Rockets Rumors

Rockets Pick Up D’Antoni’s Option Year

9:04pm: The decision to pick up D’Antoni’s option is official, the team tweets.

6:00pm: The Rockets have picked up the option year on head coach Mike D’Antoni‘s contract, which guarantees the deal through the 2019/20 season, Mark Berman of Fox 26 tweets.

D’Antoni originally signed a three year, $15MM contract with a fourth-year team option when he was named Houston’s head coach in June 2016.

D’Antoni has enjoyed a career revival of sorts with the Rockets. His reputation took a hit after stints with the Knicks and Lakers went sour. He found work as Brett Brown’s associate head coach for two seasons before the Rockets gave him another shot to be a head man.

It turned out to be a wise decision. D’Antoni was named the NBA Coach of the Year last summer after the team won 55 regular-season games and reached the Western Conference semifinals. The Rockets had the league’s best record this season at 65-17, then came up one win shy of the Finals during the conference finals, an outcome that might have changed if Chris Paul hadn’t missed the last two games against the Warriors with a hamstring injury.

Rockets Bought No. 52 Pick For $1.5MM

  • Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders has the details on a couple trades that went down on draft night, reporting that the Rockets bought the No. 52 overall pick from the Jazz for $1.5MM and the Trail Blazers sent the Kings $1.5MM in their deal for Gary Trent Jr.‘s draft rights (Twitter links).

Morey Not Close To A Trade On Draft Night

  • Per Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle, Rockets’ general manager Daryl Morey said the team wasn’t really close to making a deal to move up in last week’s NBA Draft, but that there was an opportunity to move into the No. 20 to No. 25 range.

Rockets Remain ‘All In’ On Pursuing LeBron James

The Rockets are still “all in” on the idea of pursuing LeBron James this summer, a person with knowledge of the situation tells Sam Amick of USA Today. Amick suggests Houston may be a long shot for James, but makes it clear that the team hasn’t given up on the idea by any means.

The Lakers and Cavaliers have increasingly been cited as the most likely landing spots for James, with at least one report suggesting that Houston might not be a great fit for LeBron from a family perspective. For his part, the four-time MVP has been mum on his decision, so it remains unclear which teams have a realistic shot to land him.

[RELATED: LeBron James Not Interested In Elaborate Recruiting Pitches]

From an on-court perspective, the Rockets make a lot of sense as a potential LeBron destination. His good friend Chris Paul is considered very likely to re-sign in Houston, and the team came within one win of knocking off the Warriors in the Western Conference Finals. Additionally, GM Daryl Morey is known for trying to find creative ways to acquire any star he can, as he did a year ago with CP3.

However, it wouldn’t be easy for the Rockets to land James. If LeBron exercises his player option for 2018/19, a trade to Houston is a possibility. If he turns down that option though, the Rockets won’t have the cap space to sign him outright, and landing him a sign-and-trade would only be plausible if team salary remains below the tax apron all year long, which would be extremely tricky for a club that wants to re-sign Paul and Clint Capela.

June 29 will be the next date to watch for James — that’s the deadline for him to pick up or decline his option.

Rockets Propose Flipping Draft, Free Agency On NBA Calendar

The NBA draft took place last Thursday night, with free agency set to open this coming Sunday. However, a proposal put forth by the Rockets to the league’s competition committee in April suggests that the NBA should consider flipping those two big events on its offseason calendar in the future.

As Zach Lowe of ESPN.com details, the idea of having free agency open before the draft takes place – which the NFL already does – has the support of a number of executives around the NBA, including several prominent general managers. However, it had never been formally put on the table until the Rockets proposed it this spring.

“As a staff, we have been kicking this around for a couple of summers now,” said Rockets executive VP of basketball operations Gersson Rosas, who presented the idea to the league’s competition committee. “Is there a better way?”

Lowe’s piece, which is worth checking out in full, lays out a handful of reasons why it might make sense to flip the order of free agency and the draft. For one, teams could be better positioned to address positional needs in free agency and then draft the best player available.

A new-look calendar also might help stimulate trade activity during the draft — under the current system, clubs are often hesitant to complete deals in June that compromise their cap outlook prior to the start of free agency.

Additionally, under the current format, teams that miss out on top free agent targets often panic and give big contracts to lesser players in order to use their cap space. If the draft took place after free agency, teams who don’t sign their top targets could preserve cap room for potential draft-night trades.

According to Lowe, it’s not clear exactly what Houston’s proposal looks like. It may involve opening free agency in late June, with a draft around July 10 and the start of Summer League about a week after that. Lowe suggests that people around the NBA are worried about pushing events back into August, which is typically a quiet period on the league’s calendar — however, he notes that the Rockets’ proposal addresses that issue by including a two-week window in late August and early September in which no team would be allowed to complete any transactions. In other words, execs would still get a little vacation time.

While it’s unlikely that the NBA will make any significant changes to its offseason calendar anytime soon, Houston’s proposal is one worth keeping an eye on in the long term.

Harden Tops James, Davis For MVP Award

Rockets guard James Harden was named the league’s Most Valuable Player during the NBA’s second annual awards show.

Harden topped the Cavaliers’ LeBron James and the Pelicans’ Anthony Davis for the league’s most coveted individual award. Harden finished second in the voting last season to the Thunder’s Russell Westbrook.

Harden led the league in scoring at 30.4 PPG. He was fourth in assists (8.8) and second in 3-pointers made per game (3.7) while also finishing in the top 10 in steals (1.8). Houston’s regular-season success, with its league-best 65-17 record, played a role in Harden’s victory.

The Cavaliers needed James’ Herculean efforts just to finish fourth in the East. He averaged 27.5 PPG, 8.6 RPG and 9.1 APG while appearing in all 82 contests.

Davis led the Pelicans to the playoffs, and a first-round knockout of the Trail Blazers, despite DeMarcus Cousins‘ season-ending Achilles injury. He posted averages of 28.1 PPG, 11.1 RPG and 2.6 BPG.

Here are the other awards announced on Monday night:

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Lou Williams Wins Sixth Man Award

Lou Williams career year earned him the league’s Sixth Man of the Year award, it was announced at the NBA’s annual awards show. The 31-year-old Clippers guard easily beat out the other finalists, the Rockets’ Eric Gordon and the Raptors’ Fred VanVleet.

Williams had always provided instant offense off the bench during his career but he turned it a couple of notches this past season. He easily surpassed his previous scoring standards by averaging 22.6 PPG while dishing out 5.3 APG, another career best. Williams shot 43.5% from the field and 35.9% on 3-point attempts in 79 games in 19 career starts.

Williams scored 30 or more points in 17 games and blew up for a career-best 50 points against the Warriors on January 10th. Gordon won the award in 2017 while Williams was one of the finalists.

Victor Oladipo Captures Most Improved Award

Pacers guard Victor Oladipo was named the league’s Most Improved Player award, it was announced during the NBA’s annual awards broadcast.

He beat out Rockets center Clint Capela and Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie, as expected. Oladipo blossomed into a star after getting dealt by the Thunder in the Paul George blockbuster.

Oladipo averaged 23.1 PPG, 4.3 RPG and 5.2 APG while leading the Pacers to the playoffs, where they pushed the Cavaliers to the brink before succumbing in seven games. He also shot a career-best 47.7% from the field and 37.1% from 3-point range.

Oladipo had never averaged more than 17.9 PPG in his previous four seasons.

'Strong Sense In Rockets Circles' That CP3 Will Re-Sign

There’s a “strong sense in Rockets circles” that Chris Paul isn’t go anywhere this offseason as a free agent, writes Sam Amick of USA Today. While a recent report from Chris Broussard of Fox Sports hinted at possible tension between Paul and the Rockets, Amick spoke to two sources with knowledge of the situation who disputed the idea that there’s any friction there.

Broussard’s report suggested that there might be a disparity between what sort of free agent contract Paul expected when he accommodated a trade to Houston last summer and what the Rockets are willing to offer now. According to Amick, there was indeed a “mutual understanding” in 2017 of what Paul’s next contract would look like, and it’s not clear if a five-year, maximum-salary agreement will be on the table. However, it seems likely that the two sides will reach an agreement, per Amick.

Cougars Guard Rob Gray Gets Invite From Rockets

University of Houston guard Rob Gray will play for the Rockets’ summer league team and apparently has a training-camp invite, according to Joseph Duarte of the Houston Chronicle.

Gray revealed the agreement in a text to Duarte.

“I will be playing summer league/training camp with them trying to earn a roster spot for the upcoming season,” Gray said.

Gray did not get drafted despite being a prolific scorer the past two seasons. He averaged 19.3 PPG, 4.4 APG and 3.7 RPG in his senior year while leading Houston to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, where it lost on a buzzer-beater to eventually national championship runner-up Michigan. Gray averaged 31.0 PPG and 9.0 RPG in those tournament games.

The 6’1” Gray shot 35.9% from long range last season after making 38.2% of his 3-point attempts as a junior, when he averaged 20.3 PPG.