Rockets' most pleasant surprise early in 2024-25 season

11/25/2024 11:20 AM

Former Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka’s first NBA head coaching job did not end well but he has since turned the Houston Rockets into a legitimate threat in the Western Conference. Roughly one month into the 2024-2025 season, Udoka has led the Rockets to a 12-6 record, good for fifth in the league through the month of November.

Like he did with the Celtics, Udoka has turned the focus of his team to the defensive end. As a result, through their first 18 games, the Rockets own the second-best defensive rating in the NBA with 103.7 Led by tantalizing perimeter defenders Dillon Brooks, Tari Eason, Fred VanVleet and Amen Thompson, Houston is currently sixth in steals and allow the second-fewest fastbreak points while operating at the ninth-fastest pace in the league.

With a roster as young and athletic as Houston’s, running at a top-10 pace was practically a given. Brooks being a top-tier defender was also nearly guaranteed. What wasn’t expected before the season was the rise of Eason and Thompson, who have simultaneously become two of the best bench players and overall defenders in the league.

Rockets’ defense has been their most pleasant surprise

It is not as if the Rockets were a bad defensive team in Udoka’s first season, but their play has been at an entirely new level in 2024-2025. Udoka’s arrival in Houston came at the same time as Brooks, who signed a four-year, $80 million contract during the 2023 offseason after spending his first six years with the Memphis Grizzlies. His aggressiveness and physicality led the charge for the Rockets ending 2023-2024 with the 10th-best defensive rating in the league en route to a 41-41 finish.

Brooks was not alone in 2023-2024, as VanVleet, Alperen Sengun and Jalen Green all also had above-average defensive numbers. They had all the pieces to become a truly elite defensive unit but were just missing the final link. Enter Eason and Thompson, who are both returning members of the team but have grown into exactly what Udoka needed to complete the puzzle.

They both come off the bench, but Eason and Thompson have a legitimate case of being the best perimeter defensive duo in the entire league. That does not even factor in Brooks, whose 98.9 defensive rating is the second-best of any perimeter defender who plays more than 20 minutes per game. He is only behind the Golden State Warriors’ DeAnthony Melton in that category, who has only appeared in six games in 2024-2025. All things considered, Brooks has been the best individual defender in the league, and it is not particularly close.

The stats do not necessarily tell the story for Eason and Thompson, though those have been spectacular as well. They both are right behind Brooks with defensive ratings of 102.8 and 102.5, respectively. Eason has been particularly impressive, averaging 6.4 rebounds, 2.2 steals and 1.1 blocks per game while being the team’s most versatile defender on the floor. His 2.2 steals per outing are third in the league behind Dyson Daniels and Jalen Williams, who both average more than 10 minutes per game than he does.

Numbers aside, the true impact of Eason and Thompson comes in the form of their aforementioned versatility. At 6-foot-8, Eason’s ability to defend one through five is a luxury few teams have, while Thompson is nearly as diverse on the perimeter. Their presence off the bench gives Udoka the ability to spell Brooks while concurrently elevating Houston’s overall defense.

In the same way that an elite floor general elevates the play of those around them, Eason and Thompson are the type of defenders who improve the defensive production of whoever they share the floor with. Without them, not even Brooks is the defender that he is and the Rockets would not be third in the Western Conference.

Make no mistake: Brooks is still the Rockets’ best defensive player and arguably the most valuable asset on the roster. With him on the floor, Houston has a 98.9 defensive rating, which is the highest of any player on the roster who has appeared in all 18 games. But without him in, it only drops to 106.3, which is still the biggest swing of any individual player on the team. There is a reason Brooks is having the best defensive year of his career, and it has nothing to do with any changes to his game.

Brooks is the definition of an elite defender, but he has never had running mates like he does now, which has been the Rockets’ most pleasant surprise early on.

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