After playing through the vast majority of the regular season last year, the Houston Rockets might want to be more restrictive with his minutes. If not, they run the risk of him missing time in the playoffs again.
Rafael Stone and the Houston Rockets’ front office has built out a very solid looking roster to start the 2026-2027 season. With some veterans being swapped out for younger options, and others just returning from injury, the team should have much more depth than last season. Even their top draft pick, Bruce Thornton, is already older than Reed Sheppard and should be ready to contribute whenever his number is called.
That should be helpful, especially if Fred VanVleet isn’t going to be able to play in back-to-backs. It’s not uncommon for players returning from serious injuries to need to work themselves back into the full swing of things. Getting that extra rest can be the difference between feeling good all season long, or constantly dealing with soreness from overworking a leg that has been out of use for the past year.
As I previously covered on Roundtable, the Rockets have five sets of back-to-backs before Christmas Day. That makes me concerned for VanVleet, as well as Steven Adams, since we’re not positive they’ll even start the season. We definitely don’t know whether they’ll be playing in back-to-backs yet.
This part of the schedule has an even bigger impact on Kevin Durant and his playing time. I was already questioning whether he should be playing less, as seen on Roundtable, and that was back in January. He went from 36.1 to 36.4 minutes per game by the end of the season, and was only able to play in one out of the six playoff games.
He’ll now be starting the season at the ripe age of 38, and it might be time to start matching his peers in minutes per game. Stephen Curry, for example, has consistently seen his minutes trail off in recent years. From 34+ minutes every year to start the 2020’s, it trended down to 32.7, 32.2, and eventually 30.9 at age 38 last season.
James Harden averaged 33.8 minutes last year, while DeMar DeRozan dropped to 31.2 minutes, and they’re both 36 years old. Those players might be a level or two below Durant though, but even LeBron James has been cutting down on the minutes.
Granted, he’s older, but at 40 and 41 years old last year, he averaged 33.2 minutes per game. That’s been slowly but surely declining since his 37.2 average in 2021-2022. Coincidentally, that’s when James was the same age that Durant is now.
If he follows his peers, KD’s 36.4 minutes per game last season will surely begin to drop in his year 38 season. Unfortunately, that might all depend on the health of the rest of the team as well.
