Four Rockets players – John Wall, Eric Gordon, DeMarcus Cousins, and Mason Jones – will be required by the NBA to quarantine for seven days for COVID-19 contact tracing purposes, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). Their quarantine periods began on Wednesday.
Wall, Gordon, Cousins, and Jones will miss Houston’s games on Saturday (at Portland) and Monday (at Denver). As Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle tweets, all four players expected to receive clearance to practice with the team on Wednesday, barring any setbacks, and should be available to suit up on Thursday for the Rockets’ home opener vs. Sacramento.
The Rockets will also be without Ben McLemore and KJ Martin for the immediate future, since both players are self-isolating after returning positive coronavirus tests, as Feigen writes.
However, the expectation is that James Harden will be cleared to play today following a four-day quarantine for violating COVID-19 health and safety protocols, and the Rockets will have enough players available for their game vs. the Blazers.
In addition to the six players who are missing for COVID-19 reasons, the Rockets will also be without Chris Clemons, who is out for the season with a torn Achilles. That leaves nine players – Harden, P.J. Tucker, Danuel House, Christian Wood, Sterling Brown, David Nwaba, Bruno Caboclo, Jae’Sean Tate, and Brodric Thomas – presumed to be available for now. The NBA requires teams to have at least eight players active for games.
Reports earlier this week indicated that Tate was among the players who were sent home for contact tracing, but he’s not on Houston’s latest injury report and isn’t among the list of players said to be in the midst of their seven-day quarantines.
Finally, Harden can score 100 points.
i’d go for it, no better circumstance i guess.
There’s an excellent chance he scores 50 tonight, I’d settle for 70 though.
Rockets can’t catch a break
I’m actually curious how much step does Demarcus Cousins have? dude can’t even avoid time off the floor in a pandemic. I want 2018 boogie back.
He looked great in the preseason, even though I doubt we will ever see pre-2018 Boogie again he can still be an extremely effective 6th man coming off the bench. He will make his Rockets’ regular season debut (along with John Wall) against his old team on New Year’s Eve. Can’t wait!!!
They’re now saying only 8 players are available, so presumably Tate isn’t one of them.
There are no reports that he’s not available, so hopefully that means he is playing in Portland tonight. Tate would likely start alongside Harden, House, Tucker, and Wood. That leaves them with Nwaba, Brown, Caboclo, and also Brodric Thomas in the 2nd unit.