The Ringer recently updated it’s Top 100 NBA Player’s list on June 4, and six Houston Rockets players made the cut. Let’s take a quick look at which six The Ringer placed and where.
#36 - Alperen Sengun
“The Jokic comps may always follow Sengun—even he knows that. But the Turkish center has proved with back-to-back standout seasons that he isn’t cosplaying as the Joker. There are definite similarities, to be sure: Sengun’s combination of brute force and passing flair, as well as his slow-unfurling jumper, bears an uncanny resemblance to the three-time MVP. But he’s more of a blend of Jokician feel for the game and a workaday big man. So while you’ll often see Sengun turn his back to the basket and either Dwight Freeney spin his way to the rim or hit a streaking cutter from an impossible passing angle, he’s also a regular target as a roll man and shifty enough with the ball in his hands to take a lumbering defender off the dribble and—get this—actually dunk it.
Defense has long been the main hurdle—while the young big man effectively leveraged his naturally quick hands, sharp read of the game, and physical rebounding under coach Ime Udoka, he largely relied on the Rockets’ hounding perimeter defenders even in the best of times last season. But Sengun has made major strides in his fourth season by playing more as a roamer, and Houston’s overall defense has taken a leap, from very good to elite, as a result.
Sengun’s ultimate ceiling is a matter of debate; his outside shot is virtually nonexistent, and he isn’t an elite finisher at the rim. But he’s one of the most exhilarating creators in the game, and he’s shown this season that he can ply his offensive wizardry in a winning context. Can the Rockets make the same leap the Nuggets ultimately did with Alpy, and not a historically great point center, as their fulcrum? We’ll see. For now, a 22-year-old All-Star powering one of the best teams in the West will suffice.”
#41 Amen Thompson
“The league is as athletic as it’s ever been, packed to the brim with the kinds of explosive leapers and quick-twitch drivers who can make the impossible look routine. And then there’s Thompson—streaking past those very athletes on the break, soaring over them for rebounds, and disrupting their attempts to even keep a live dribble. The second-year anomaly doesn’t always know what to do with all that burst, but watching him guess and check is a revelation. Thompson doesn’t have an exact position. He can’t create much one-on-one just yet. He might be the worst jump shooter on this entire list. Yet Ime Udoka can’t keep him off the floor because whenever Thompson plays, the energy of the game completely changes.
Some of the ambiguities with Thompson will sort themselves out in time. Yet there are things he does that could never be taught, and that no coach, frankly, would even think to instruct. You don’t tell a player how to outrun everyone on the floor to blow up a play in progress. You just encourage him to hustle back into the mix and hope for the best. Thompson takes those hopes and turns them into highlights. He channels raw effort and pure savvy into winning plays. His nose for the ball is a talent in itself—as notable as the playmaking of an elite point guard prospect or the shooting stroke of a designated scorer. Thompson seeks and destroys. Just ask any opponent with the misfortune of being his assignment.”
#64 Fred VanVleet
“Rockets fans begrudgingly understand how important VanVleet is to their surprise contender. He blocks pathways for the youth but creates just as many. The Rockets offense—full of talented but unruly athletes—completely craters without his presence. But to impact winning as much as VanVleet does while shooting that poorly and taking the lion’s share of positional minutes in a rotation? It simply doesn’t happen very often. The only other player from this century to do it is Jason Kidd in 2003-04; just about everyone else to do it played in the 1950s, an age when some of the most iconic stars and generational talents shot 37 percent from the field.
What Steady Freddy lacks in size and burst, he makes up for in S-tier hand-eye coordination. His reaction speed has allowed him to remain an elite team defender. He is a thief in the shadows, a perfect funnel leading unwitting offensive players into the jagged teeth of the defense. He remains a solid catch-and-shoot threat who tries to keep defenses honest with pull-up 3s—and given the Rockets’ unique build of board-crashing hyper-athletes, VanVleet keeps the lights on. There are some players whose impact (according to advanced metrics) veers into the realm of mysticism. VanVleet is one of those players—what Shane Battier was to the Rockets in the mid-to-late aughts. Judging purely from his estimated plus-minus, VanVleet has the influence of a top-20 player. The eye test both confirms and vehemently denies that reality. VanVleet has never been an efficient scorer, but he protects the ball and organizes an offense like a farmhand herding cattle. It’s honest work, and he’s doing it for phenomenal wages.”
