Houston’s current franchise rebuild unofficially kicked off in January 2021, once perennial All-Star guard and former MVP James Harden forced his way to Brooklyn in a leveraged trade.
The only current Rockets player around prior to Harden’s exit — in other words, on a Houston team that wasn’t yet in a rebuild — is defensive minded forward Jae’Sean Tate.
Now entering his fourth NBA season, Tate has seen it all over those years in Houston. But flanked by newly acquired veterans such as Fred VanVleet, Dillon Brooks and Jeff Green, Tate has higher hopes for the 2023-24 team and what its young core can accomplish.
“I think the rebuild is over,” Tate told reporters this week. “This is a whole new team, a new era of Rockets basketball. I think hunger is the right word … to prove ourselves right.”
Here’s a roundup of what all we heard from Tate at Monday’s media day from Toyota Center. Training camp officially begins Tuesday at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana.