Rafael Stone: Rockets will ‘listen’ to trades, but ‘do not intend to change anything’ this season

Rafael Stone: Rockets will ‘listen’ to trades, but ‘do not intend to change anything’ this season

The Houston Rockets have outperformed general expectations through the first quarter of the 2024-25 NBA Season. After having a pretty quiet offseason, Houston has started 17-8, tied for the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference–trailing only the Oklahoma City Thunder (19-5).

Houston owns the fifth-best adjusted NET Rating and third-best defense, according to Dunks & Threes. Despite being one of the best teams in a loaded West through the early portion of the season, the Rockets don’t plan on completely re-shaping their roster to pursue a big name, according to general manager Rafael Stone.

“Of course, my job is to be open to everything, so I’m not going to not do my job,” Stone said on a recent Sirius XM Earlier. “(But) we like this team. We definitely do not intend to change anything and I would be shocked if something changes this season.

“We like where we’re at. We want to continue to develop our guys, full stop. Will I listen to other teams? Of course I will, that’s my job. But again, there’s no part of me, there’s no part of our decision-making process that suggests that we’re looking to do anything big now or in the near term.

“We definitely want this group to be as good as it can be this year and then we’ll evaluate things at the end of the year. But the hope is very much that this core group can lead us to where we want to go and that – from a transactional perspective – we’re largely done.”

This comes as a result of a recent Shams Charania report that the Miami Heat were open to listening to offers for star forward Jimmy Butler–with the Rockets being one of the destinations that could be seeking out his services.

The Rockets are hard-capped below the first apron after signing Aaron Holiday to the biannual exception, so they will already be limited with what they can do from a flexibility standpoint. A few of their young players–such as Amen Thompson and Tari Eason–have been huge reasons for their success through 25 games, in addition to Fred VanVleet and Alperen Sengun.

Stone made one in-season trade last year to acquire big man Steven Adams from the Memphis Grizzlies. I don’t know if the Rockets will have enough firepower to compete for a title this year — they are still at least one move away — but I understand not wanting to fracture the current core for a deep run if you’re still aiming to develop young talent.

***

Click Here for more NBA Content

Subscribe to Vendetta’s Twitch

Subscribe to Vendetta’s YouTube

Check out the Vendetta Shop

Check out Vendetta Fantasy Contests