Led by a top-10 defense, the resurgent Houston Rockets (41-41) had the biggest year-on-year increase in wins of any NBA team during the recently completed 2023-24 regular season.
And yet, two potentially crucial defensive pieces on the team’s 2023-24 roster barely made any direct contributions to that success.
Second-year forward Tari Eason was limited by injuries to just 22 games, while veteran center Steven Adams — acquired by trade in February — wasn’t able to play at all due to injury.
Both are expected to be fully healthy by the time 2024-25 training camp opens in late September or early October. So, with that in mind, is Houston’s improved defense about to get even better?
In Tuesday’s season-ending press conference, general manager Rafael Stone and head coach Ime Udoka shared their optimism about adding Eason and Adams to the core of a .500 team.
Udoka’s comments:
You add Tari and Steven to the mix and another year [and] offseason under our belt to hit the ground running, there should be quite a bit of improvement just with that.
Stone’s perspective:
We’re looking forward to get Tari back. He’s an enormous part of what we do. We’re ecstatic we have Steven Adams and think he’ll add a real element to us.
The guys we have in the locker room today, we’re excited to bring back. We’ll look at things but again, I don’t view our roster as we’re missing X, we need to go find it. It’s not like we have a gaping hole.
Adams should slide in as a defensive complement to incumbent starter Alperen Sengun at center. Meanwhile, Eason will join a forward mix that includes starters Jabari Smith Jr. and Dillon Brooks.
Complete video of the press conference is available below.
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