Clint Capela has spent enough time in Houston to know what a return can feel like. He first arrived in 2014 as a raw 20-year-old, came back to the Toyota Center in 2025 after a five-year stint in Atlanta, and now is back in 2026 as a seasoned defensive anchor for the Rockets.
That long arc gives his voice a little extra weight when he talks about what basketball can carry into another sport. Capela said speed, footwork and togetherness are the traits that translate, and he said those ideas matter even more now as he settles into a veteran role on a team he thinks can go further than some of Houston’s earlier versions.
“We have a chance to do better,” Capela said, drawing a line between this Rockets group and the ones that came before it. He said the swagger on those earlier teams was different, a remark that lands like a small but clear measure of how he sees this roster: not louder, just maybe better equipped.
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His comments also reached beyond the NBA. The 2026 World Cup is coming to North America this summer, and Capela said the tournament brings a personal split for him because both Switzerland and the Republic of Congo are home countries for him. “I’m 50-50 for sure,” he said. “I think for Congo it’s the first time qualifying in seven years or something? So that would be even crazier, you know? So they play in the playoffs in March, so they got a good chance.”
That makes the next few months meaningful for him in more than one way. Congo’s playoff path in March could decide whether Capela gets to watch one of his countries reach the tournament, while Switzerland remains the other side of a choice he says is impossible to separate cleanly from where he comes from.
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He also sketched out a basketball-meets-soccer all-star team built around five players who he thinks could handle themselves on a pitch: Joel Embiid, Luka Dončić, Pascal Siakam, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokić. Capela said what would help them most is not size or star power but the same things he sees in elite basketball: quickness, footwork and the ability to move as one.
The Rockets forward, who first entered the league as a teenager and has now become a veteran big man, said he still follows his old team in Atlanta from time to time. He watches on League Pass, he said, and likes what he sees from the Hawks’ young players. That is the kind of line only a former teammate with history could make sound casual.
For Capela, the calendar now carries two tracks: Houston’s push in the 2026 season and the World Cup waiting on the horizon. Both fit the same picture he has been drawing since his return — a player old enough to see the difference between where a team has been and where it might still go.
