Windhorst identifies Steven Adams and Clint Capela as two centers the Celtics might have on their radar, though he cautions that the Thunder have told teams they view Adams as part of their future. As for the Rockets, they expect to be a contender and may not want to move their starting center, but executives are still watching Capela — Windhorst notes that the Rockets explored moving the big man early in the 2019 offseason, so it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if they do so again.
Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni doesn’t see his lame duck status as an issue, Mark Medina of USA Today reports.
D’Antoni and his agent were unable to reach an extension agreement with the Rockets after last season. He’s making $4.5MM in the final year of his contract.
With the James Harden–Russell Westbrook combination, Houston believes it can make a run to the championship after getting eliminated the past two postseason by the Warriors.
“I got a great group of guys that I don’t think care. They won’t be affected by it,” D’Antoni told Medina. “I won’t be affected by it. So it’s a non-issue.”
D’Antoni hinted that he doesn’t see his contract situation changing during the season. The front office and owner Tilman Fertitta have downplayed concerns about D’Antoni coaching this season without long-term security with the franchise.
“It’s not going to change the way I coach or how I feel trying to compete,” D’Antoni said. “So then we’ll see next summer with what happens.”
D’Antoni hasn’t seen any signs of players tuning him out or treating him any differently due to his contract status.
“Every situation is different. If I had guys looking for outs or not listening to me or if we had problems, it could be a problem,” D’Antoni said. “But if you have a great group, which I have luckily, and they want to only win? We have a great relationship and we’re doing this all together.”
Longtime NBA forward Kenneth Faried was offered a $2MM contract by Guangsha of the Chinese Basketball Association but turned it down, Emiliano Carchia of Sportando tweets. The Chinese team may increase its offer to try to convince Faried to play overseas, Carchia adds.
Faried, who turns 30 next month, drew minimal interest on the free agent market this offseason despite a productive NBA career which began in 2011. He played for the Nuggets from 2011-18, then was traded last offseason to Brooklyn in a salary dump. He didn’t find a rotation role under coach Kenny Atkinson, appearing in just 12 games.
Faried was waived by the Nets last January after agreeing to a buyout on his $13.7MM contract, then signed with the Rockets. With Clint Capela battling injuries, Faried appeared in 25 games with Houston, including 13 starts, and averaged 12.9 PPG and 8.2 RPG in 24.4 MPG. He also saw action in six postseason games off the bench.
Faried has averaged 11.4 PPG and 8.1 RPG in 478 career regular-season games but lacks a 3-point shot and doesn’t offer much of a shot-blocking presence (0.8 BPG).
Rockets swingman Gerald Green underwent surgery on Monday to repair a broken bone in his left foot, the team’s PR department tweets. Green is expected to miss six months as he rehabs from the injury.
That would effectively end Green’s season, though it’s conceivable he could return during the postseason at some point.
Green was injured during a preseason game in Tokyo but held off on surgery while he met with several specialists to evaluate his options.
The Rockets could apply for a disabled player exception but because Green is on a minimum-salary deal it would only be worth about $810K if granted. Houston re-signed the 33-year-old Green in July to a one-year contract.
Green, a 12-year NBA veteran, has made prior stops with Boston, Minnesota, Houston, Dallas, New Jersey, Indiana, Phoenix and Miami during his professional career. He was a major contributor off the Rockets’ bench last season, averaging 9.2 PPG and 2.5 PPG in 73 contests.
While offseason reports of tension between James Harden and Chris Paul were viewed as one motivating factor for the Rockets‘ decision to acquire Russell Westbrook, general manager Daryl Morey has consistently denied that. Morey tells Sam Amick of The Athletic that Harden initially wanted to know if there was any way to acquire Westbrook without sending out CP3.
“Yeah, because I mean his mind is always (going) first to ‘How (can we be) completely stacked?’ So I had to sort of explain,” Morey said. “He gets it roughly, but obviously he leaves the details to us. Besides the high-level (talks) where he thought that Russ would be a great fit here, there’s not a ton of interaction after that point. He knows there’s a back and forth, just like we respect what he does I think he respects what we do and he sort of leaves the execution to us.”
While Morey spoke to Amick extensively about how that trade for Westbrook materialized and his first impressions of how the former MVP is fitting in with the Rockets, he declined to comment at all on the NBA/China controversy that was ignited by his tweet supporting Hong Kong protestors.
Here’s more out of the Southwest:
- With Zion Williamson out to start the season, new Pelicans forward Brandon Ingram is prepared to carry more of the offensive burden, as he tells Mark Medina of USA Today. Ingram also views New Orleans as a better fit for him than the Lakers were. “I would say this is a better environment,” he said. “There are a lot of genuine people here that are pretty solid. No shame to the Lakers because they are a high-class organization. They do everything well and have a good fan base. But I like this spot.”
- Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts, who had Seth Curry on his roster last season, views the sharpshooter as a “really good fit” for the Mavericks, writes Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News.
- Trey Lyles, who as a child extensively studied film of Tim Duncan, is thrilled to get the chance to learn from the Spurs‘ new assistant coach this season, as Mike Finger of The San Antonio Express-News details. “I was definitely nervous,” Lyles said. “Somebody that you idolized growing up, and then you’re face to face with him, able to ask him whatever you want, whenever you want? It definitely helped settle me down, just to get the first question out.”
- Chad Smith of Basketball Insiders explores which teams might make sense as a potential trade partner for the Grizzlies in an Andre Iguodala deal.
As initially feared, Rockets swingman Gerald Green is set to undergo surgery on his broken left foot this week, according to Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle.
Green met with several specialists to evaluate his options before opting for the surgery, which is scheduled for Monday, Feigen writes. He suffered the injury during the Rockets’ second preseason game in Tokyo earlier this month.
The surgery could hold different implications on Green’s timetable for a return. There’s a strong possibility he’ll miss the rest of the season, though a specific timetable won’t be determined until the surgery concludes.
Green, a 12-year NBA veteran, has made prior stops with Boston, Minnesota, Houston, Dallas, New Jersey, Indiana, Phoenix and Miami during his professional career. He was a key cog off the Rockets’ bench last season, holding per-game averages of 9.2 points and 2.5 rebounds in 73 contests.
Danuel House credits Rockets assistant coach John Lucas for helping him to stay focused when it appeared his NBA dream may not work out, writes Sean Deveney for Forbes. House reached out to Lucas after being waived by the Wizards in March of 2017. A broken wrist had sidelined him for more than two months and he had gotten into just one game – less than a minute of playing time – with his first NBA team.
“Shut your mouth,” said Lucas, who first met House at age 13 at a Houston basketball camp. “Shut your mouth and get ready for your next opportunity.”
That came the following year with the Suns, but House found a more permanent home last season with the Rockets. He spent most of the year as a two-way player, but started 13 NBA games and eventually earned a three-year contract.
“I also told him he would be an NBA player,” Lucas recalled. “You could see he was good enough for that. I just never imagined we’d be together with the same team.”
There’s more from Houston:
- Mike D’Antoni was among the first coaches to successfully challenge a call, but he doesn’t believe teams should keep their right to challenge if they’re correct, relays Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle. Under the newly adopted rule, coaches get to use the challenge once per game, whether they’re right or wrong. “Then you could have 20 or 30 challenges a game,” D’Antoni said. “I could see why they don’t do it.”
- The Rockets’ G League affiliate has traded for Jaron Blossomgame, who was with Houston during the preseason. Blossomgame’s returning player rights were held by the Canton Charge, who agreed to give him up in exchange for Gary Payton II. Blossomgame impressed Rockets coaches during camp, and he was considered as a candidate for one of the team’s two-way slots.
- The Rockets weren’t able to hold onto Ronshad Shabazz after signing and waiving him last weekend. Shabazz was selected by College Park, the Hawks‘ affiliate, with the 13th pick in Saturday’s G League draft.
Trevon Duval has signed a G League contract and is eligible for this Saturday’s draft, Adam Johnson of 2 Ways & 10 Days tweets. Duval was a two-way player for the Rockets last season and became a free agent when the team didn’t give him a qualifying offer this summer. He was claimed by Houston in March after the Bucks waived him. The former Duke guard made three cameo appearances with Milwaukee.
We have more from around the basketball world:
- Journeyman center Hasheem Thabeet, former Lakers guard Vander Blue, and forward Trey Mourning, son of Alonzo Mourning, are some of the more interesting names on the list of players eligible for the G League draft, according to a league press release. The Northern Arizona Suns have the first pick.
