As rivals like the Spurs and Thunder accelerate toward championship contention, Rafael Stone’s blueprint faces a critical reality check against the league’s most explosive franchise turnarounds.
In October of 2020, Rafael Stone got the job as Houston’s GM and was immediately thrown into the fire. I touched on his NBA journey a bit here on Roundtable, with the James Harden trade a few months later officially signifying a new era. We’ve made it through the tanking phase and into step two of the rebuild, but what’s next?
Players and teams around the league are constantly improving, making championship windows feel increasingly smaller. Other teams around the league are flying by the Rockets now.
The San Antonio Spurs are a prime example of that, going from 22-60 to 62-20 in only two seasons. Whether it’s based on luck, better drafting and development, or some combination of the two, the Spurs have had a better and faster rebuild than the Rockets.
DeMar Derozan departed The Lone Star State in August of 2021, which unofficially started their rebuild. Derrick White got sent to Boston in February with Dejounte Murray getting traded in the following summer.
That resulted in back to back 22-60 seasons where they selected back to back Rookie of the Year award winners. Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle are already hoping to make the Conference Finals with another win against Minnesota.
The Wolves selected Anthony Edwards with the top pick in 2020, but they also got Andrew Wiggins and KAT with back to back first overall picks in 2014 and 2015.
That makes their rebuild a little murky, but they did only make the playoffs once between Edwards and Kevin Garnett in 2004. They’ve reached the conference finals in consecutive seasons, facing a 3-2 deficit on their road making it back this year.
The Detroit Pistons are in the same position right now, two wins away from making the Conference Finals. Their rebuild arguably started in 2020, where a COVID shortened 20-46 season rewarded them with Killian Hayes at 7th overall.
The real rebuild obviously started with Cade Cunningham being drafted one spot ahead of Jalen Green in the following season though. They had one of the most remarkable turnarounds in history, increasing their win total by 30 games from 2024 to 2025. They added another 16 wins this season, improving from 14-68 to 60-22 in two seasons.
With three more successful rebuilds starting at roughly the same time, the OKC Thunder are still head and shoulders above the rest. Trading Russell Westbrook and Paul George in July 2019 netted them a lump sum of draft capital, and most importantly SGA.
They’re obviously the reigning champs and the favorites to win this season. No one would be surprised if Shai wins back to back MVP and Finals MVP awards.
The Rockets haven’t had a bad rebuild by any means, as previously covered in more depth on Roundtable. They had the same 30 win increase as Detroit, albeit it was over the course of three years, not two. From 22-60 in 2023 to 52-30 in each of the past two seasons.
This would be stellar in any other circumstances, but it can seem a little underwhelming when the rest of the league is performing so well. I would urge fans to not be pessimistic yet, as there’s still plenty of room to grow.
Şengün is a two time All-Star, Amen Thompson will potentially make two All-Defensive teams in his first three seasons. This will be a big offseason for the front office though, as the roster needs to gel a little bit better in order to keep improving.