The Rockets Have Made A STRANGE Decision…
The Houston Rockets have MASSIVE expectations this season – a real playoff contender, an incredibly deep team, and a ton of young talent.
But there was this huge cloud hanging over the team, related to that young talent.
2 of the best players on the team – Jalen Green and Alperen Sengun, were 2025 restricted free agents and while a ton of other guys from their draft class: Cade Cunningham, Evan Mobley, Scottie Barnes, Franz Wagner… had all signed massive extensions – the Rockets had not yet locked up 2 key pieces to the future of their team.
Until now… Sengun is still a free agent but Green is not, signing an extremely unique 3 year, $106 million extension to stay in Houston.
Now when I say unique, what I mean is, we have never seen a contract like this… in the history of the league.
#rockets #nba #nbanews
36 Comments
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First
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The Rockets need to go all in on a star and trade at least 2 of their core 7. They can’t afford to pay everyone and consolidating a couple of their young players with VanVleet or Brooks’ contracts makes sense. I would love to see them get Markkanen or Ingram, or if one of the Suns stars becomes available!
Dude, you might wanna wait until after the deadline before recording a video. Both were signed before the deadline ended.
I think I understand why Houston did what they did. The West is stacked right now and management must feel the team won’t be ready to go all in next year and spend on a big free agent or trade for a star. May as well build something with the core they have for now and then revisit free agency later or making a big trade down the road
The Maxey deal worked out because he was willing to wait even though he came out later and said it was so hard. Sengun and Greens representation I’m sure we’re pushing for deals to be done now and Houston must have felt the risk involved was worth taking care of these guys now. Cap space isn’t as important to a team like Houston anyways, we know they are after a top 10-15 player and that’s gonna be the trade.
I completely understand your point, but the Sengun deal is less than the max, tbh is mostly a steal of a contract. And the 2025 FA doesn’t have any significant free agents we want to attract. I think that’s why the made both deals.
Green proved himself when he stepped up….he is a future super* and he's taken notice
Love seeing these contracts as a blazers fan cause all the sudden Grants contract ain’t looking like a huge overpay that clueless folks were crying about not understanding the new CBA and tv deal money coming.
"What doesn't make sense to me is why the Rockets added Sengun to this as well"
1. He signed for $40m less than the max
2. Free agent market isn't good next offseason
3. You don't sign Jalen to an extension and leave your better player unsigned. That's not a good look at all
I’m wondering if they did these deals to make them better trade pieces? I think they are still obviously interested in KD.
Rockets not giving Sengun the contract would've definitely hurt the relationship. They were either gonna give each of them contracts or no contracts to either of them till next season and they chose the ease of mind, which I understand. This also sets a precedence within the Rockets organization as well. Eason and Smith Jr. are gonna hit the RFA, Thompson and Whitmore the next year and Sengun's contract is gonna be the thing that everyone's contracts are gonna get compared to. 'You have to be better than Sengun or you're not getting the max' is a good message in my opinion.
I think majority of the reason why the financial structure of these contract extensions are towards a goal of team flexibility.. If you look at the numbers and look at the years of extension. it still fits a very solid timeline up to where its still at good tradeable value that gives them a good position if they want to trade for another star player or not. Im assuming 1. they will find a trade partner for fred in for 2025, 2. they will use some assets like Landale, Picks, some of their young core as great and attractive trade pieces. For now, their structure is built to test and push for playoffs as much as they can and adjust offseason according to needs…
Playoff contender? What does that mean?
I mean they are probably committed to deck their guys in house. Realistically what free agent could they have signed that would’ve made them contenders or really move the needle for them in a big way?
Here comes all the social media GMs
There’s no good free agents in 25
Senguin deal looks good, Green deal we will see
The rockets believe that they already have everything that they need in-house.. that’s why they made these signings! Have you seen their roster ? 😂 Reed Sheppard , Eason, Thompson, Whitmore 😂 they’re not looking outside for help bruh 😂
Fuck the Rockets I pray that Jalen does his 2 years and then opts out and give the Rockets the finger . If really thinks that Shepard is replacing Green good he’s absolutely not on that level and will pay dearly in 2 years .
I believe that Sengun is the reason why it went down like this. He probably wouldn't have accepted anything less and he wanted the contract now. He wanted certainty over a potentially great future team meanwhile the team wanted to lock him down.
Let's say Green and Sengun have an amazing season. Then the Rockets have to choose between the 2. And it comes out later that they could've done this. You'd be on their heads talking about how idiotic it was not getting these deals done earlier. Thank God you're not a GM smh.
P.S. love the content my guy
It’s not notable to be a playoff contender in the west anymore lol, 12 or maybe even 13 of the 15 teams could feasibly make the playoffs
44 mil to vanvleet is insane. What a waste. Brooks at 22 jeez. Nobody wanted to come here I guess
44 mil to vanvleet is insane. What a waste. Brooks at 22 jeez. Nobody wanted to come here I guess
What is strange is Bronny Scrub James being DRAFTED.
MORON
Rockets have insane dept already. They have at least 4-5 good young guys that can be great role players. Jabari Smith-Whitmore-Reed-Amen Thompson. On top of that they have Steven Adams and Brooks as solid veteran role players. And obviously, they have 2 potential super-stars with Green and Sengun. Even if only 1 of them becomes a super star, that's all they need. So they really don't need any free agents.
And don't forget, Sengun' conract is gonna be a top 10 contract in the league in 2 years. So Rockets def made the right move by signing him now, he would've gotten the max had they waited.
Great video, but where can I get that shirt?!? My mom’s would love that!
As a rockets fan I’ll give you my thoughts on the contract extensions.
With Jalen Green with him he pretty much betting on himself. If he goes out there and lives up to his potential after a few years he can hit free agency and get that super max contract. But during this contract he gets his money and he doesn’t have to worry about hitting restricted free agency.
As for the rockets side Jalen Green has not deserved the max. Most Rockets fan know how inconsistent he has been the first three years of his career and it didn’t help he had a god awful coach in Slias his first two years and our organization was a dumpster fire during that time.
Regardless of Jalen inconsistency the rockets still believe in his high upside. So they want to see if Jalen can be that guy he was at the end of the season consistently.
If not then it’s no biggy the rockets can just use Jalen contract as a trade piece for a star level player not to mention we still have the Suns and some of the Nets picks left over.
For Sengun flat out plain and simple he deserved the max he had a great year last year and he going to get a monster year this year. The rockets definitely view Sengun as a long term piece but I guess they wanted some cap relief since they didn’t give Sengun the full max.
To come to the middle ground Sengun wanted to add the player option to his deal which is a risk on the rockets since he would be a free agency in 2029 meaning he going to be in the class with Ant, Tyrese Maxey and Halliburton and Quickley. Thats a good free agent class and if Sengun plays up to his potential multiple teams will definitely be after him.
Regardless Sengun deserves it and we basically locked him up for five years and Jalen basically for two more years.
With these deals it basically sets us up for possibly keeping the rest of our core together. So the future is very bright in H-Town
2025 free agent class isn’t overwhelmingly loaded for a team like Houston
One if the finest content on b-ball 🫡
I thought they were gonna wait like the 76ers with maxey to sign FAs
isn't the Max cap going up a lot in 3 year
We have to give praise to players like lebron creating the blueprint on leveraging your skills to get the contract that you want even if your not as skilled
Just a couple of things, Jalens cap hold next year was actually higher than what his new cap figure is so we actually cleared a few million doing this, and with Sengun if we let him go to RFA he was 100% gonna get offered a max. Most people agreed it only made sense to sign Sengun early if you were getting him under the max, which we got him about 8m per year under the max.