The Houston Rockets\u2019 final opportunity to add an external contributor comes by way of the buyout market, which is currently underway.<\/p>\n
(Well, quality contributors who haven\u2019t been unrestricted free agents all season, that is.)<\/p>\n
The deadline for teams to waive players was Sunday, March 1. Will the Rockets be active?<\/p>\n
We\u2019d heard a significant amount of chatter regarding the Rockets\u2019 presumed position as buyers on the trade market and….well…that didn\u2019t quite materialize.<\/p>\n
Houston was the least bit active.<\/p>\n
Will the buyout market shape up any differently, for Houston\u2019s brass? Well, it depends on the candidates.<\/p>\n
Lonzo Ball? Nah, he\u2019s likely washed.<\/p>\n
Khris Middleton? He\u2019d provide value, for sure. But he didn\u2019t hit the market.<\/p>\n
Is Houston in most need of a wing scorer, anyways?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s definitely a need. Especially with injuries mounting at that spot.<\/p>\n
Tari Eason has been playing through an ankle injury, Jabari Smith Jr. just had an ankle injury and Amen Thompson seemed to suffer an injury of his own to his lower extremities.<\/p>\n
And Josh Okogie has fallen out of the lineup, and Jae\u2019Sean Tate is also injured.<\/p>\n
Would Eric Gordon make sense? He\u2019s been available for weeks, so we would\u2019ve already seen or heard something.<\/p>\n
The team clearly passed on Chris Paul, prompting retirement.<\/p>\n
Josh Christopher? Been there, done that, literally in Houston\u2019s case.<\/p>\n
Kevon Looney would be great (maybe?) but the New Orleans Pelicans didn\u2019t buy him out. Chris Boucher could be a good addition (maybe?) but would Ime Udoka play him?<\/p>\n
He\u2019d kind of have to, for one, because Clint Capela can\u2019t be expected to soak up all of the reserve center minutes every night. He\u2019s in year 12.<\/p>\n
Udoka seems to trust veterans, anyways. So Boucher would be his type of player.<\/p>\n
But would Houston be getting this year\u2019s version of him? Eight points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.7 blocks per 36 minutes, on 32 percent from the field, 13 percent from deep, and 36 percent effective shooting leaves alot to be desired.<\/p>\n
Even last year\u2019s version as a 32-year-old was valuable. 10 points, 4.5 rebounds (1.4 offensive), .5 blocks, 49.2 percent from the field, 36.2 percent from deep (3.9 attempts), 61.5 percent true shooting and 58.6 percent effective.<\/p>\n
So that leaves just two potential names in Gordon and Boucher. So basically it all comes down to Boucher.<\/p>\n
Which probably means Houston won\u2019t be active on the buyout market either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Rockets\u2019 final opportunity to add an external contributor comes by way of the buyout market, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3794],"tags":[7,292,194,4066,6,211,83428],"class_list":{"0":"post-640901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-rockets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-rockets","11":"tag-houstonrockets","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-rockets","14":"tag-rockets-free-agency"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116176541409255291","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}