The Houston Rockets have a very special luxury with their preseason this year and are hoping to make the most of it. Since they have two games overseas this weekend, it gives everybody on the roster plenty of time to get to know each other. Even though the travel distance is limiting the total number of preseason games they’ll play, the team will be together more than most others.

This gave me high hopes for their opener on Friday, and they didn’t disappoint. It was great to see everyone back on the court and contributing. Even some new faces were donning the ketchup and mustard uniforms in China. Bogdan Bogdanovic and Bruce Thornton each had very solid debuts for the Rockets. 

I was surprised and even disappointed by one of the biggest additions of this offseason, though. While Marcus Smart travelled to Macao with the team and has been in plenty of photos and videos, he never touched the court. The NBA box score shows his absence was the coach’s decision.

I’m sure everyone in the world was confused by that, considering Ime Udoka’s prior relationship with Smart. Not to mention, he was arguably this team’s biggest offseason addition. Bogdanovic was technically signed first, but Smart was rumored to be signed long before that. 

Even stranger, there was no pregame update about this. In fact, even more than 24 hours later, all I’ve heard about it was from the live broadcast. Craig Ackerman simply said, “he’s not playing in this one,” after Smart’s name popped up in conversation. 

No further explanation, no questioning from Ryan Hollins, just an off-handed remark at the end of the first quarter. Nothing else has been said about the very odd benching, so all we can do is speculate in the meantime. 

Was he just sick or under the weather? Why wouldn’t that be reported? Was there some type of misconduct? Was this a punishment? I’d understand why the team would want to keep that in-house, but everyone’s still curious. Was there a reason the LA Lakers let him leave? 

He just recently spoke about feeling disrespected by the Lakers, so it’d be great to see him come out with something to prove. The last thing we need is a repeat of the Dorian Finney-Smith situation from last season. It’ll be a very bad look to get two washed up Lakers in back to back free agency periods, so let’s hope that’s not the case. 

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