Netflix series shows Kevin Durant was always meant to join the Rockets

As the Houston Rockets enter the 2025-26 NBA season with superstar-caliber scorer Kevin Durant on the roster, the team's biggest challenge will be to alter their young core, and their established roles, around Durant and the gravity he will command on the court.

Yet, in Netflix's new season of Starting 5, Durant spoke about his hands-off approach to leadership and to engaging with younger players: an excellent sign for how Houston's chemistry will develop this season.

"I never looked at basketball that way, like 'Get on my back and I'm gonna teach you and tell you everything you need to know'... I don't even operate in life like that."

Kevin Durant- 'Starting 5' S2:E1

The Houston Rockets need a leader like Kevin Durant to take them to the next level

On the surface, this quote may look like Durant is not interested in being a leader or a role model for younger players at all. However, as has been evidenced throughout the up-close-and-personal look fans have gotten at Durant throughout Starting 5's new season, Durant is certainly interested in winning and in building relationships with his teammates, meaning that leadership, as a superstar player, comes naturally to him.

At the same time, one of the major worries that fans and analysts had about bringing Durant into Houston was that, if it failed, it could throw off their timeline. With a young core of Alperen Sengun, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr. and Tari Eason, each player has largely come to have semi-defined roles, and each player is advancing rapidly in their games.

Were Durant to come in and demand a certain number of touches, demand that he be the sole focal point of the offense, these young players would have to quickly learn to conform their games around his offensive prowess.

However, as has been seen so far in Houston's first three preseason games, Durant is able and willing to play alongside Sengun and Thompson, and it seems likely that, as he nears the end of his career, he will do whatever it takes to elevate this ascending team to a championship level.

The Rockets, throughout the course of this season, must rely on Durant to provide offense for them in the halfcourt, but the primary benefit of this, beyond the points he manufactures, will be the additional space and time that the team's other players will now be able to operate within.

Therefore, while Durant is not the most outspoken leader, he is the perfect leader for this team, and each of Houston's young players will have something new to learn about the game of basketball as long as he is there.