Rockets, KD & Culture: Why Running It Back Might Be a Mistake
The Odd Couple with Rob Parker & Kelvin Washington
Fox Sports Radio and iHeartPodcasts
4.5 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
The Houston Rockets are reportedly open to running it back with Kevin Durant — but Rob Parker isn’t sold. Rob breaks down why he believes KD’s history of injuries, moodiness, burner accounts, and locker‑room tension makes this a risky move, especially as he gets older. Parker argues that everywhere Durant has landed over the last several stops, things have eventually gone south.
Kelvin Washington agrees, emphasizing that a veteran star can’t keep being a locker‑room disruptor everywhere he goes. Kelvin also explains how today’s NBA places a greater emphasis on culture, buy‑in, and development — especially with young rosters. With Houston building around a promising young core, Kelvin questions whether a steadier, mid‑tier veteran might make more sense than the Kevin Durant experience.
A candid conversation about leadership, team culture, and what modern NBA franchises should value when chasing contention.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:04.8 | Rob G., the Rockets, there's some talk about Kevin Durant and his future there in Houston. |
| 0:11.6 | That's right. |
| 0:12.3 | On Monday, ESPN published their long-form post-mortem on the Houston Rocket season about what went wrong, what went sideways, what led to them getting bounced much earlier |
| 0:21.5 | than we all expected. |
| 0:23.2 | And in it, they explained that Kevin Durant and his quote unquote moodiness played a big |
| 0:30.1 | role into why things didn't work out the way they thought they would. |
| 0:33.6 | They also pointed out that despite, even though we made it a big deal on our show and other shows, |
| 0:38.7 | the whole burner account tweets was maybe not as big of a deal as you might expect, |
| 0:43.2 | but Katie's moodiness, the lack of a second veteran presence in the locker room, |
| 0:48.9 | Flett Van Vlate was hurt, Stephen Adams was hurt, kind of led to them spiraling out of control, |
| 0:53.9 | especially in that first round series against the Lakers. |
| 0:57.1 | Having said that, however, the expectation from sources in Houston is that not only do they expect Kevin Durant to be back next year, |
| 1:07.6 | IMA Udoka's going to be back, and all the young core is going to be back. |
| 1:11.4 | Houston wants to run it back with KD and company in 2026. |
| 1:16.3 | No way, no how. |
| 1:19.6 | No, I'm not with it. |
| 1:21.7 | Kelvin, we want to go back to our archives and talk about what I thought about KD and Houston. |
| 1:29.3 | I wouldn't buying it back then and I'm not buying it now. |
| 1:31.4 | Here's the problem. |
| 1:34.0 | The burner account, the moodiness, you know, all that. |
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