PJ Tucker is unlikely to be returning to the Houston Rockets. pissed off, he has not been traded, sources say
Houston Rockets forward PJ Tucker has decided not to play Thursday night and is not expected to return to the team, coach Stephen Silas said.
Tucker is growing increasingly frustrated that he hasn’t switched to a competitor yet, and made it clear that he would prefer to suspend games until the front office finds a deal for him before the March 25 close, sources told ESPN .
“We’ll try to find something that works for him and for us if he’s no longer on the team,” said Silas after the Rockets’ 125-105 injury-related losses to the Sacramento Kings extended Houston 14-game defeat. “I was assuming he would play tonight and he didn’t play. That was disappointing, but there’s no secret it was a tough year.”
The Rockets have had multiple concurrent trade talks with teams that Tucker has been involved in over the past few weeks. These talks are expected to result in a deal for Tucker before the close of trading on March 25th.
The Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat, and Brooklyn Nets are among the teams that have been discussing potential deals with the Rockets over the past few weeks.
So far, the Rockets’ preference for a young, prolific rotation gamer in trade talks has been a sticking point with teams unwilling to part with such an asset for a 35-year-old on a contract expiring, sources said.
Tucker traveled to Sacramento with the Rockets and warmed up before the game, but he wasn’t fit to join the team on the bench. He wasn’t on the injury report.
“He decided he just wasn’t really there, and we decided it was a good idea,” said Silas, adding that Tucker would be returning to Houston instead of staying on the Rockets’ road trip. “Let us continue.”
The 35-year-old Tucker was a major role-player during his three-and-a-half-year tenure with the Rockets, contributing significantly more than his averages of 6.5 points and 5.8 rebounds per game indicate. He often defended the opponent’s top scorer – he played in the center despite standing only 6-foot-5 in Houston’s short-lived experiment with small balls last season – and served primarily as a 3-point corner threat that hit the ground offensive distributed.
Tucker is in the final season of a four-year contract for $ 32 million. The Rockets didn’t guarantee the last year of the deal until February 2020.
Tucker, who played 267 straight games until an injured thigh sidelined him for two games in February, signed up for training camp late in the fall, admitting he felt unappreciated after the breakdown of contract extension discussions.
The Rockets thought they were on the verge of signing Tucker for a two-year extension for $ 17 million with a guaranteed $ 10 million contract, sources said, but the Houston front office declined after Tucker’s camp came up with a proposal for a fully guaranteed two-year contract worth $ 24 million countered.
Tucker has struggled this season after the Rockets were mixed up following Russell Westbrook and James Harden’s trades. He made career lows in points per game (4.4), field goal percentage (36.6%) and 3-point percentage (31.4%).
“He was professional,” said Silas. “He was in the line-up and tried and done what he can, but at this point we’re going to do the best for the group and the best for PJ and that probably didn’t have him here.”
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