Fred VanVleet has had enough of the Kevin Durant curse talk. The Houston Rockets guard sat down for an interview this week and addressed the noise that has followed his teammate through another disappointing playoff exit, including the burner-account accusations that became a real story inside the locker room.
The setup. Houston traded for Durant last offseason and gave him a max contract extension. The expectation was that pairing KD with Alperen Sengun, Jalen Green, and Amen Thompson was going to push the Rockets into the West’s top tier. Instead, Houston had a solid regular season, won 47 games, and got bounced in the first round again.
The narrative that has followed is the so-called Durant curse. The shorthand version is that every team Durant joins underperforms relative to expectations. The Warriors won titles before he got there. The Nets fell apart while he was there. The Suns went 7-9 in playoff games after the trade for him. Now Houston has joined the list.
Adding to the chaos was the report that surfaced this season that someone on the Rockets had a burner social media account that was being used to argue with critics. The reporting suggested it was a “significant distraction” inside the locker room. Durant was the most likely suspect, given his well-documented history with burner accounts. Houston insisted it was not him. The story refused to die.
VanVleet’s response was about as direct as you can get from a starting NBA guard. He said the curse talk is lazy analysis. He pointed out that the Rockets are a young team that hit the playoff wall, the same way young teams always hit the playoff wall. He defended Durant’s professionalism, said the locker room was fine, and called the burner-account stuff overblown. He did not, notably, deny that the burner account exists.
Here is the harder truth. The Rockets had real problems this year that had nothing to do with KD. Their half-court offense fell apart in the playoffs. Jalen Green could not score against playoff defenses. The bench got outscored in five of the seven games. The coaching staff was slow to make adjustments. The roster’s defensive identity from two years ago softened up under the pressure of playoff games.
Durant himself was actually fine. He averaged 27.4 points per game in the postseason on efficient shooting. He was the most reliable scorer on the team. The problem was that he was 37 years old and trying to carry a half-court offense by himself while his younger teammates struggled. That is the situation almost every recent KD team has been in, which is why the curse narrative even exists.
VanVleet, who is on a one-year max deal worth $44 million, is also fighting his own battle to stay in Houston long-term. He was great in his first season with the Rockets when he helped raise the floor of a young team. He was less great this year as his minutes climbed and his shot dipped. He turns 32 in February. The Rockets have a real decision to make about whether to extend him or let him walk in 2027.
The smart take is that Houston is a roster in flux. They have a $200 million star in Durant, a $44 million veteran in VanVleet, a developing core of young players, and a coach in Ime Udoka who has not yet won a playoff series with this group. Something has to change this summer. The Rockets are going to be busy.
The curse talk will continue. The burner account will continue. The criticism will continue. What VanVleet is doing is putting a marker down that the locker room is not going to fracture. Houston’s offseason is going to be one of the most interesting in the league.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
