Rockets Suspend Royce White

10:31am: The suspension is without pay, as Feigen confirms. White tweets his response, writing, "Threat, Fines, Suspension won't deter me. I won't accept illogical health decisions, I will keep asking for safety & health."

10:02am: The Rockets have suspended Royce White, sources tell Mark Berman of Fox 26 Houston (Twitter link). It will be a one-week suspension, tweets Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. It's the latest setback for the 16th overall pick in the draft this past June, who said this week there's a "very high" chance he'll never play in the NBA, and refused an assignment to the D-League last weekend.

In a statement, Rockets GM Daryl Morey said the suspension is for "refusing to provide services as required by his Uniform Player Contract," as Berman details (Twitter links). Morey also said the Rockets will continue to work with White, who has yet to make his debut for Houston as he seeks accomodations for his obsessive-compulsive and generalized anxiety disorders, which manifest in a fear of flying. White dismissed the idea of playing for another NBA team in a radio interview this week, and the Rockets have no intention of releasing him, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported last week.

The suspension doesn't come as a surprise to White, Feigen tweets. The rookie has been unable to reach an accord with Morey despite having engaged in talks for the last week. Still, it's not clear exactly what the suspension accomplishes, since White is already estranged from the team. After White spoke on the radio last week, Kurt Helin of NBCSports.com wrote that White has yet to receive a paycheck due to the fines he's incurred during his absence from the team, which dates back to mid-November. The Rockets had fined White for every day he missed or failed to meet with Dr. Aaron Fink, the team-assigned therpist, but White said in November that he had begun seeing Fink and was no longer being fined.

View Comments (2)