Fred VanVleet’s season may be over before it even started.
The Rockets guard suffered a torn ACL, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported on Monday.
The damage occurred during a team minicamp in the Bahamas, Yahoo Sports’ Kelly Iko reported, and he will bear surgical procedure to deal with the damage this week.
Charania categorized it as a “potentially season-ending loss” for Houston and the damage comes just a few months after he had agreed to a two-year, $50 million contract extension that included a player choice for the 2026-27 season.
Rockets guard Fred VanVleet has suffered a torn ACL. NBAE via Getty Images
ACL accidents sometimes have a timeline of 6-12 months for restoration, which would imply he could miss most of the season, at greatest.
The loss of VanVleet would be a devastating blow to the Rockets, who have turned into a playoff contender with the assist of the one-time NBA All-Star and NBA champion and added Kevin Durant in an offseason commerce.
The Rockets went from a 22-win team to successful 41 video games after VanVleet signed in Houston during the summer time of 2023.
Houston is coming off a season in which it ended a four-year drought from the playoffs and completed the yr second in the Western Conference, all while VanVleet averaged 14.1 factors per sport during the season and 18.7 factors in the postseason.
This would be VanVleet’s tenth season in the NBA and it would have been his third in Houston.
The 31-year-old signed with the Raptors in 2016 after he wasn’t chosen in that yr’s NBA draft. VanVleet spent the next seven seasons in Toronto, where he helped the group win an NBA title in 2019.
Fred VanVleet NBAE via Getty Images
During his seven seasons there, VanVleet averaged 14.6 factors per sport, alongside with 5.3 assists and 3.3 rebounds.
The Rockets’ present payroll doesn’t give them much wiggle room to go out and change VanVleet, leaving a giant weight to bear for second-year level guard Reed Sheppard to have to shoulder.
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