Rockets center Nene Hilario is poised to make his season debut on Saturday, Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle reports.
Nene suffered a strained calf muscle during the preseason.
“The important thing is I feel better,” Nene told Feigen. “I feel good. I’ve been working. In the last two, three practices I did what I need to do to see the movement I’m going to use in a game, especially in my style, my game style.”
Nene is in his third season with the Rockets. He’s making $3.6MM this season and holds a $3.82MM player option on next season’s contract. He averaged 6.5 points, 3.4 rebounds and 14.6 minutes per contest in 52 games last season.
It remains to be seen how much coach Mike D’Antoni will use the veteran. Isaiah Hartenstein and Gary Clark have received most of backup frontcourt minutes behind starting center Clint Capela and power forward P.J. Tucker.