Local Artist Unveils Latest Project: Celebrating Rockets' Legacy and Houston Culture

Ahead of the 2025 NBA Draft , the Houston Rockets have launched a unique merchandise capsule for fans, featuring a commemorative throwback hat.

The Rockets tapped a local artist for the collaboration, as a limited-edition Mitchell & Ness hat was crafted by the artist and muralist, Alex Roman Jr., better known as Donkeeboy , who put his signature graffiti-themed stamp on the limited drop.

"I really wanted to come up with something that I felt was true to the culture of the city," Roman told The News Pulse. "I mean, to get an opportunity to collaborate with the Houston Rockets, a team I've loved since my childhood, that's just…a dream come true. I could envision this as a kid and look at me now. I was very excited to get this opportunity."

In addition to the hat, the drop features a t-shirt and limited art prints that the artist will give away to fans on draft night.

"So, the hat comes with two championship ring pins and then it has a blip, which clips on the brim," Roman explains. "I also remixed one of their older logos as a pin, too, so there is a total of three pins and a blip."

Longtime Rockets fans will recognize the three pins featuring official logos, including the rare 1971-1972 season logo, the 1972-1995 symbol, and the 1995-2003 design.

"A lot of fans didn't really give a lot of attention to the logo from 1972 at the time," Roman said. "But they'll recognize it because Travis Scott used it when he did a collab with the Rockets."

Roman refers to a limited-edition T-shirt from Scott's 2019 "Jack Goes Back to College" collection with the Rockets. The design reimagines the team logo, showing an animated player spinning a basketball with a rocket on his back, propelled by exhaust forming "Houston Rockets."

Roman's design stands out from Cactus Jack's by his signature donkey character, often seen in murals across Texas. Inspired by his childhood nickname "Burro" (Spanish for donkey), Roman embraced the name as a symbol of resilience, originally a dismissive label for a kid born to an artist mother who wanted to follow her footsteps.

Family and friends tried to discourage Roman from pursuing his artistic dreams, but he chose to lean into it.

"A burro means dumb, right?" Roman said. "They would tell me that I'm not going to make it as an artist. Get a real job, they told me."

Roman reframed his donkey nickname into "Donkeeboy," and has created immersive art experiences for Houstonians, including murals for the Houston Cougars , Houston Dynamo, Houston Astros and Houston Texans.

But for Roman, the Rockets project was the coup de grâce in his series of collaborations with sports teams.

"I still remember watching those championships as a kid," Roman said. "As an artist, I've done a lot of collabs with a lot of different companies-big ones like Uniqlo-but this one is definitely special to me for personal reasons. To this day, my favorite players are Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. I know everyone always talks about Michael Jordan, and they should, but Clyde could really fly. He could do it all."

The other two pins are a callback to Houston's two championship rings, respectively, where Roman put his own touches on them, each with colorful and sparkly details.

"If you look at the side where it says ‘H-Town Ballin,' there is a net hanging that is actually a swanga wheel," Roman said. "Swangas are the wheels that were the stock wheels from the 1984 Cadillac. To me, it's a Houston rim, right? It's part of slab culture, which is definitely Houston culture."

Ramon doesn't refer to himself as just a muralist, but he will have a mural on display for draft night, so fans will get the full experience of his brand of cultural canonization.

His advanced mural work can likely be attributed in large part to the over 100 murals that he's done with his mother, Sylvia , who also took on the name Donkeemom, to honor her son.

"My mother was an artist for a long time," Roman said. "I was born here, but I lived in Mexico for the first seven years of my life. And I would see her paintings when we went to relatives' or friends' houses. So, the whole time I'm growing up, I was like, my mom is cool. But when she had me and my brother, she stopped painting. But she would always have me in art class.

"And when I started having art shows, she got inspired and started painting again. She'll have projects that I assist her with and vice versa. I'm very fortunate to have my mom as an artist. I learn a lot from her."

Quite the accomplishment. Ramon definitely knows how to create with the home team: with his mother, Sylvia, and now, with the team currently living up to their "liftoff" mindset on a nightly basis in the Toyota Center.

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