The Houston Rockets have been up and down lately, currently sitting at 38-22 after a recent narrow road win over the Washington Wizards. The Rockets' solid roster construction has allowed them to stay afloat despite playing without Fred VanVleet and Steven Adams for the most part this year.
Roster construction has been a topic of debate in the NBA in recent years, with various cap restrictions and aprons making it hard for teams to assemble truly dominant squads.
However, one person who is a fan of that is Rockets star Kevin Durant.
“Thank God for second aprons and the first aprons,” Durant said, per Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press, via the Washington Post.
“We wanted some parity and I think the last few years we’ve gotten exactly that,” he added. “I mean, it’s fun for everybody watching the game, not knowing exactly who’s going to be around at the end of the season. And as a team, it gives you confidence to know that even though you don’t play your best ball around this time, nobody really is. … Teams are trying to figure out which lineups they want to use, (after) trades, all of that stuff, so it’s a fun time to be in the league.”
Ironically enough, Durant's stint with the Golden State Warriors was a large part of the reason why there was such incentive for the league to implement the second apron, as Golden State reigned dominant over the league for the three years that he was in the Bay Area.
However, now, many would argue that the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction, with teams essentially being penalized for smart roster building by not being able to keep their cores together, even if they were all homegrown.
In any case, the Rockets will next take the floor on Thursday vs the Golden State Warriors.
