Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Varun Shankar: Stone: "The offseason plan isn't, '[FVV/Adams are] coming back, it's fine.' "I think it's much more looking at our young guys and saying, 'You guys need to improve.'" Stone noted that the young guys showed improvement throughout the 25-26 season.
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."
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.
The Rockets will also meet with Thompson in hopes of agreeing to an extension, team sources said. (The 23-year-old is eligible to sign a five-year, $252 million max extension, according to the CBA and salary-cap analysts.) VanVleet has a $25 million player option for the 2026-27 season, but the Rockets, who are confident the veteran guard wishes to remain in Houston, will speak with him about either picking up the option or declining it for a longer deal, sources said.
Advertisement
Fred VanVleet will be another player to keep an eye on this offseason. He has a $25 million player option for the 2026-27 season. He could just bank that money as he continues his recovery from a torn ACL. But there’s also a chance the 32-year-old could negotiate a new deal with Houston to provide some short-term cap flexibility in exchange for a few additional years of security.
Fred VanVleet on being coached by Jerry Stackhouse in G League: Me and Stack almost got the rumbling in that [expletive]. The next day he called me in the office because you gotta think, bro, he got me doing the joint. The whole team got to shoot the free throw. However many free throws you miss, we doing suicides! TA, suicides, bro. Tony Allen: But it's funny to me. I know his character. He just so serious. VanVleet: He's so serious when you talking to him. But me and him had a relationship forever off of just the strength of like I'mma deal with you right here anyway. So, it was damn near perfect, cuz like he called me in the office like, who do you think you are? And I’m like Stack you on some bullsh*t though, dog. I'm like, "No, I wasn't rolling." But I'm like, "You going to have to whoop me cuz no game." So Stack, he'll knuckle up with you. So that part was cool. But it took me probably two or three weeks.
It was a tragedy early in your life. You want to talk about losing your father at a young age and how you had to take that in so early? Fred VanVleet: Yeah. At the time, you know, I’m grown now, so I can look back on it. But at the time, you don’t really know, you know what I’m saying? Now I got kids, so it’s like—they wouldn’t even really know. You know what I’m saying? I was five when my dad got killed. And I just remember my mom and them coming and telling me, and I’m just like, “Damn.” They like, “Dad ain’t coming home.” I’m like, “Alright, cool.” But it didn’t hit me. So boom, now you fast-forward, and then you go into the tournaments and all that. I grew up the first half—after my dad died, my mom’s white, so we grew up on the white side of town. Then we moved back to the hood again. And in the hood, ain’t too many people got their dads anyway.
Fred VanVleet: So I ain’t never really feel it. It just was like little stuff here and there. Like, you go to the tournaments and you see the kids with their dads and stuff like that, and it’s like, “Damn, I wish I had that.” But I just felt like it gave me a different hunger. And it was more so like I knew not to play too close to the streets. That was the main thing. My whole childhood, from as young as I could remember, I knew if you play in the streets, you can get smoked.
Fred VanVleet: “So, the free agency was weird because, like, I knew I didn’t really want to go back to Toronto. They didn’t really want me back, but it was like, again, I had the relationship. So it’s like they kind of wanted to make sure they put a respectable offer down, but they came with the bulls*** first. So when Houston came with the real deal, this don’t nobody know it yet, soon as they said the number, my mind was made up. I don’t even give a f*** what nobody talking about. So now I was like, ‘All right, cool. So this is — this is — you got to work our way into it.’ Now you had official meetings and s*** like that. So I think that’s what was reported was the deal, but that was like before it actually happened. So then when I met with Toronto, they came with another deal like at the last minute like, ‘Yo, we going to offer you whatever we going to offer you.’ I’m like, ‘All right, bet.’ You know what I’m saying? But even my meeting with them was like they knew — you know, everybody in the room knew like this s*** over with. But it was just almost like just a formality, like we just doing this because this what we supposed to do. And then after that, my mind was made up and s***. We agreed to sign with Houston. But I think I was like the first deal that summer, so people was waiting to see where I was going to go, like how the free agency work. I was holding everybody up. But s***, I couldn’t sign that s*** fast enough.”
Advertisement
Fred VanVleet on Masai Ujiri: “Yeah, he was great. I tell you what, he was hard. Like, he was serious as f***, you know what I’m saying? It wasn’t no bulls*** with him. But he never lied, and he always told me the truth, and he always challenged me. And I think it was coming off my second year, I was hurt in the playoffs, and I think he was looking at me like he thought I was trying to sit out so I could get paid. But I really was hurt, though. So he pulled me to the side. He like, ‘Look, I’m going to tell you some real s***. It’s never been one of us that I ain’t paid. You know what I’m saying? It ain’t my money. I’m going to pay you what you deserve, but I need you to do what you need to do.’ Like, all right. He was like, ‘The only guy I never paid, I traded him to the team he wanted to go to.’ And I never forgot that. So it put me at ease, you know what I’m saying? And then he always would challenge me to be better than what I was, because you’ll get comfortable. You’ll get like, ‘I’m cool.’ He like, ‘No, you could do this, this, this. I’m not going to pay you unless you do this. I’m not going to pay you unless you do that.’ And at the time, like, ‘This m***********, man, it was some bulls***.’ Fred VanVleet: "But I ain’t know he was really just trying to push me. And then the older I got, I’m like, ‘Okay, I could appreciate that,’ because everybody not going to do that. Most GMs will sit there and watch you do some s*** and wait till it’s time to pay you, and then they got a whole list of s*** that you ain’t been doing. You know what I’m saying? With that list, he’ll help you. He’ll tell you like, ‘No, this is what you need to do.’ So I always had just a lot of respect for him, because he was cut though. There’s no bulls*** with him.”
Varun Shankar: Injury reports for Rockets-Wolves - Eason still questionable (FVV and Adams OUT) - Ayo will play for Minn, Ant and Naz Reid questionable. - Rudy, Bones, Ingles, Randle all OUT
Fred VanVleet: We will never see another guy do it like LeBron James did it for 25 years. Clean face, professional, work hard. Like he is the perfect model citizen of what you want the face of the league to be. I don't think that's going to happen again.
Fred VanVleet: This one I don't like. Luka Doncic has been averaging 40, 10, and 10 for the last two, three weeks. He's going down the list. Victor Wembanyama gets up there at a press conference and says, "I'm the MVP." He goes up now. He's very deserving. I would never be mad if he won. He's very deserving. And I think every year there's multiple guys that are deserving. But I'm just saying sometimes it's like, what is this? What is this sh*t really about?
