Ramona ShelburneCloseRamona ShelburneESPN Senior WriterSenior writer for ESPN.comSpent seven years at the Los Angeles Daily NewsFollow on X and Tim MacMahonCloseTim MacMahonESPN Staff WriterJoined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009Covers the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas MavericksAppears regularly on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FMFollow on XMultiple AuthorsMay 4, 2026, 07:00 AM ET
play1:22Los Angeles Lakers vs. Houston Rockets: Game HighlightsLos Angeles Lakers vs. Houston Rockets: Game Highlights
Los Angeles Lakers vs. Houston Rockets: Game HighlightsLos Angeles Lakers vs. Houston Rockets: Game Highlights
THE HOUSTON ROCKETS went to the Bahamas at the end of September, hoping for the best. It was the end of the summer vacation across the Caribbean, with warm weather and uncrowded beaches. But it also was the middle of hurricane season in the Atlantic. They knew the risks.
Four months earlier, the Rockets, after winning 52 games and earning the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, lost in seven games to the No. 7-seeded Golden State Warriors.
The narrative surrounding the loss, and the team, was that despite a deliberate, multistep rebuild — one that had yielded potential young stars in Alperen Sengun, Amen Thompson and Reed Sheppard — the franchise badly needed experience and a true superstar.
After trading for him in late June, Houston quickly became a fashionable pick to contend for an NBA title. Durant, the thinking went, could elevate the young, talented core the Rockets had gone to great lengths to create and protect over the prior six years.
And so it was that VanVleet took charge in organizing a players-only mini-camp at the Baha Mar resort in Nassau.
He had organized a team-bonding trip the year before and knew what was important: time to bond on and off the court and enough free time for it to feel like a vacation too.
At first, Thompson said he thought VanVleet had just turned his ankle. Green said he assumed VanVleet was OK after he tried to walk it off.
“It was like something that you can’t predict and you can’t fathom,” Green said. “It was really tough because he’s our captain on and off the court.”
Tests revealed that VanVleet had torn his right anterior cruciate ligament, and everyone understood a new reality: that the season ahead would be far different than the one they’d imagined when they’d first traded for Durant.
Interviews with team sources and those with knowledge of the team’s operations reveal that the VanVleet injury, and the season-ending ankle injury to Steven Adams later on, impacted the team in ways that extended off the floor. Beyond the team’s glaring lack of playmaking, their absences created a massive leadership void that Durant and the team struggled to fill.
Durant was predictably brilliant on the court throughout the 2025-26 season, averaging 26.0 points, 5.5 rebounds and 4.8 assists while playing in 78 games, but team sources said his “moodiness” took some getting used to and wore on the team’s young players throughout the campaign, a dynamic that was exacerbated without VanVleet and Adams as buffers.
Durant, suffering from knee and ankle injuries, was barely able to contribute, leaving the young core to try to seize the opportunity of facing a Lakers team with two of their stars out with injuries.
Ultimately, they could not do so fast enough. After coming together to win two elimination games, the Rockets ended their season Friday night, lamenting their bad luck with injuries but forced to consider whether that was really the crux of their demise this season.
Had they chosen the right young players to build around? Was Udoka the right coach to lead them? Was Durant the right veteran star to add to their group?
Despite the loss, multiple high-level team sources still believe their young core can contend for the next decade. Those same sources said Udoka will remain an essential part of the team’s future. Durant too.
THE ROCKETS BEGAN this rebuild in February 2021, when they traded former MVP James Harden to the Brooklyn Nets. But Harden’s presence has never really left the franchise.
Over the past several years, according to team sources and those close to Harden, there has been mutual interest in a reunion.
The first opportunity for it came in 2023, when the organization chose to sign VanVleet to a three-year, $130 million contract, rather than pursue Harden after he had failed to land a maximum contract extension with the Philadelphia 76ers.
The next opportunity came this season, when Harden’s representatives gauged the Rockets’ interest in him following the LA Clippers’ 6-21 start.
After VanVleet’s injury, a reunion with their former point guard made a lot more sense, they thought. And Houston was closer to contention after trading for Durant in the offseason, and Harden was still playing at a high level.
“We’re not really looking for a heliocentric player, as great as James still is,” one team source said. “We want to develop Reed, we want to develop Amen and we want the ball in Alpy’s hands.”
