Rockets rebuild: Jalen Green’s doldrums, Scoot Henderson vs. Brandon Miller and

With just 10 games left in the Houston Rockets’ 2022-23 season, most if not all of their attention should be geared toward ending the campaign with good habits and building momentum to carry them into the offseason and beyond.

At 18-54 and firmly huddled with the San Antonio Spurs (19-52) and Detroit Pistons (16-56) as the league’s worst three teams, the race for Victor Wembanyama is in full swing, with all three teams essentially locked into the joint-best odds at winning the upcoming draft lottery and emerging from a difficult period with the hope of something better on the horizon.

To look back on the year, examine key Rockets concepts and gaze into the crystal ball of incoming talent and the summer, The Athletic’s NBA and draft analyst Sam Vecenie joins me for an all-encompassing discussion. Vecenie goes into detail about his evaluations of Houston’s core players, the freshman class of 2023 and more.

Prior to the All-Star break, Jabari Smith Jr. was in the midst of a rough rookie season. Over the last handful of games, he’s looked closer to the prospect you evaluated for months — a lengthy, confident two-way big with staying power in this league. 

Has his recent resurgence given you renewed hope of his future career arc? Or were some of his early-season struggles overblown and a byproduct of Houston’s season? 

Vecenie: No, Smith’s struggles throughout the first two-thirds of the season were real and they were his own. He seemed to lose confidence in his jumper. This was an elite shooter at lower levels and at Auburn last year who went through a 33-game stretch from Dec. 15 to March 1 where he made 21.4 percent of his 3s, many of which were wide-open shots. We can play the blame game as much as we want, between coach Stephen Silas not drawing up plays for him and the guards for not always getting him the ball. But Smith — a prospect who is currently beholden to his ability to shoot jumpers — wasn’t taking the opportunities given to do what he’s best at. That’s on him. We can make excuses, and Smith did some positive things while he was working through his offensive struggles on the defensive end of the court. But there does need to be some accountability too, teenager playing his first NBA season or not.

I’m still confident Smith is going to turn out fine. He’s one of the youngest players in the NBA and should be able to adjust things further this offseason to work on his game. The ballhandling concerns that were there pre-draft still exist, and are why he’s more likely to be a third option offensively as opposed to a top option. He needs to improve his comfort level there so he’s not as reliant on others to get shots for him. But when you mix that with what should be terrific floor-spacing and shooting from deep, along with what will be switchable on-ball defense…