“If McNair and Sacramento part ways, the Rockets have been mentioned as a potential landing spot,” HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto reports. McNair previously worked in Houston from 2007 until late 2020.
After working 13 years in basketball operations with the Houston Rockets, Monte McNair has served as general manager and president of basketball operations for the Sacramento Kings since 2020.
But after a resurgent in 2022-23 season that saw the Kings finish as the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference, Sacramento has regressed over the past two seasons while falling to the West’s play-in tournament pool (spots No. 7 through No. 10 among the 15 teams) in both years. In early 2025, former All-Star guard and leading scorer De’Aaron Fox requested a trade and ultimately succeeded in leveraging a move to the San Antonio Spurs.
With that in mind, HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto writes that McNair is “on the hot seat” in the 2025 offseason. From there, Scotto writes:
If McNair and Sacramento part ways, the Houston Rockets have been mentioned as a potential landing spot. McNair worked for the Rockets from 2007-2020.
Scotto worked extensively with Rockets general manager Rafael Stone and assistant general manager Eli Witus during his decade-plus in Houston, so there is clearly a degree of comfort and trust in those relationships.
“Monte has been absolutely critical to the success of the Rockets over his long tenure,” former Rockets general manager Daryl Morey said upon promoting McNair to assistant general manager in 2018. “His unique combination of analytical skills and ability to work with our coaching staff was a key driver in our record-breaking season last year (in 2017-18).”
According to a press release at the time, McNair was tasked with managing the analytic efforts of Houston’s basketball operations department. Additionally, he was involved with all avenues of player evaluation, including trade, free agency, and the draft. Over severalseasons, McNair worked closely with the team’s coaching staff to provide on-court strategy and analysis, along with opponent preparation.
A native of Oak Park, California, outside of Los Angeles, McNair played football at Princeton University, where he majored in computer science. Prior to joining the Rockets, McNair worked as a researcher at STATS LLC.
Over McNair’s final eight seasons with the Rockets (2013-20), Houston was the only NBA team to make the playoffs in each of those years.