The Rockets bet on the right thing at 8-for-1! The media revealed the five major gains from Durant’s debut: Shen Jing relieves pressure + strengthens shortcomings

Team Rockets 8-for-1 bet on the right thing! After winning two consecutive games in the preseason, the off-season media "SpaceCityScoop" revealed five major gains from new aid Durant's debut, including relieving Shen Jing's pressure and completing targeted reinforcements for shortcomings.

Harvest 1: Durant is in hot form

During the offseason, the Rockets packaged Jaylen Green, Dillon, a first-round pick, and five second-round picks to acquire Durant from the Suns at a low price. However, because the latter is already 37 years old and has considerable injury risks, the outside world's evaluation of this 8-for-1 deal is more polarized.

As a result, Durant responded to all opponents with a comprehensive performance in his first appearance, whether it was holding the ball to break through for dunks, or completing iconic mid-range and three-point long shots as an off-ball end point.

Durant's outstanding vitality on both ends of the offense and defense can be seen with the naked eye. As long as he can play 60-70 games like he did in the Suns in the past two seasons, the Rockets have made the right bet in this 8-for-1 deal. Durant, the superstar, is still trustworthy.

Gain 2: He still has room for improvement

As one of the best scorers in NBA history, Durant's comprehensive offensive methods make him seem to be able to seamlessly integrate into the new system without adapting at all. Easily scoring 20 points in this game seems to confirm this again.

But judging from the actual game content, Durant is far from fully demonstrating his abilities in the Rockets system, especially on the organizational and defensive ends.

Durant is not a top defender, but his defense is absolutely trustworthy and he is a reliable organizer. Both of these points are very important for the Rockets, who suffered a serious injury to Van Jordan. As the game progresses, I believe Durant will perform even better on both ends of the offense and defense.

Gain three: He can share some organizational responsibilities

Since it was his first show and a preseason game where victory or defeat didn't matter, Durant seemed careless in organization, made many mistakes, and only sent out 1 assist.

But when playing for the Suns last season, Durant showed good organizational skills and was able to send out 4.2 assists every 36 minutes.

In addition, Shen Jing, Amen and Shepard will bear most of the organizational pressure. The Rockets and Udoka will not have too much organizational demand for Durant, and the latter can completely provide it.

Harvest 4: He can still destroy the defense

As a top defensive team, the Rockets have obvious shortcomings on the offensive end, especially after being trapped in a positional battle, the Rockets do not have a stable first end point, which also caused the Rockets to stop in the first round last season.

This is why the Rockets acquired the 37-year-old Durant 8-for-1 during the offseason. The latter is the best key scorer in active service, and his iconic "stand-up singles" perfectly meets the needs of the Rockets.

Durant demonstrated this ability on the offensive end in his first appearance. Whether it was breaking through with the ball or the iconic mid-range, Durant was able to do it with ease.

Gain five: Shenjing’s pressure is reduced

Compared with the previous outside scoring point Jaylen Green, Durant is far ahead in terms of stability, ceiling, output, threats, etc. This has greatly reduced the pressure on Shenjing, the core inside line.

Compared with scoring 19 points in 17 minutes in the first game, after partnering with Durant in the second preseason game, Shen Jing only scored 13 points in 27 minutes. The Rockets no longer rely heavily on Shen Jing's inside attack, which allows the latter to devote more energy to organization, defense and other aspects.

In this game, Shen Jing delivered the second-highest 13 assists in his career and made only one turnover. He has great potential to become the real core organizer of the Rockets to fill the vacancy of Van Jordan.