Rockets GM Daryl Morey confirms that the team has waived James Anderson and Tim Ohlbrecht, tweets Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. The team also renounced its rights to Francisco Garcia and Earl Boykins, Feigen notes via Twitter, but that's just a procedural move in Garcia's case. Renouncing Garcia's $9.15MM cap hold clears space necessary for the Rockets to finalize their other moves this summer before they officially re-sign Garcia to the cheaper two-year, $2.6MM deal they've agreed upon.
Anderson and Ohlbrecht were each about to enter the second year of a three-year minimum-salary deal with the Rockets, but the final two seasons were non-guaranteed for both players, so Houston clears them completely off its books. Anderson was the 20th overall pick in the 2010 draft, but the Spurs declined to pick up the third-year option on his rookie-scale contract, making him a free agent last summer. He spent training camp with the Hawks, re-signed with the Spurs early in the season, and wound up with the Rockets in January after San Antonio let him go. Ohlbrecht was undrafted out of Germany, but Houston picked him up in February in the hopes that the 6'11" center could develop into a frontcourt contributor. Neither he nor Anderson played an integral role for the Rockets this past season.
The Rockets declined their $6.4MM team option on Garcia last month, but the team was still stuck with his hefty cap hold until renouncing his rights today. The team could have made that cap hold disappear simply by formalizing the agreement on Garcia's new contract, but perhaps the club intends to use its cap room to bring aboard Dwight Howard and the rest of its free agent bounty first, and squeeze Garcia's deal in using part of the $2.652MM room exception. The $884,293 cap hold for Boykins, who didn't play in the NBA in 2012/13, was simply a placeholder, so it's no surprise the Rockets renounced him.