Houston Rockets guard Fred VanVleet has suffered a torn right ACL and will likely miss the entire 2025-26 NBA season. News of VanVleet's knee injury was first reported by Shams Charania of ESPN.
The injury occurred during a team minicamp in the Bahamas. He is scheduled to have immediate surgery this week, league sources told ClutchPoints on Monday afternoon.
VanVleet, 31, joined the Rockets in 2023 and instantly became a major part of their revival in the Western Conference since trading former league MVP James Harden during the 2020-21 season.
With VanVleet as the team's primary point guard last season, Houston won 52 games and claimed the 2-seed in the conference. The Rockets would go on to lose in seven games to the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the playoffs.
This offseason, VanVleet restructured his contract after the team traded for two-time Finals MVP Kevin Durant. After the team declined his $44 million team option, the veteran guard signed a new two-year, $50 million deal to remain in Houston and give his organization cap flexibility.
In addition to adding Durant, the team also signed veteran two-way wing Dorian Finney-Smith and awarded Steven Adams with a new three-year, $39 million contract extension. VanVleet taking a discount was a vital part of Houston being able to expand on their aspirations of winning a championship.
Replacing VanVleet will be a near-impossible task a week before training camp starts across the NBA.
Not only will the Rockets be without their starting point guard for the entire season, but they do not have many options to turn to in their backcourt. Third-year guard Amen Thompson will carry a lot of the heavy lifting in the wake of VanVleet's injury, and Aaron Holiday figures to see his role increase as well.
After failing to crack the rotation during his rookie year, Reed Sheppard will have plenty of eyes on him during the preseason. Sheppard is a player the Rockets are exceptionally high on and expect to be a long-term option in their backcourt well past VanVleet's tenure.
It is safe to assume that he will now hold a much larger role than originally expected during the 2025-26 season and could figure to be a key secondary facilitator and shooter on Houston's bench.
The Rockets enter training camp and the new season just about $1.2 million from their first-apron hard cap. As of right now, they are unable to sign a player to a minimum contract and would struggle to find a trade that would work financially.
Houston will likely have the ability to apply for a disabled player exception to try to fill VanVleet's void at some point before the trade deadline in February. The organization is unable to sign a player to a minimum contract without making a salary-clearing roster move until January, when a rest-of-season contract value decreases.
VanVleet averaged 14.1 points, 5.6 assists, and 3.7 rebounds in 60 games last season while shooting 34.5 percent from 3-point range.
