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Shorthanded Rockets on course to begin season Saturday in Portland - Houston Chronicle

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Some of the Rockets will finally play basketball again.

In another sign of the travails of their season and the challenges all NBA teams might face, even that represents a positive — though previously uncertain — development.

Having even the eight players required by the NBA to play a game was a close call. When the NBA rulings on coronavirus protocols and required quarantines were complete, the Rockets on Friday headed to Portland to face the Trail Blazers on Saturday with nine players. They left without a significant chunk of their rotation and with another gut punch for a team that has had many before even their belated start to the season.

A week that began with John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins relishing the season opener as the culmination of their long roads back from multiple injuries and surgeries, an opportunity that Cousins called “a gift,” will end with both forced to keep waiting. Eric Gordon, who had seemed reinvigorated to start a season in good health and in a system that he preferred, joined them on the shelf.

Cousins, Wall, Gordon and rookie Mason Jones were ordered by NBA protocols into a week-long quarantine that will keep them out of Saturday’s game in Portland and Monday’s in Denver. Guard Ben McLemore and rookie K.J. Martin are self-isolating after returning positive COVID-19 tests.

Star guard James Harden produced negative tests for four-consecutive days, completing his briefer quarantine period required after video of him attending a social event circulated on social media.

Harden’s quarantine period along with the players with either positive or inconclusive tests and those in quarantine prevented the Rockets from having the eight players necessary to play their scheduled season opener against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday.

With Harden back, the Rockets have enough players to play. But even beyond playing while so severely shorthanded, taking on the Trail Blazers will be even more daunting than expected.

The Rockets have not played since Dec. 17, have not practiced since Tuesday. Without Wall, Cousins, Gordon and McLemore, they will be without nearly half their revamped rotation.

Their revised rotation will include three players — David Nwaba, Sterling Brown and rookie Brodric Thomas, a two-way player signed as an undrafted free agent out of Truman State — who all play the same wing position; rookie Jae’Sean Tate, also signed as an undrafted free agent after two seasons overseas; and center Bruno Caboclo. There is no backup point guard.

Even the regulars that are available are coming off a preseason with limited work. Harden, Brown and P.J. Tucker each played in just two preseason games. None played more than the 27 minutes Harden logged in his second outing, far fewer than he and Tucker likely would have to play on Saturday. And because Harden was in quarantine, he was limited in the work he could put in during the week.

Center Christian Wood played in just one preseason game after coming back from a sore elbow.

Stephen Silas will hold a shootaround on the day of his first game as an NBA head coach, but that will not amount to much preparation to go against a team that has already played and showed a variety of defenses, including zones.

There could also be an emotional toll from nearly a week of uncertainty that followed a preseason of controversy which came after an off-season of turmoil and transformation.

The Rockets had managed all that in part by tapping into the exuberance Wall and Cousins have displayed about their comebacks, only to have that replaced by a sentiment Cousins expressed on Twitter with an angry emoji.

Even Christmas brought a reminder in the change in the Rockets’ status in the league when the NBA’s annual Christmas Day celebration was held without them.

The Rockets had been a part of the NBA’s showcase regular-season event in four of the past five seasons, excluded only in 2016-17, the season that followed the slide to 41-41.

Still a celebrity-filled team, the sort that ESPN/ABC show off in a Christmas tradition as reliable as George Bailey wanting to live again, the Rockets were excluded, presumably given the uncertainty over whether Harden would still be among those wearing beards and red suits.

No team has as long a streak of seasons in the playoffs or .500 seasons as the Rockets. But they had been not just relegated to late-night NBA-TV but have been far more notorious for all that has been going wrong.

From defections to deals, trade demands to holdouts and now positive tests and quarantines, the Rockets have been compelling for drama and controversies with no basketball to distract from the turmoil.

That can belatedly change on Saturday. But as with all things with the Rockets in a season that had not begun, it was a difficult road just to get to tip-off, with a great deal stacked against them.

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Shorthanded Rockets on course to begin season Saturday in Portland - Houston Chronicle
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