The Rockets, Already Terrible, Reportedly Suspend Two Starters for Sixers Game
Sixers vs. Rockets in South Philly on a Monday night.
Houston is the NBA’s third-worst team and currently in the Western Conference basement. To make matters worse, they are suspending Christian Wood and Kevin Porter Jr. for this matchup, per Woj at ESPN:
Porter and Wood traveled with the Rockets to Philadelphia on Sunday, but coach Stephen Silas made the decision to sit out both players after separate episodes involving the two players, sources said.
Neither Porter nor Wood played in the second half of the Rockets’ loss to the Nuggets, which included Porter leaving the arena after a halftime locker room confrontation with assistant coach John Lucas, sources said.
Porter has well-documented anger management issues — which the team believes he has made progress on — but those surfaced again Saturday and ultimately drove him to leave the arena instead of rejoining the team for the second half, sources said.
As for Wood, he was benched to start Saturday’s game and appeared to pout over Silas’ punishment for him failing to show up for the team’s daily COVID-19 testing, which caused the team’s shootaround to be delayed, sources said.
Wood is the Rockets’ top scorer, which is somewhat crazy to think if you watched him with the Process Sixers at age 20. He’s averaging 17 points, 10 rebounds, and two assists. Porter Jr. is their fourth-best scorer, at 12.8 PPG. It’ll fall on Jalen Green and Eric Gordon to make this game respectable, with Sixers currently a 14-point favorite on most of the sports books.
Should be an easy win for “New Philadelphia,” though we’ve been down this road before. Nothing is ever easy.