Many have been expecting Jalen Green to be the one who is left without a chair when the music stops in Houston, but that may not necessarily be the case.
Kelly Iko and Sam Amick of The Athletic published a lengthy feature on Monday about the upcoming summer of decisions for the Houston Rockets. In the feature, there was a surprising nugget about Rockets guard Jalen Green.
Iko and Amick report that Houston team officials still have faith in the 23-year-old Green. Additionally, the Rockets are said to no longer have interest in one-time trade target Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns, in part due to their continued belief in Green.
Green, who was Houston’s No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, has plenty of talent as a scorer. He averaged 21.0 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 3.4 assists per game this year and still has much room to grow at such a young age.
But Green is inefficient with the basketball (shooting 42.3 percent from the field this season) and shrunk in the playoffs with 13.3 points per game on a shoddy 37.2 percent shooting during the Rockets’ first-round loss to the Golden State Warriors. In an offense that already features talented 22-year-old center Alperen Sengun and veteran guard Fred VanVleet as a primary ball-handler, Green might not be a tenable long-term piece if Houston truly wants to contend for an NBA championship.
That said, Green is still under contract for two more guaranteed seasons (with a player option for 2027-28), so the Rockets don’t have to press the eject button right away. Instead, they can roll the dice on Green taking a leap in the 2025-26 season and will still have another summer to get trade value out of him if he fails to do so. Of course, this could all change very quickly if Houston is serious about taking a trade swing on a major superstar as has recently been rumored about them.
