3:46pm: Charania clarifies in a full story that the Rockets continue to listen to trade proposals from other teams about Covington. Still, the team has decided to cut ties with him one way or another, Charania explains.
2:50pm: The Rockets will waive small forward Robert Covington, reports Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). Other teams around the league have expressed interest in trading for the one-year veteran, but Houston is pushing ahead with its plan to simply release him, according to Charania. The 23-year-old had a $150K partial guarantee on his contract, so that money will remain on Houston’s books for the season unless another team submits a waiver claim. The move will leave the Rockets at 19 players, one shy of the preseason roster limit.
Covington spent the lion’s share of last season with Houston’s D-League affiliate, even though he was on the team’s NBA roster all year. He didn’t make his regular season debut for the Rockets until January 18th, and he saw just 34 total minutes all season, spread over seven games. He spent enough time in the D-League to earn an All-Star nod on that circuit, and averaged 23.2 points and 9.2 rebounds in 34.1 minutes per game across 42 D-League appearances.
Houston still faces a roster logjam with 15 fully guaranteed contracts, partial guarantees to Tarik Black and Akil Mitchell, and a non-guaranteed contract with starting point guard Patrick Beverley. Last week, I examined the tough decisions ahead for GM Daryl Morey.
Pretty interesting prospect, he was the NBADL ROY last year. I wonder what happened, maybe personality/culture clash. I can definitely see a team claiming/signing him if he’s straight released.
He is winning RING link to fliiby.com… !!!
I met Robert at Applebee’s in Nashville he said he was gonna play for the rockets I was looking forward to seeing him play for us …big mistake houston