Rockets depart for Orlando without stars Harden, Westbrook.
Harden, Westbrook missing from flight to Florida for restart
When the Rockets flew to Orlando on Thursday, their biggest names and keys to their hopes in the NBA restart were not with them.
Star guards Russell Westbrook and James Harden were not with the team on its late afternoon charter flight, a person with knowledge of the team’s traveling party said. Both hope to join the team on the Disney campus.
Newly signed Luc Mbah a Moute and Rockets director of player development John Lucas also did not travel with the team, the source said. The Athletic initially reported that Harden and Westbrook weren’t with the team.
The NBA has prohibited teams from releasing information about COVID-19 test results. Players have been tested for several weeks, with Rockets players tested Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week.
The rest of the Rockets left for the longest road trip in franchise history, with hopes it will be among the longest ever for an NBA team. It will include one round trip and a stop in one city.
The trip to Orlando to move into the NBA’s campus at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex was the start of what could be months spent training and competing at the Disney facility.
Coach Mike D’Antoni, who said Tuesday he was confident he would be given an all-clear, was on the flight, according to two people familiar with the process. He did not receive any official go-ahead, but the NBA did not seek any additional information from D’Antoni, who at 69 is the league’s second-oldest head coach.
The Rockets were among the final eight teams to arrive at the Disney campus. The Nuggets, Jazz, Nets, Magic, Wizards and Suns practiced Thursday.
The Rockets are scheduled to begin their campus workouts at 2:30 p.m. Saturday on one of the practice courts at The Arena, the site of two of their three scrimmages and five of the seven “seeding” games whose times and locations have been set.
Though teams have been holding individual workouts for several weeks, the initial team practice at the
Disney campus will focus on conditioning and training, with more specific drills to follow.
“Flexibility is the key word, no doubt,” D’Antoni said. “I think the biggest thing is that we know what we want to do for the first couple days, and that’s mostly to assess where they are. That will be a lot of fiveon-zero, just going over the old concepts, introducing anything new that we want to introduce, and getting everybody there.
“Then once that happens and the trainers give me ‘we can do this, we can do that,’ we need to push them harder. Then we will adapt.”
The Rockets hope the practices in Florida will help them make adjustments in the wake of February’s changes in their roster and style. But in most ways, the start of camp will come with the usual goals.
“All of our coaches, we’ve been doing it for 10 to 15 years, so we know more or less the format that we have, what we need to cover,” D’Antoni said. “It’s just going to be a matter of ramping them up so we don’t risk injury, ramping them up so that we cover all the necessities, but we don’t overcoach. And then every day will be an adventure a little bit of ‘OK, here’s where we are today. This practice will reflect this; tomorrow’s practice might be totally different.’ That’s what makes it interesting. It makes it fun. But it’s a little bit like at training camp every year.
“It’s like, yeah, you lay out all these grand plans. About the third practice you go, ‘They’re out. We’ve got to adjust.’ Adjustment is part of the NBA game. And that’s what we’ll do. Our whole mission will be to … get them physically and mentally ready to go into the playoffs. That’s our whole deal.”
The Rockets will scrimmage against the Raptors on July 24, the Grizzlies on July 26 and the Celtics on July 28. Their first game is against the Mavericks on July 31, with the playoffs starting Aug. 17.