şengün and Durant are locks for the Rockets’ starting lineup. Jabari Smith Jr. figures to be the starting 4 after he signed a five-year, $122 million extension this summer, although Tari Eason and Dorian Finney-Smith will be gunning for that spot as well. The Rockets could go big and start two of Smith, Eason and Finney-Smith alongside Thompson, Şengün and Durant, or they could start 2024 No. 3 overall pick Reed Sheppard, who played sparingly as a rookie, next to Thompson in the backcourt.
Either way, the solution to VanVleet’s injury will have to come internally, at least initially. That’s because the Rockets didn’t leave themselves with enough financial flexibility to weather the storm of a critical injury like this.
The Hard Cap Limits The Rockets’ Options
After their offseason wheeling and dealing, the Rockets currently have $194.7 million in total salary on their books with 14 players on standard contracts. That leaves them only $1.2 million below the $195.9 million first apron, which is a major problem when it comes to finding a replacement for VanVleet.
Since the Rockets used the majority of the $14.1 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception to sign Finney-Smith in free agency, they’re hard-capped at the first apron. They aren’t allowed to exceed that salary threshold between now and June 30, 2026 under any circumstance.
Until the regular season begins, a standard veteran-minimum contract for anyone with two or more years of NBA experience is worth roughly $2.3 million. The minimum exception begins to prorate by roughly $13,000 per day once the regular season begins, but the Rockets won’t be able to fill their 15th roster spot until early January without shedding salary elsewhere.
If the Rockets believe VanVleet won’t return at all this season—even if they go on a deep playoff run—they could apply for a disabled player exception, which would be worth $12.5 million (50% of his 2025-26 salary). However, they’d have to first dump salary elsewhere before they’d be able to use more than $1.2 million of it.
This is one of the many perils of landing close to the apron when you’re hard-capped, as the Dallas Mavericks learned the hard way last year. Their moves at the trade deadline—including the blockbuster Luka Dončić trade—left them roughly $171,000 below the first apron. When injuries began to mount for them after the All-Star break, they didn’t even have enough financial flexibility to re-sign Moses Brown to a 10-day contract once his initial deal expired. They were only $51,148 below the first apron at the time, so they weren’t allowed to sign anyone to another standard contract until April 10.
The Rockets don’t find themselves in quite as dire straits. Assuming they otherwise stand pat with their current roster, they could fill their final roster spot with anyone who has two or more years of experience starting on Jan. 8. In the meantime, they may just have to weather the storm with a 13-man roster sans VanVleet.
Why Trades Might Not Solve The Problem Immediately
The Rockets could peruse the trade market for a stopgap point guard, but finding the matching salary they’d need to send out could prove difficult before Dec. 15. Unless they’re willing to part ways with any of Durant, Şengün, Sheppard or Thompson, they don’t have big salaries to dangle.
Since the Rockets signed all three of VanVleet ($25 million), Finney-Smith ($12.7 million) and Clint Capela ($6.7 million) in free agency this offseason, none of them will become trade-eligible until Dec. 15. Steven Adams will be trade-eligible starting on Dec. 14—the six-month anniversary of his signing a three-year, $39 million extension—but he can’t provide immediate relief over the first two months of the season either. And since the Rockets signed Smith to an extension this offseason, the poison-pill provision would make it prohibitively difficult for them to trade him prior to next summer.
The Rockets could dangle Eason ($5.7 million) as their main trade bait, particularly if they don’t sign him to an extension by the Oct. 20 deadline. Otherwise, they only have a handful of players on minimum contracts to offer, none of whom would have significant trade value.
If the Rockets can’t find an in-house solution to VanVleet’s absence, they could always circle back on the trade market once the Dec. 15 restriction lifts on him, Finney-Smith and Capela. Portland Trail Blazers fans should already begin to brace themselves for hypothetical trade frameworks of VanVleet and Finney-Smith for Jrue Holiday, for instance. But until then, the Rockets have little choice but to turn inward and first experiment with the internal options at their disposal.
Although they couldn’t have anticipated VanVleet’s injury at the time that they made the rest of their offseason moves, this is further evidence of why teams need to tread lightly when they’re hard-capped. Getting anywhere near the apron severely ties a team’s hands, as the Rockets are about to discover.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.
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