Houston moves early on its engine
Amen Thompson is staying put. The Rockets guard agreed a five-year, $208 million rookie-scale extension this morning, according to an ESPN report, with a 10% trade kicker built into the deal.
Thompson is 23 and was about to play out the final season of the four-year rookie contract he signed in 2023. He earns $12.26 million this year, per Spotrac. The new money does not kick in until the summer of 2027.
Houston did not have to do this now. Waiting would have meant restricted free agency next summer, rival offer sheets, and a price that only ever moves upward for a 23-year-old two-way guard. The Rockets chose certainty instead.
Try it for $0.99.
The core is now signed, all of it
Once Thompson signs, Houston will have Alperen Sengun, Jabari Smith Jr. and Tari Eason all tied down on multi-year deals alongside him. Four players drafted or developed in-house, none of them older than their mid-twenties, none of them heading anywhere.
That is the whole point of the strategy the front office started building in 2023, when Thompson went fourth overall. Draft high, keep everybody, pay them before the market does it for you.
What the numbers say
Thompson led the entire NBA in minutes played last season with 2,953. No player was leaned on harder. He turned that workload into career highs across the board: 18.3 points, 5.3 assists and 1.5 steals per game.
Across 210 career games, 144 of them starts, he averages 14.3 points and 7.6 rebounds. Those rebounding numbers from a guard tell you most of what you need to know about how Houston uses him. He defends multiple positions, he grabs the ball, he pushes it.
The contract puts him in the neighbourhood of $41.6 million a year once it starts. For a player who has never made an All-Star team, that is a bet on the next five seasons rather than a reward for the last three. Houston appears comfortable making it.
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