MACAO — The NBA’s return to China opened with a showcase performance from one of the league’s international standard-bearers. Alperen Şengün recorded a triple-double — 16 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists — as the Houston Rockets beat the Dallas Mavericks 135–117 in the opener of the NBA China Games, with Tari Eason adding 20 points and Kevin Durant scoring 15 in his first outing of a 19th NBA season.
Şengün’s line captured why Houston’s ambitions run through him. The Turkish centre orchestrated from the middle of the floor like a point guard in a post player’s body, and a preseason crowd in Macao got the full exhibit: the passing, the footwork, the control of tempo. Around him, Eason’s 20 points underlined the Rockets’ depth of young, switchable talent — the asset base that made the Durant acquisition a win-now declaration rather than a farewell tour.
Durant’s 15 points were the game’s symbolic centre. Season nineteen, a new jersey, and the familiar economy of motion: the scoring came in the varieties defences have failed to solve for two decades. Houston does not need Durant to carry January offence in an October exhibition; it needs him healthy and integrated when the games compress in April, and his first outing in Rockets colours was best read as the opening line of that project.
Dallas, for its part, got 19 points from prized rookie Cooper Flagg — the number-one pick whose every appearance this season will be a referendum on the Mavericks’ future. Against Houston’s length and depth, the Mavericks were always chasing the game, but Flagg’s production in a losing, high-tempo showcase is the kind of early return that settles a fan base’s nerves.
The China Games are equal parts basketball and diplomacy, the league’s bridge back into its largest overseas market. As an opening night, Macao delivered the intended picture: a Turkish star running the show, an American icon beginning year nineteen, and the league’s next face scoring through it all.
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