DeMarcus Cousins showed flashes of his All-Star days when Christian Wood missed three games with a sprained right ankle in January. He’ll get a much longer chance to prove he can still be effective as a starter now that Wood is sidelined with a more severe injury, writes Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle.
Wood has been listed as week to week after spraining the ankle again Thursday in Memphis. Until he returns, the under-sized Rockets will rely heavily on Cousins, who is the only other true center on the roster. Pressed into starting duty last month, the four-time All-Star averaged 17.3 points, 14.3 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game.
“Obviously, that helped me with my confidence going through this season,” he said. “I mean, it’s unfortunate what happened to C-Wood. I’m going to come in and do my job. That’s really all I can do, play my part and help us get another W in the win column.”
There’s more from Houston:
- The Rockets aren’t offering a firm estimate of how much time Wood might miss, so Kelly Iko of The Athletic talked to Dr. Rajpal Brar, a physical therapist and sports scientist at 3cB Performance. “Really hard to tell severity just based on video,” Brar said. “However, if the Rockets are saying it’s a weekly eval, it’s my inclination that it’s a Grade 2 tear without any fracture (the fact he walked off was a very good indicator of the latter). Grade 2 is typically 2-3 weeks. Grade 3 is 4-6.”
- John Wall has claimed leadership of the Rockets since James Harden was traded to Brooklyn last month, tweets Mark Berman of Fox 26 in Houston. “I feel like I’m the franchise guy now that James has left,” Wall said. “You very rarely get the opportunity to be a franchise (guy) in two different cities and two different teams. … I feel like that’s my job, to be the leader of this team.”
- David Nwaba is listed as questionable for tonight against the Spurs, and the Rockets are optimistic that he’s close to returning after missing the past three games with a sprained left ankle, Feigen adds in a separate story. “He has been doing his treatment, has been working on it,” coach Stephen Silas said. “… He’s definitely moving in the right direction.”
Always liked Wall. Wish him the best. Gotta get healthy bro. Physically he’s looking ok to me. Just keep playing and it will workout. He is a team leader now. He was always an ast guy. So he can still do it at high level.
The team just doesn’t look the same whenever he sits out, so hopefully he won’t miss too many games other than in back-to-backs. Wall is only 30 so he still has many great years left in him. The team has a solid group to build around with Wall and Wood. Tate was a real find for them in the offseason.
Wall does look surprisingly good considering his age injury history and playing style
Not sure how far a core of Wall and Wood gets you in the West tho – yet I will say having moved Harden for future assets they look better than I thought
Probably just me but Wall at this stage of life looks like Chiwetel Ejiofor (Four Brothers movie the most).
But yes he looks better than I expected coming off an Achillies injury. Boogie looks slow as heck but hes still putting up #s.
Big fan of Optimus Dime here!
Having said that, he is doing ok, not great, so far I am a bit disappointed, thought he could be doing better than this, specially his assists have dipped a lot, hopefully as the season goes on he can get better, so he can approach his usual level.
He might very well be the leader, but C-Wood is by far the best player in the team right now, that’s for sure!
His assist numbers should be higher, although the Rockets are moving the ball around far better than they were with Harden, who is still getting a ton of assists in Brooklyn. I don’t see how he could be doing that much better than he is already. His 3-point shooting has been outstanding, way better than he has ever been. The team looks much more cohesive when he’s on the court. It’s not even debatable who won the trade at this point.
I really hoped Porter could come in and show what he can do. But that is hard to do with so many guards already on the team. I think Porter would have been a good 6th man. Who knows?