The Rockets have not settled on their opening night roster yet, writes Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. “That’s why we’re experimenting,” coach Kevin McHale said. “There are still a lot of unknowns. We have a lot of guys who haven’t just taken a spot where you say, ‘I’m really comfortable. This guy has really taken the backup spot.’ We have a lot of guys still fighting for spots.” Houston brought 20 players to camp and has not made any official cuts, although it would seem the team is down to 18 players for 15 roster spots with Robert Covington and Akil Mitchell not having been with the team for the last week.
Here’s more from the Western Conference:
- Jeremy Lin is humbled by the offseason trade that sent him to the Lakers, writes Mike Bresnahan of the The Los Angeles Times. Lin said, “When I first got there [Houston], I was supposed to be the guy and they were supposed to kind of hand the torch to me. And I ended up getting traded away basically for nothing. Actually, they had to give a draft pick to convince someone else to take me. Pretty much given away for nothing. Definitely not how I envisioned it.”
- Spurs coach Gregg Popovich loves the play of JaMychal Green, tweets Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News. The unfortunate thing for Green is that the Spurs don’t currently have an opening-night roster spot for him, Monroe adds.
- Wolves head coach Flip Saunders is praised by local high school and college coaches for his open-door policy, writes Andy Greder of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “We are a very close fraternity as far as coaches, and what you want to do is make sure you’re open,” Saunders said.
- Jazz forward Enes Kanter has as much to gain this season as anyone on the team, opines Tony Jones of the Salt Lake Tribune. Kanter will head into restricted free agency next summer if the Jazz do not reach a deal on an extension with him by the October 31st deadline.
- In a roundtable preview for the Kings, SB Nation’s Tom Ziller predicts that Sacramento will pull off a major trade this season, citing GM Pete D’Alessandro‘s aggressive track record and abundance of assets at his disposal.
Cray Allred contributed to this post.