The Houston Rockets spent a lot of money two summers ago.
Fred VanVleet’s contract in particular turned heads. Sure, VanVleet is a good player. He’s a crafty veteran who can pilot an offense and shoot threes off the dribble.
But $128 million is a lot of money.
It’s an unfathomable figure if you’re, for example, an online sports writer. Even by NBA standards, it was a lucrative deal. On a pure production basis, it was an overpay.
The Rockets didn’t strictly pay for production. They paid for a reliable veteran with championship experience to steward them back to relevancy. VanVleet has done a tremendous job in that regard.
Now, it’s time to extend him at a figure that matches his production.
Rockets expected to extend VanVleet this summer
According to Bleacher Report’s Eric Pincus, that’s what’s likely to happen. He just published a piece ranking the top upcoming free agents around the NBA. He ranked VanVleet sixth.
More relevantly, he stated that there’s an expectation around the league that the Rockets will work out an extension with VanVleet this summer. That would mean declining his team option and negotiating a new deal.
It’s a sensible decision. Per CleaningTheGlass, the Rockets are +5.3 with VanVleet on the floor in 2024-25. That’s second on the team to Alperen Sengun’s +5.6 mark.
The Rockets are an organization in an interesting spot. They have short, medium, and long-term goals. One of those long-term goals may be to become untethered to VanVleet, but their short-term goals involve maximizing wins, and they still need him to do that. Luckily, VanVleet is a portable player whose role can scale down as he ages. Extending him is prudent:
