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Rockets forward Jon Brockman was released from Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center on Thursday after suffering an eye injury on Monday during a training session, the team announced.
The injury did not require surgery but the team does not have a timetable for his return to basketball activities.
— Reported by the Houston Chronicle
Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey announced today that the team has elevated Gersson Rosas to the title of Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations. Rosas will also continue his duties as General Manager for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, which is Houston’s single-affiliation NBA Development League partner.
“Gersson is one of the best basketball evaluators and executives in the NBA,” said Morey. “He has been key to the success we have had in the draft and all personnel moves during his tenure. He is one of the fastest rising executives in the industry. We are thrilled with this move.”
Rosas enters his ninth season with the Houston Rockets and his first as Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations. He moves into his current role after working the last three seasons (2009-12) as Vice President of Player Personnel. In 2008-09, Rosas served as Houston’s Director of Player Personnel after working one campaign as the team’s Director of Scouting and three seasons as the team’s Personnel Scout/Video Coordinator.
In his new position, Rosas will assists Morey in all basketball operations of the franchise and will be responsible for the team’s player personnel matters, including the evaluation of draft prospects, free agents and potential trade targets. In addition, he will continue overseeing domestic and international scouting, while also assisting in the coordination of the team’s Player Development program.
In his three seasons as Rio Grande Valley’s GM, the Vipers took home the 2009-10 D-League championship, reached back-to-back D-League Finals, compiled a 91-59 (.607) regular season record and have had nine players earn All-NBA D-League honors. In 2011-12, Rio Grande Valley center Greg Smith was named to the 2011-12 All-NBA D-League First Team and the 2011-12 D-League All-Rookie First Team. Center Jeff Adrien was also named the 2010-11 D-League Impact Player of the Year as voted on by the league’s head coaches. Vipers forward Mike Harris was named the 2009-10 NBA D-League’s Most Valuable Player, while then-Head Coach Chris Finch took home the 2009-10 Dennis Johnson Coach of the Year Award. In addition, Rio Grande Valley broke the NBA D-League single-season record for Call-Ups to the NBA in 2009-10 with 10, including Mike Harris, Garrett Temple and Will Conroy signing with the Rockets.
Point guard Scott Machado, the NCAA assists leader last season who excelled in the Rockets’ final summer league games in July, will sign with the team this week, a person with knowledge of the deal said Tuesday.
Machado will sign a three-year, partially guaranteed deal, most likely on Thursday.
Machado, 22, averaged 9.9 assists for Iona last season, but went undrafted in June. After a slow start in Las Vegas, he finished strong, getting 10 assists in the third game and 20 points in the tournament finale, replacing Courtney Fortson as the starting point guard.
— Reported by Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle (Blog)
After a summer of dramatic renovations left the Rockets’ roster nearly unrecognizable from the previous one, the remodeling high above the court at Toyota Center could prove even more stunning.
It seems certain to be more long-lasting.
For the start of the team’s 10th season in Toyota Center, which will include the return of All-Star Weekend to Houston, the Rockets will unveil widespread upgrades to the arena, including the move to high-definition video screens billed as the largest in any North American arena.
“We wanted to make sure we created a better experience,” Rockets CEO Tad Brown said. “We think this is going to put us on another level.”
The entire project — from upgraded Wi-Fi to a new control room to run the video screen and game presentation — will cost roughly $15 million.
— Reported by Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle (Blog)
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Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey announced today that the team has officially waived forward Sean Williams. He was acquired by Houston from the Boston Celtics as part of the Courtney Lee sign-and-trade on July 20.
Williams (6-10, 235, Boston College) owns career averages of 4.2 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.2 blocks in 137 games (29 starts) with New Jersey, Dallas and Boston. He was originally selected by the Nets with the 17th overall pick in the 2007 NBA Draft.
Former NBA all-star Yao Ming has called for China’s school system to invest more in sport at the grassroots level, claiming much was needed to be done in his homeland to prevent further stagnation.
“The growth of sport’s status in school life in our country has halted now,” the giant former Houston Rockets center told the China Daily newspaper.
“We should start over and let it go beyond just a function (for) keeping (students) fit.”
With the inaugural season of Yao’s “Foundation Hope” elementary school basketball program recently concluded, he has been making a considerable push of his own.
— Reported by Reuters
In their search for a new general manager to replace Rod Thorn, the 76ers, according to SI.com, have turned their attention to Sam Hinkie, the Houston Rockets’ executive vice president of basketball operations.
Hinkie, who has an MBA from Stanford, is considered a leader in the league’s analytics movement and has been the Rockets’ second-in-command behind general manager Daryl Morey for 5 years.
— Reported by Mark Perner of the Philadelphia Daily News
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Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey announced today that the team has signed guard/forward Carlos Delfino. The unrestricted free agent recently competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, averaging 15.3 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.6 assists with Argentina.
Delfino (6-6, 230, Argentina) has played in seven NBA seasons, averaging 7.7 points (.362, 520-1435 3FG), 3.6 rebounds and 1.7 assists in 440 career games (165 starts) with Detroit, Toronto and Milwaukee. His most productive years have come the past three seasons with the Bucks, where he has averaged 10.6 points, 4.5 boards, 2.5 assists and 1.32 steals in 30.4 minutes per outing over 178 games (159 starts). Delfino also connected on a career-best 134 3-pointers in 2009-10 and averaged 2.1 3-point field goals per game in 2010-11, which ranked fifth in the league.
Drafted by the Pistons with the 25th overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, Delfino spent three seasons with Detroit before joining the Raptors in a trade. He was acquired by Milwaukee along with Roko Ukic from Toronto in exchange for Amir Johnson and Sonny Weems on Aug. 18, 2009. In addition to the NBA, Delfino has played a key role on Argentina’s gold-medal-winning teams at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece and at the 2011 FIBA Americas Tournament. Delfino began his career internationally with Reggio Calabria (2000-02) and Skipper Bologna (2002-04). He also averaged 13.0 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 10 games with Khimki Moscow in the Russian Superleague in 2008-09.
Because the Knicks traded Harrellson away, however, he can’t come back to them. Under the new collective bargaining agreement, teams that trade away players cannot re-sign them for a year after the trade – ending the previous common practice of a team trading away a player, only to see that player get bought out of his contract or waived and re-sign with the team that traded him 30 days after the deal was done.
The Rockets cut Harrellson after signing veteran swingman Carlos Delfino this week. Now, among the four players the Knicks sent to Houston in the Camby deal, only Toney Douglas remains on their roster, after the Rockets had cut Jordan last month.
— Reported by Tim Bontemps of the New York Post (Blog)
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Lin was officially introduced to Houston on a makeshift stage that was set up on the Rockets’ practice court and greeted by a media throng that numbered in the hundreds, including many talking heads who probably needed a map and flashlight to locate the Toyota Center.
After three straight seasons of being the last team to miss the playoffs and carrying the best record — and longest odds — into the draft lottery, they were in need of an attraction that would make the masses remember that the Rockets were still operating an NBA franchise.
Never mind that they showed him the door back in December.
“It’s always difficult when you’ve obviously made an error,” Alexander said. “We made an error in letting him go. I think we rectified it now.
“I think the spotlight’s important. We’re gonna be on national TV now because of Jeremy and I think free agents want to be on teams that are in the national spotlight. So I think from a basketball standpoint we really improve our negotiations with many, many free agents.”
— Reported by Fran Blinebury of NBA.com