#88 Tari Eason
“The fine folks of Houston have taken a liking to branding Eason, alongside teammate Amen Thompson, as one-half of the “Terror Twins,” a two-word elevator pitch in praise of the duo’s demonic defense coverage. Great nickname. But think about that for a second. Eason plays with such dogged insistence as to supplant reality: Never mind that Amen, rather famously, has an actual identical twin also in the league—Tari is Amen’s funk soul brother.
Eason’s Year 3 breakout has been a leaguewide revelation amid Houston’s shocking pace as dark horse contenders. The breakout might have come even earlier had he not lost most of his sophomore season recovering from a stress fracture in his left leg. His effort and intensity jump off the screen and the spreadsheets; he’s the rare player whose eye test aligns almost exactly with his glowing metrics. Eason is an athletic, instinctive defensive playmaker whose 7-foot-2 wingspan and massive yet nimble hands have made him a “stocks” lord. Steal and block rates have been logged for the past 50 years of NBA history, and Tari’s outstanding combination of the two over the course of his young career is exceedingly rare. He has already proved to be a menace on the offensive glass, with one of the highest career offensive rebounding percentages in league history among players 6-foot-8 and under. And among his historical cohort, only Charles Barkley possessed the kind of on-ball creativity Eason has flashed on offense—which should only improve from here now that he’s gotten his 3-point shot to league average.
The next step for both Eason and the Rockets is finding out just how much his production can scale up without losing that edge—or compromising his body. Eason has already missed nearly a quarter of the season tending to a lower left leg injury—the same leg that suffered a stress fracture last year. Because if his battery can withstand 30-plus minutes of hell-raising two-way play per night, Eason has the makeup of a player worth building an identity around.”
#93 - Dillon Brooks
“Brooks is not for everyone. But if you’re able to look past the excessive antics, some inefficient stats, unnecessary fouls, and debatable dirty play, what you’ll see is a valuable two-way wing who found several ways to make the Rockets a better team last season.
Few veterans were more accepting of a smaller role than Brooks, who sacrificed shots and touches on a young team that needed those two ingredients to grow. He handled more thankless tasks (like stranding himself on an island against the opponent’s top scoring threat every night) and made important subtle shifts (like significantly cutting back on midrange shots).
In Brooks’s second season with the Rockets, it’ll be interesting to see how his role continues to evolve on a team that’s even more loaded with up-and-coming players than it was a year ago.”
#98 - Jalen Green
“Green seems to go on an annual 15- to 20-game heater to remind the world of just how talented he is. He’s untouchable during those stretches, during which he manages to correct the gap between the numbers and the eye test. Green hang glides in the air after leaping off two feet. He is a bolt of lightning when he splits double-teams out of a pick-and-roll en route to the basket. His jumper is pretty. His game is pretty. Flashes abound. In those pockets of standout play, the dream remains intact: explosive downhill finishing, efficient pull-up shooting at obscene volumes, reliable secondary playmaking. Alas, it never sticks. Maddening inconsistency has been the one constant across the former no. 2 pick’s first four seasons. He is nitroglycerin on the hardwood: fluid, explosive, and often self-destructive in suboptimal conditions.
In between these prolonged flashes, Houston has developed an identity that’s squeezed Green out—he hasn’t been able to organize the offense whenever Fred VanVleet is out, and his own scoring outbursts often come at the expense of the team’s overall offensive integrity. The on/off splits are damning: The Rockets’ net rating damn near resembles that of the 2024 championship-winningCeltics whenever Green isn’t on the floor. Houston needs something to change; so does Green. The three-year poison pill extension he signed early in the season made him nearly impossible to trade before the deadline, but depending on how the Rockets close out the rest of the season, Green could be one of the prime trade candidates of the summer. You don’t find 23-year-olds with elite traits available on the market very often. It might be only a matter of time before Green hits, err, greener pastures.”
Make sure you check out the full list from The Ringer here!