The Houston Rockets continued their active summer on Wednesday, agreeing to a two-year, $50 million contract with Fred VanVleet. The guard had a $44.9 million team option for 2024-25, and the Rockets will decline that and sign FVV to this new deal, according to Shams Charania of ESPN. The new deal has a player option for 2026-27, so if FVV plays well this season and thinks he can get a big payday next summer, he can decline that option and hit the open market in a year.
In two years with Houston, VanVleet has been a steadying force for a franchise that was anything but steady in the few years before he arrived. He averaged a career-best 8.1 assists per game in his first year with the team, and his numbers were down a bit last year but he's still an important piece to Houston's identity — even as that identity will drastically change with Kevin Durant's arrival.
Rockets lock up Fred VanVleet for at least another year
This is about as good of a deal as Houston could have asked for with VanVleet. They save about $20 million that they would have paid him if they picked up the team option, and now get a year to see how well he works with new Rockets star Kevin Durant — if all goes well, maybe the Rockets sign him to another deal next season. If it doesn't go well, they're only on the hook for one more year before he's off the books.
Granted, I always cheer for players to get the biggest contracts possible — you can't convince me to be happy when billionaires "save money" on contracts, you just can't. From FVV's perspective, this still makes sense, though. There are very few teams with cap space this summer, and about half the league will have spending cash next year. If he's going to test the market, it makes way more sense to do it next year than this year.
Overall, I'm calling this a win-win. Houston retains a key part of its rise up the Western Conference, and FVV gets an extra year of security before potentially testing the free agent waters next season. Getting a player option for next year is some nifty agent work.