Rockets guard could miss 2025-26 NBA season

Fred VanVleet’s season may be over before it even began. 

The Rockets guard suffered a torn ACL, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported on Monday. 

The injury happened during a team minicamp in the Bahamas, Yahoo Sports’ Kelly Iko reported, and he will undergo surgery to address the injury this week. 

Charania categorized it as a “potentially season-ending loss” for Houston and the injury comes just a few months after he had agreed to a two-year, $50 million contract extension that included a player option for the 2026-27 season. 

ACL injuries typically have a timeline of 6-12 months for recovery, which would mean he could miss most of the season, at best. 

The loss of VanVleet would be a devastating blow to the Rockets, who have turned into a playoff contender with the help of the one-time NBA All-Star and NBA champion and added Kevin Durant in an offseason trade.

The Rockets went from a 22-win team to winning 41 games after VanVleet signed in Houston during the summer of 2023. 

Houston is coming off a season in which it ended a four-year drought from the playoffs and finished the year second in the Western Conference, all while VanVleet averaged 14.1 points per game during the season and 18.7 points in the postseason. 

This would be VanVleet’s 10th season in the NBA and it would have been his third in Houston. 

The 31-year-old signed with the Raptors in 2016 after he wasn’t selected in that year’s NBA draft. VanVleet spent the next seven seasons in Toronto, where he helped the organization win an NBA title in 2019. 

During his seven seasons there, VanVleet averaged 14.6 points per game, along with 5.3 assists and 3.3 rebounds. 

The Rockets’ current payroll doesn’t give them much wiggle room to go out and replace VanVleet, leaving a large weight to bear for second-year point guard Reed Sheppard to have to shoulder.