The Houston Rockets own the No. 4 and No. 20 picks in the 2023 NBA Draft; which prospect combinations should fans hope for?
For the Houston Rockets, lottery night was filled with bitter disappointment. Entering the night with the second-worst record in the NBA and tied-for-best odds to land the No. 1 pick, Houston ended up sliding back to the No. 4 slot. Meanwhile, their division rivals and cross-state counterparts, the San Antonio Spurs, were gifted the next decade of Victor Wembanyama's basketball career.
It has been a rough few years for Houston fans in the post-Harden era. Stephen Silas was widely considered the worst coach in the NBA and their young core has shown a stark lack of developmental progress despite several high-value draft picks. Jalen Green plateaued in year two, Jabari Smith Jr.'s rookie season was mostly underwhelming, and even Alperen Sengun — theoretically the brightest spot on the team — had his ceiling suppressed by Silas' inexplicable reluctance to run the offense through him.
But, now things are looking up. Ime Udoka has the respect of a lot of NBA players and it would appear that the James Harden days are soon to be not actually over. We can debate the merits of signing Harden another time, but Houston is on the verge of becoming a much better basketball team — with the fourth and 20th picks at their disposal to add more young talent.
Perfect NBA Draft combinations for the Houston Rockets
3. Jarace Walker and Jett Howard
Jarace Walker is the local kid who played down the street at the University of Houston. The Cougars were one of the best teams in college basketball last season, in part due to Walker's versatile defensive presence and unique offensive skill set.
He's not the absolute cleanest fit with Houston's current roster. He can shoot the 3 in theory, but the volume was low in college and he's much more geared toward operating around the elbow or in the paint. He's an excellent passer and playmaker for his position, but there would be concern about potential offensive overlap, at the very least spatially, with Alperen Sengun.
There's no harm in rostering multiple plus passers in the frontcourt, though, and Walker is an absolute beast on the defensive end who could help cover some of the ground Sengun cannot. The Rockets have been miserable on the defensive end during the Silas era, as are most young teams, but progress on that side of the ball is essential. Walker can help facilitate it.
If Jett Howard tumbles to No. 23, he'd be the perfect complement — a dynamic off-ball shooter with positional size and the potential to grow beyond his spacer role with time. He's not a great defender, but the Rockets do theoretically have multiple versatile wing defenders in Tari Eason and Jabari Smith if both can work out the kinks in their offensive repertoires.
2. Ausar Thompson and Brandin Podziemski
The Harden-Thompson fit, in theory, could present a few issues since Ausar Thompson is mostly a non-shooter. He's slightly more advanced than his twin (more on that later), but NBA defenses will comfortably sag off Thompson and ignore him on the perimeter. That being said, talent-wise there's too much to like about Ausar to completely rule him out.
Listed at 6-foot-7, Thompson can guard all over the perimeter. He's a dynamic and explosive athlete, possessing a deadly first step and the ability to collapse the defense even when he's not being guarded out to the 3-point line. Driving the lane, there aren't many more reactive passers in the draft. Thompson sees the floor extremely well and would be a tantalizing secondary creator working off of Harden, especially if he can become even a league-average spot-up shooter.
The Rockets also grab Brandin Podziemski in this scenario: another deeply intelligent, crafty guard who could add significant dynamism to the second unit. The theoretical Rockets are getting a little guard heavy here with Jalen Green and Kevin Porter Jr. also in the mix, but Podziemski (like Thompson) has some size at 6-foot-5. He's also a deep-range shooter who could counterbalance Thompson's downhill, rim-oriented game.
Getting two players who think the game and play winning basketball like Thompson and Podziemski would be a wondrous outcome for the Rockets. The sheer athleticism between Thompson and Green on the perimeter would overwhelm defenses, especially if they're both filling the lane in transition off passes from Harden (we can talk about the defense another day). Podziemski can space, attack off the catch, and provide useful connective playmaking.
1. Amen Thompson and Dariq Whitehead
Amen Thompson is less developed than Ausar as a shooter and as a defender, but the difference is marginal and he's still the slightly superior prospect. Why? Because where Ausar is a top-10 athlete, Thompson might just be the athlete in the NBA next year. He's that explosive, nimble, evasive.
Watching Amen Thompson dance through the defense is like watching one of those high-speed magnetic trains in Japan: there's no friction, nothing preventing him from reaching top speed at any moment. He's great at keeping defenders off balance with hesitations and side-steps before bursting downhill like a bolt of lightning. Finishing at the rim, no player has hang time like Amen. His body control is superhuman.
He was more ball-dominant in the Overtime Elite league than Ausar, which does factor into the equation if the Harden rumors are real. But Thompson, like Ausar, has ample potential cutting off the ball and filling the lane in transition. If he can work hard at the 3-point shot and become even league-average spotting up on the perimeter, it will unlock whole new dimensions of his game attacking off the catch while Harden draws doubles in the middle of the floor.
As for Dariq Whitehead, he has the potential to be the best value pick in the draft. Before the season at Duke, he was a consensus top-10, maybe even top-5 pick. Injuries hampered him significantly in Durham and he underwent a second foot surgery after the season. That's probably going to make him drop, but honestly, it should reassure teams that he was definitely not operating at full capacity with the Blue Devils. A healthy, fully-realized Whitehead is a lottery-level scorer who just shot 42 percent from deep as a freshman. This is the home run outcome for Houston.
