DHJ Quick Take: Rockets Eye Marcus Smart for Ime Udoka Reunion
The Houston Rockets are favorites to sign free agent guard Marcus Smart and are pursuing a deal in the three-year, $21 million range, sources told Dallas Hoops Journal. The move would reunite the Flower Mound native with head coach Ime Udoka, who coached him in Boston.
- How serious is Houston’s interest in Marcus Smart? Dallas Hoops Journal has learned the Rockets are working toward a deal in the three-year, $21 million range.
- Why the Rockets? Udoka coached Smart to Defensive Player of the Year in Boston, and Houston has lacked dependable veteran guard play.
- Why does it matter? Smart, a Texas native, would leave the Lakers for an in-state move after giving Los Angeles its best perimeter defense last season.
- What’s next? NBA free agency negotiations open Tuesday, June 30, with signings permitted once the moratorium lifts July 6.
The Houston Rockets have significant interest in free agent guard Marcus Smart and are expected to work out a deal in the three-year, $21 million range that would reunite him with head coach Ime Udoka, sources told Dallas Hoops Journal. Such a deal would fall within the taxpayer mid-level exception threshold.
Smart reached the open market Monday after declining his $5.4 million player option for the 2026-27 season with the Los Angeles Lakers, lining up one more multiyear deal at age 32. Houston has emerged as the frontrunner in the opening hours of his free agency, with a framework that would pay him well above his option figure on an annual basis.
Rockets Pursue Marcus Smart to Reunite Him With Ime Udoka
The pull in Houston starts with Udoka. He coached Smart for one season in Boston in 2021-22, the year Smart was named Defensive Player of the Year, and the two built the kind of relationship that tends to matter when a veteran picks a new home. Udoka has since turned the Rockets into one of the league’s grittier defensive outfits, and a backcourt that has lacked steady veteran play stands to gain a connector who sets a tone on the ball.
The numbers carry weight too. A three-year deal in the $21 million range works out to roughly $7 million a season, comfortably above the $5.4 million Smart left on the table in Los Angeles. The structure hands him a raise and a longer runway than the one-plus-option deal he played under last season, and it keeps a proven defender inside a system already built around getting stops.
Smart Reaches Free Agency After a Lakers Resurgence
Smart bet on himself a year ago, taking a two-year deal with a player option after a buyout in Washington, and the wager paid off. He started 54 of his 62 appearances for the Lakers, averaging 9.3 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 3.0 assists with 1.4 steals while shooting 39.5% from the field and 33.1% from three, and he gave Los Angeles its steadiest perimeter defense alongside Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves.
His value showed up against the team now chasing him. Smart was a problem for Houston in the first round of the playoffs, when the Lakers eliminated the Rockets, with Smart posting a 25-point night in a Game 2 win. A 12-year veteran taken sixth overall in 2014, he spent his first nine seasons in Boston before stops in Memphis and Washington and last season’s reset in Los Angeles.
Texas Roots Could Pull Marcus Smart Back Home
A move to Houston would bring Smart back to his home state. He grew up in Flower Mound, starred at Edward S. Marcus High School in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs, and went on to Oklahoma State before Boston made him a lottery pick. Signing with the Rockets would put him roughly four hours south of where he first learned the game.
How fast this comes together depends on Houston’s broader plan once the market opens, but the interest is real, and the fit is clean. For a Rockets team built on defense and short on dependable veteran guards, few available names check more boxes than the one who just spent a playoff series making life hard on them.
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