Two days after being released by the Hawks, power forward Ray Spalding has been claimed off waivers by the Rockets, league sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link). Houston had opened up a roster spot on Wednesday by cutting injured forward Anthony Bennett.
Spalding, 22, signed an Exhibit 10 contract with Atlanta in July after having his 2019/20 team option turned down by the Suns in June. The No. 56 overall pick in the 2018 draft, he appeared in 14 total NBA games for the Mavericks and Suns in his rookie season, averaging 3.9 PPG and 3.4 RPG in 10.6 minutes per contest.
The Rockets are currently carrying just 11 players with fully guaranteed salaries and both of their two-way contract slots are open, so there’s a potential path for Spalding to stick with the team into the regular season.
Currently, Isaiah Hartenstein, Gary Clark, Ryan Anderson, and Ben McLemore, all of whom have partial guarantees, are the favorites to fill out the 15-man roster. Shamorie Ponds, Chris Clemons, and Jaron Blossomgame are among those vying for the two-way slots.
He has about as much of a chance making the team as Bennett had, but maybe he can get some minutes in their last two preseason games and then he can catch on with the Vipers.
Clemons is a lock to either make the 15-man roster or get a 2-way contract. If he does get the 15th spot, they could just go ahead and cut Nene since he’s not going to be around for that long anyway.
How can anyone say that the Rockets are not improved over last season? They lost (an aging) Chris Paul, Kenneth Faried, Iman Shumpert, Chris Chiozza, and Michael Frazier (once he’s released in a week or so). Both Faried and Shumpert remain unsigned and CP3 is stuck in OKC unless they are willing to give up draft picks to get rid of him.
Meanwhile the Rockets replaced those players with Russell Westbrook, Tyson Chandler, Thabo Sefolosha, Ben McLemore, and Ryan Anderson. Sure McLemore and Anderson aren’t all that great, but neither are Chiozza and Frazier. But replacing CP3, Faried, and Shumpert with Westbrook, Chandler, and Sefolosha will definitely make them a better team.
Westbrook is not known as a player who can adjust like Paul did. So that is to be seen. House could bust out though and make them better, or that new sideways release from Harden or whatever that is could do it.
I don’t see that Chris Paul did anything special when he came to Houston that Westbrook is incapable of doing. And CP3 never got along with Harden the way that Westbrook does, in fact I don’t think most people get along with Paul. Plus CP3 just had the worst season of his career and will only get worse in OKC while Westbrook is still in his prime. But most importantly the Rockets don’t have to worry anymore about their starting PG missing at least 20-30 games every season like they did before.