Finney-Smith's steep decline and hefty contract cast a shadow over Houston's ambitious offseason. Did the Rockets misjudge this crucial acquisition?
Rafael Stone and the Houston Rockets organization as a whole made some very ambitious moves this past summer. The biggest of those roster changes was of course Kevin Durant, but there were still other players to improve around the edges. Bringing back Steven Adams and Clint Capela, plus adding Josh Okogie and DFS on the wing, for example.
The Big Kiwi’s injury early in 2026 slightly derailed the Rockets’ season, showing just how valuable of a signing he was. Clint Capela helped fill that void for the remainder of the season, finishing with 75 games played.
With Tari Eason in and out of the lineup and Reed Sheppard still gaining Coach Udoka’s trust, Josh Okogie came in and played tremendous basketball. Always bringing the energy on both sides of the court, he played 78 games this season and shot 38.5-percent from deep. Both of which were career highs as he started in 32 games, per Basketball-Reference.
Unfortunately Dorian Finney-Smith just had the worst season of his career. After maneuvering through the CBA to sign a 4 year 53 million dollar contract, he just hasn’t done much for the Rockets this year.
He’s averaged a career low 3.3 points in 16.8 minutes per game with Houston. This is while only making one out of every three shots he attempts, and shooting 27-percent from behind the arc. Each of these stats is a career low, as seen on Basketball-Reference.
He’s only played in 37 games, and only started once in a very odd Friday the 13th game against the Pelicans. If not for his sophomore season, where he only played 21 games, this season would’ve been another career low.
One positive is that he did reach his peak after lingering knee tendinitis for all of the 2017-2018 season, but he was nearly a decade younger then.
Looking at the NBA’s Player Splits, it looks like Ime Udoka did try to give him a little bit more run after the trade deadline. From 15.8 to 17.9 minutes, we did see his game coming around a bit. To be fair, there wasn’t much room to get worse.
In Finney-Smith’s first 20 games returning from injury, he shot 29.9-percent from the field and 24.5-percent from deep. Before getting completely yanked from the lineup, he had 17 games shooting 36.9-percent from the field and 29.8-percent from deep.
Still not good enough to stick around in the lineup, and apparently not even good enough to get a single minute in a playoff game when KD sits out. Not a great sign for someone making 12.7 million dollars this season.
Definitely a big miss for the front office last offseason, and a mistake that could’ve potentially been rectified at the trade deadline. If the Rockets fail to get out of the first round against a depleted Lakers squad, I put a lot of that blame on Rafael Stone and his decisions with DFS.