- There are 108 international players from 38 countries and territories on current NBA rosters, according to a league press release. The most-represented countries among the 108 international players on opening-night rosters are Canada (16 players), Australia (nine players), France (eight players), Croatia (seven players) and Serbia (six players). The Mavericks lead the league with seven international players.
- Zion Williamson‘s knee injury created disappointment for the NBA’s TV partners, as Joe Vardon of The Athletic explains. TNT and ESPN wanted nationally-televised games featuring the Pelicans during the opening week of the season to showcase Williamson. They were stuck showing the Pelicans without the top pick in the draft on the court because it was too late to make a change. Vardon goes in-depth on how the national TV schedule is designed and notes that the Lakers play 21 of their 30 nationally -televised games after New Year’s Day because the networks wanted to feature LeBron James and Anthony Davis during the team’s playoff push.
- Amida Brimah, the former UConn center who was in training camp with the Pacers, has suffered a torn right ACL, Scott Agness of The Athletic tweets. He was slated to join Indiana’s G League team, the Fort Wayne Mad Ants. Brimah will undergo surgery next week, Agness adds.
In the latest news on the NBA’s ongoing controversy with China, Sopan Deb of The New York Times writes that Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, despite publicly distancing himself and his franchise from the now-famous tweet by general manager Daryl Morey, never considered firing or even punishing Morey.
Interestingly, however, there was no explanation as to why Fertitta began liking posts on Instagram supportive of Morey’s firing then, but Fertitta did explain why he was – and still is – not okay with Morey’s tweet.
In a written explanation, Fertitta said that he needed to initially distance the Rockets from Morey because he “felt it was important to make the distinction between Daryl speaking as a private citizen and Daryl as a representative of the Houston Rockets… (and the Rockets) have never commented on another country’s foreign policy.”
Deb notes, however, that Fertitta himself has been willing to speak on politics before without distancing the Rockets from his views. Accordingly, Fertitta was asked whether he’d be comfortable with his employees publicly voicing their political views in the future. He declined to comment.
The Rockets have faced some questions this offseason about how two high-usage players like James Harden and Russell Westbrook will complement one another. Executives, scouts, and coaches around the league are curious to see how the Rockets’ half-court offense functions when the two guards are playing together and Harden has the ball, according to Tim MacMahon of ESPN.
“That’s the billion-dollar question,” one Western executive said.
Despite some skepticism from outside observers, it doesn’t sound like head coach Mike D’Antoni has spent many sleepless nights poring over X’s and O’s to make sure the Harden/Westbrook combo will succeed, as MacMahon writes.
“We’re not going to make it too complicated,” D’Antoni said of his backcourt. “They’re MVPs. They’ll put up MVP numbers. I don’t have to interject how smart I am. That’ll just screw it up. They’re really f—ing good.”
D’Antoni does have a tentative plan for how to stagger his two star guards though, as MacMahon details. According to the Rockets’ head coach, Harden and Westbrook will likely only share the court for about 19 minutes per game if he sticks to his plan. That approach will give the club the best chance to avoid scenarios in which neither player is on the court.
As we look forward to the Rockets’ opener tonight, let’s round up a few more notes out of Houston…
- Despite concern that Gerald Green will be out for the season, the Rockets aren’t currently pursuing another wing player, per Kelly Iko and Shams Charania of The Athletic. “We don’t feel as though we’re short of wing shooters,” a team executive said. “We have multiple guys who are interesting.” According to Iko, that exec pointed to Ben McLemore and Thabo Sefolosha as two veteran offseason additions who could contribute.
- McLemore will have his partial guarantee increase from $50K to $500K later today, as ESPN’s Bobby Marks tweets.
- Iko reports in the same story that the Rockets discussed a trade this month that ultimately fell through. According to Iko, another team was interested in giving Houston an asset to take on a player’s contract (likely a small contract, given the Rockets’ cap and tax situation), but eventually pulled back.
- Although the Rockets made some changes to their roster this summer, they brought back all of their core veteran players. That has helped Tyson Chandler make a smooth adjustment to his new team, as Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle writes. “It helps big-time because you understand your role,” Chandler said. “As a young player, you’re trying to figure yourself out. You don’t know what your role is. You’re trying to create your niche. As an older player, you already know.”