Things really could not be going worse for the Houston Rockets, and things seemed to boil over for Kevin Porter Jr. on Saturday.
The 21-year-old mysteriously left the Rockets’ 124-111 loss to the Denver Nuggets, not playing or appearing on the bench at all in the second half. Turns out, it was because of a confrontation with an assistant coach.
According to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, Rockets assistant John Lucas called out Porter Jr. for his play, while also taking aim at Christian Wood for his effort. Things ended up escalating between Porter Jr. and Lucas, with third-year pro eventually throwing something at the coach before getting separated from him. That prompted Porter Jr. to leave the arena.
Kelly Iko of The Athletic, via a team source, said that Porter had apologized for the “overreaction” by night’s end.
The subplot with Wood is not to be ignored, either. He was benched for the entire second half due to a “coaching decision” from Stephen Silas, but he too was called out by Lucas and had been in hot water for missing a COVID-19 testing window.
The Rockets are young and bad right now. They can still make use of this season by trying to be competitive and build for the future, so situations like Saturday’s do nothing but send the organization in the wrong direction.
