Houston Rockets: Five things you need to know

• Jock Landale signed a four-year, USD $32 million deal with Houston in 2023.
• Hakeem Olajuwon led the Rockets to back-to-back championships in 1994 and 1995.
• Houston went 52-30 and lost in the first round of the playoffs in 2025-26

Seven months before he played an NBA game, Jack McVeigh hit one of the most famous shots in NBL history.

With 1.2 seconds left in Game 3 of the 2024 NBL Championship Series, the JackJumpers forward buried a three from beyond half court to beat Melbourne United and push Tasmania to the brink of a maiden title. Tasmania closed it out two games later, McVeigh was named the series MVP, and within months he had turned it into a two-way contract with the Houston Rockets. He made his NBA debut in the 2024-25 season at 28, an age by which most players have stopped waiting for the call. For part of that season he shared a locker room with Jock Landale, who had arrived on the largest contract of any Australian at the club.

That is the Houston pattern. This is a franchise that has never been the biggest market or the obvious destination, and has spent 50 years finding players other teams did not properly rate.

Australians who have played for the Houston Rockets

Four Australians have been on a Rockets roster, and for one season there were two of them at once.

Jock Landale is the most significant. The Victorian centre signed a four-year, USD $32 million contract with Houston on July 6, 2023, the largest deal of his career, after spells with San Antonio and Phoenix. He spent two seasons with the Rockets through 2025 as a backup five before moving on to Memphis and then Atlanta, where he has re-signed for 2026-27.

Jack McVeigh is the better story. The forward spent years in the NBL before signing a two-way deal with Houston and appearing for the Rockets during the 2024-25 season. He arrived off the back of a Tasmania JackJumpers championship and one of the most famous shots in NBL history, having averaged 16.5 points for them.

David Andersen got there first. The Victorian big man played his first NBA season in Houston in 2009-10 after a long career in Europe, later moving to Toronto and New Orleans.

Oscar Cluff is the one to watch. The undrafted Australian centre played for Houston's team at the 2026 NBA Summer League and rebounded better than any Australian in the tournament, at 7.6 a game in 18.4 minutes. He has not yet appeared for the Rockets in the NBA.

2026-27 team snapshot

Houston enters the new season with a very good record and a familiar problem.

The Rockets finished 2025-26 at 52-30, fifth in the Western Conference, matching their record from the previous year. They lost in the first round of the playoffs, 4-2. Two consecutive 52-win seasons have produced no series victory.

Kevin Durant arrived in 2025 as the centrepiece of the seven-team trade that reshaped half the league, joining a young core built around Alperen Sengun, Amen Thompson and Jabari Smith Jr. The theory was that elite shot-making would convert a strong defensive team into a contender. Two first-round exits later, the theory is unproven.

The offseason has been about toughness and guard depth. Houston signed Marcus Smart on July 10, 2026, re-signed Tari Eason on July 9, 2026, and added guard Bruce Thornton on July 7, 2026. JD Davison was re-signed on April 7, 2026.

Why the Rockets matter

Houston is the franchise that proves you can win a championship without the best player in the league, provided you have the best centre.

The Rockets won titles in 1994 and 1995 in the one window Michael Jordan was not playing basketball, and have spent the three decades since being told that is why. It is a lazy reading. Hakeem Olajuwon beat David Robinson, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal in consecutive series in 1995, all of them MVPs or MVP-calibre players. He was simply better.

One franchise, two cities

The Rockets were founded in 1967 as the San Diego Rockets and moved to Houston in 1971. The name came from San Diego's aerospace industry, and turned out to suit the new city, home of NASA's Mission Control, even better.

Every championship in the franchise's history has been won in Houston.

Moses Malone and the 1981 run

Before Olajuwon, Houston's defining player was Moses Malone.

Acquired in 1976, Malone was the most relentless offensive rebounder the sport has produced, winning MVP awards in 1979 and 1982. In 1981 he dragged a 40-42 Rockets team to the NBA Finals, where they lost to Larry Bird's Celtics in six games.

A 40-win team reaching the Finals remains one of the strangest runs in league history.

Hakeem Olajuwon and back-to-back titles

Houston drafted Hakeem Olajuwon first overall in 1984, ahead of Michael Jordan, and for once the team that took the big man was right.

Olajuwon was the most skilled centre the game has seen, a footwork clinic at both ends, and the only player to win MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and Finals MVP in the same season, in 1994. That year the Rockets beat New York in seven games. The following season, as a sixth seed, they swept Shaquille O'Neal's Orlando Magic to go back-to-back.

Houston remains the lowest-seeded team to win an NBA championship.

Yao Ming, and a global franchise

Houston selected Yao Ming first overall in 2002, and the effect was unlike anything before it.

The 229cm Chinese centre made the Rockets the most-watched team on earth, with games broadcast to hundreds of millions in China. He was an eight-time All-Star and, when healthy, a genuinely dominant player. Injuries ended his career at 30.

The basketball never quite arrived, since Houston won one playoff series in his time, but the franchise's global reach dates from that draft pick.

The greatest Rockets of all time

Hakeem Olajuwon is the greatest player in franchise history and one of the greatest centres ever. Moses Malone won two of his three MVPs in Houston. Yao Ming changed the club's global standing. James Harden won an MVP in 2018 and produced some of the highest-scoring seasons of the modern era.

Calvin Murphy, at 175cm, is the smallest player in the Hall of Fame. Clyde Drexler came home to Houston and won the 1995 title alongside his college teammate Olajuwon.

Five Fast Facts

1. Houston has won two NBA championships, in 1994 and 1995, both with Hakeem Olajuwon as Finals MVP.
2. The franchise was founded as the San Diego Rockets in 1967 and moved to Houston in 1971.
3. The 1995 Rockets were a sixth seed, the lowest ever to win an NBA title.
4. Hakeem Olajuwon was drafted first overall in 1984, ahead of Michael Jordan at third.
5. Four Australians have been on a Rockets roster: Jock Landale, Jack McVeigh, David Andersen and Summer League centre Oscar Cluff.

Historical Timeline

• 1967: Founded as the San Diego Rockets.
• 1971: Franchise relocates to Houston.
• 1981: Reach the NBA Finals as a 40-42 team, losing to Boston.
• 1984: Draft Hakeem Olajuwon first overall.
• 1994: First NBA championship, beating New York in seven games.
• 1995: Second championship, sweeping Orlando as a sixth seed.
• 2002: Draft Yao Ming first overall.
• 2009: David Andersen plays his first NBA season in Houston.
• 2023: Jock Landale signs a four-year, USD $32 million contract on July 6, 2023.
• 2025: Kevin Durant arrives in a seven-team trade. Jack McVeigh appears for the Rockets.
• 2026: Finish 52-30 and lose in the first round.

Looking ahead

Houston has a top-five record in the Western Conference two years running and nothing in the playoffs to show for it. Durant turns 38 during the coming season, which makes the window narrower than the roster's age profile suggests.

Marcus Smart's arrival says the front office has diagnosed the problem as toughness and half-court defence rather than talent. Sengun and Thompson are both young enough to improve on their own, which is the most valuable thing a contender can have.

For Australians, the thread is livelier than it looks. Landale earned the biggest contract of his career here. McVeigh proved the path from the NBL to an NBA roster is open at 28. Cluff, having out-rebounded every other Australian at Summer League, is trying to walk through the same door.