ESPN's new Future Power Rankings put Houston fourth in the league, then slotted Rafael Stone 13th among management groups. Those two numbers cannot both be true. Somebody built the thing that is ranked fourth.
That's the whole story here, and it's a good one, because the Rockets future power rankings conversation is really a conversation about how much credit an executive gets for a rebuild that actually worked.
Why is Rafael Stone ranked 13th in the Rockets future power rankings?
The management column in an exercise like this is supposed to measure the people making the calls: drafts, hires, extensions, the willingness to trade a fan favorite at the right moment instead of the comfortable one. Ranking the roster and the assets fourth while ranking the decision-makers 13th is a quiet way of saying Houston's position built itself. Ping pong balls and an inherited pick stash did the work.
I don't buy it.
Stone took the job in the fall of 2020, inheriting a superstar who wanted out and a cap sheet with no give. He moved James Harden to Brooklyn in January 2021 in a multi-team deal that came back as picks and swaps rather than a win-now patch, and then he ate the consequences in public.
checked the almanac: that same 2020-21 Rockets team lost 20 straight games, a franchise record. most front offices do not survive the year they choose that on purpose.
What Houston's front office actually built
The draft record under Stone is not flawless, and I'm not going to pretend it is. It is, however, deep.
| Draft | Pick | Player |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 2 | Jalen Green |
| 2021 | 16 | Alperen Sengun |
| 2022 | 3 | Jabari Smith Jr. |
| 2022 | 17 | Tari Eason |
| 2023 | 4 | Amen Thompson |
| 2024 | 3 | Reed Sheppard |
Sengun at 16 is the swing that tells you the room was doing real work rather than reading the consensus board out loud. Eason in the late teens was the same instinct. Green was the polarizing one from the night he was picked, and he eventually became the currency that bought a different kind of season.
The non-draft moves matter just as much. Hiring Ime Udoka in 2023 and bringing in veterans who set a floor took Houston from a lottery team to 41-41, and then to 52-30 and the second seed in the West in 2024-25. Then, in the summer of 2025, Stone converted the accumulated youth into Kevin Durant and changed the shape of the whole operation.
That is a rebuild, a pivot, and a coaching hire that stuck. Thirteenth.
The honest case against
I'll give the other side its sentence, because it exists. A chunk of Houston's capital traces back to a Harden return negotiated in a market where every team wanted in, and several of those high picks came from losing games, which is not a skill so much as a consequence. The front offices that tend to top these lists, Oklahoma City and San Antonio among them, get credit for compounding advantages year over year without ever bottoming as hard. And the Durant swing carries a clock on it, which is exactly the kind of risk that shows up in a management grade before it shows up in the standings.
Fair enough. Fourth still beats 13th by nine spots, and rosters don't assemble themselves.
What comes next for Stone
The next real test is continuity math: keeping the young core developing while the veteran window is open, and deciding which of those drafted names gets paid to stay. That's the part of the job nobody ranks until it's already resolved. I'll be watching how Houston handles its own internal extensions and whether the rotation still has minutes for the 2023 and 2024 picks once the season gets going, because that's where a front office's real philosophy shows up.
Lists are fun. The receipts are better.