Marcus Smart Signs with Houston Rockets

Oklahoma State fans in the Houston area will have plenty of opportunities to watch a former Cowboy great this upcoming NBA season.

Marcus Smart agreed to a two-year, $13 million deal with the Houston Rockets on Wednesday, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. It’ll be Smart’s fifth NBA team since joining the league in 2014, with all of those team changes coming since 2023.

The move to Houston is a return to Smart’s home state of Texas, and it’s the closest he’s been to his alma mater since joining the league.

Free agent guard Marcus Smart has agreed on a two-year, $13 million deal with the Houston Rockets, plus a player option for the second season, sources tell ESPN. The former Defensive Player of the Year reunites with Ime Udoka for significant opportunity in the Rockets backcourt. pic.twitter.com/NzfArD8zbF

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 1, 2026

The move also reunites Smart with Rockets coach Ime Udoka, who coached the Celtics from 2021-2023 — the final two seasons of Smart’s tenure in Boston.

Smart joins a group that includes Kevin Durant, Steven Adams, Alperen Sengun and others. The Rockets finished fifth in the Western Conference last season. Smart and the Lakers beat the Rockets 4-2 in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.

Smart will be 32 years old next season, his 13th year in the league after spending two years in Stillwater. He spent last season with LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, where Smart averaged 9.3 points, 2.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists a game while helping lead the Lake Show to the 4 seed in the West.

Before that, Smart spent 15 games of the 2024-25 season with the Washington Wizards after the Memphis Grizzles traded him to the nation’s capital.

He played 39 games across two seasons in Memphis as part of the trade that sent Kristaps Porzingis to the Celtics.

But to this point, Smart’s NBA career will most be remembered by his time in Boston. After the Celtics took him sixth overall in the 2014 NBA Draft, Smart spent nine seasons with the franchise where he made three NBA All-Defensive Teams and was the 2022 Defensive Player of the Year.

Smart was the Big 12 Player of the Year and an All-American in 2013 as a freshman at OSU before electing to run it back for a sophomore season, where he was again an All-American. Across his two seasons in orange and black, Smart averaged 16.6 points, 5.9 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 2.9 steals a game.