As another said, “We weren’t going to put the ball in [Harden’s] hands, so why would you trade for James if you’re not going to give him the ball?”
That decision reverberated for the rest of the season and throughout the first-round playoff series, as all three young players matched tantalizing moments with inexplicable ones, where poor decision-making or shooting led directly to losses.
Sheppard, in particular, shot 16-for-64 in the Rockets’ four losses to the Lakers but 11-for-24 in their two wins. His poor defense in Game 1 forced Udoka to limit his playing time to just 11 minutes in Game 2.
When Sheppard returned to the starting lineup in Game 3, a turnover contributed to Houston’s late-game collapse. But late in Game 5, he swiped the ball away from Lakers forward James, helping to seal a win in Los Angeles. In Game 6, Sheppard struggled again, hitting just 4 of 19 shots, including 1-of-10 on 3-point attempts.
The Rockets have believed deeply in Sheppard since drafting him at No. 3 in 2024 — one spot ahead of eventual Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle.
Internally, there’s a belief Sheppard has the potential to develop into an all-time great, such as former Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash, if given enough time and the right conditions. Externally, there is less of a consensus on Sheppard.
VanVleet was supposed to buy Sheppard more time. But ultimately, the Rockets believe Sheppard has the right temperament to grow from the ups and downs of this season.
“He just flashes so much greatness you can’t teach,” a team source said. “From Steve Nash to Steph Curry, none of those little guards play great their first few years. We’re still big believers in Reed.”
In the exchanges, which became public during All-Star weekend in Los Angeles, an X user alleged to be Durant, @getoffmydickerson, questioned Sengun’s shooting and defense and Smith’s intelligence.
Read one: “Ima turn the ball over with this s—ty ass team. Idgaf. Your franchise player can’t shoot or defend. That’s a wayyyyyyy bigger problem than my turnovers. Remember, these guys are your future.”
These exchanges were part of a group direct message on X, which only became public because a person in the group thread screenshotted some of the messages.
While Durant publicly dismissed the situation as “Twitter nonsense,” team sources said the team took the posts seriously and proceeded under the assumption that Durant was at least associated with them.
After players returned from the All-Star break, Durant discussed the situation with his teammates in what sources described as “more of a team discussion than a meeting.” According to those team sources, Durant said enough that the discussion moved on to other issues that had been simmering within the team throughout the first half of the season.
They’ve probably heard worse in their own locker room, the source said. Between Adams’ off-color humor and Udoka’s tough-love coaching, Houston’s young core has developed relatively thick skin. Not to mention, the source explained, younger players are used to the pitfalls and perils of social media.
Strong play the final month of the regular season also raised hopes that Durant and this young team could make noise in the playoffs, especially once it drew the injury-riddled Lakers as a first-round opponent.
Instead, the Rockets lost the first three games in ways that echoed some of the criticisms of Sengun and Smith from the alleged burner account.
Sengun’s defense was a significant factor in the team’s first three defeats. So was Smith’s turnover at the end of Game 3. Durant’s nine turnovers in Game 2 and his decision to get treatment in the training room instead of appearing on the bench in Game 3 brought renewed scrutiny on him, as well.
Internally, however, sources stressed to ESPN that no one on the team or within the organization had an issue with Durant not appearing on the bench during Game 3.
“Would the optics have been better if he was on the bench? Sure,” one team source said. “But no one had any problem with it. We all knew how hard he was working to rehab and how much he wanted to play.”
Ultimately, Durant did not make it back from the bone bruise in his left ankle in time to play in the series. If anything, Udoka said afterward, the way the Rockets lost Game 6 underscored just how valuable Durant is to them.
“It’s nights like this where guys are struggling, you want a 25-, 26-point scorer with his efficiency and the way he does it to avoid some of these nights when other guys are struggling,” Udoka said following the elimination loss.
“Myself and the coaches said that these are the nights you have [Durant] for, when other guys are kind of going through it. Throughout the season, he kind of carried us on nights like this, some poor shooting nights, until others could get it going. It was definitely evident tonight.”
Los Angeles Lakers vs. Houston Rockets: Game Highlights
Los Angeles Lakers vs. Houston Rockets: Game Highlights
HOUSTON WELCOMED THE weight of expectations when it traded for Durant, adding a polarizing future Hall of Famer to the roster of a team that finished second in the West before fizzling out in the first round last season.