Fred VanVleet believes the Houston Rockets will be stronger when he returns after missing the entire 2025-26 season with a torn ACL. Speaking about his role and impact, VanVleet said, via HoopsHype, “I know I add value. I know what I bring to the table, and I know that we will be a better team with me on the team.”
He framed that confidence as part of his identity, not a prediction. “That has been the case for me on every team I’ve ever been on,” VanVleet said. “I’m going to make the team better just by virtue of me being available, being around, and bringing my energy, before you even get to the game.”
VanVleet added that his influence goes beyond statistics and starts with how he carries himself around the group. “My leadership and competitiveness, that’s what I do. I try to make everything I touch better. That’s my mindset.”
The veteran guard also reflected on what Houston went through while reworking the roster around Kevin Durant, who played 78 games in the regular season and was one of the team’s major positives. VanVleet said, “You’ve got to remember, bro, for what we built here in a quick turnaround, basically, we took four of our five starters out: me, Dillon, Jalen, Steven. Essentially, right?”
He pointed out that the Rockets never got the chance to fully build continuity before the injuries hit. “Adding KD, it’s a whole new team. We didn’t get one practice together. I got hurt before we started practice, so we never even got to see what it looked like. There’s no continuity. Our system changed. Everything changed.”
Even with that disruption, VanVleet said he saw growth across the roster and did not view the season as a failure. “I’m just proud of the guys for hanging in there during the season, and also proud of the steps that the young guys made along the way,” he said. “I feel like each of them individually grew a lot inside of what was ultimately kind of an up-and-down season.”
He also pushed back on the idea that Houston’s season should be defined by what went wrong. “If you told me in September that I would miss the whole season, Steven would miss 75% of the season, and we would win 52 games and play the Lakers in a four-five matchup, take them to six without KD, I would probably say, ‘Okay, that doesn’t sound crazy to me.’ And it’s not a failure.”
VanVleet said the Rockets’ offseason evaluation should include the positives, not just the frustrating stretches. He praised Durant, Amen Thompson, Reed Sheppard, Alperen Sengun, Jabari Smith Jr. and Tari Eason for the steps they took, saying, “We saw a lot of flashes.”
He finished with the kind of big-picture outlook that has defined his career. “We went through a lot. We tried a lot. We went through adversity. We had to come out of adversity. We had to battle through injury. We saw what worked and what didn’t work.”
