The Houston Rockets are off to a 7-2 start and already look like a team built to matter in the West. With Kevin Durant, Alperen Sengun, Amen Thompson, Fred VanVleet and Jabari Smith Jr. forming the core, Houston has the kind of talent that can turn a strong opening into something bigger.
But if you’re trying to identify the team most likely to give the Rockets real trouble, the answer in this piece is San Antonio.
That doesn’t mean the rest of the league is easy. The Philadelphia 76ers, sitting atop the Eastern Conference, look like a serious test for Houston.
Tyrese Maxey is carrying the offense with 28.0 points and 5.4 assists per game, while Jaylen Brown is still producing at an All-Star level. The Sixers also have real depth, with sophomore VJ Edgecombe and Sixth Man of the Year candidate Anfernee Simons helping keep the machine running while the injury-prone Joel Embiid and aging LeBron James are able to ease out of their usual first-option workloads without disappearing from the picture.
Houston and Philadelphia are set to meet twice in the regular season, and that matchup has enough star power to feel like a possible NBA Finals preview.
Minnesota also comes up as a tough stylistic problem for Houston. The Timberwolves’ backcourt combination of Anthony Edwards, once healthy, LaMelo Ball and Ayo Dosunmu gives them multiple ways to create offense, while Rudy Gobert’s size, rim protection and physicality could make things miserable for Sengun around the rim. Jaden McDaniels has the length and defensive feel to bother Durant, and Minnesota can keep going after Sengun in pick-and-roll action to pull him into uncomfortable spots.
Still, the article lands on San Antonio as the team that could cause the most headaches for the Rockets. Houston has recent proof it can survive a battle, including a 114-110 win that ended with Amen Thompson blocking Victor Wembanyama. Even so, Oklahoma City would have been in this conversation too, except three core players are out indefinitely, and for Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace, maybe the season.
That leaves the Spurs. Their strengths may not line up perfectly with Houston’s, but they can still create problems. As the season moves along, San Antonio should settle in better to its three-guard lineups, and Tobias Harris returning from injury would give the team more flexibility up front than it had last season.
For Houston, the challenge starts with the guards. Thompson can try to take one away, but Fred VanVleet has to help slow down at least another.
The Spurs don’t have a clean answer for Durant, but Wembanyama is the separator if his development keeps moving forward. Sengun, meanwhile, gets a chance to show he belongs among the West’s top two centers.
The question is whether he can handle that stage.
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Kyrie Irving was the difference, and performances like that only make any discussion of him harder to ignore from Houstons side. Even with past trade chatter still floating around, Irving is expected to stay in Dallas and is averaging 23 points per game this season, which only sharpens the contrast between a Rockets team building around depth and a star who can still take over a night by himself. [Read more 🡒]