Houston Rockets reportedly interested in 9-year NBA veteran

Marcus Smart has been one of the best players in the NBA for almost a decade.

The former Oklahoma State player returns from his first year with the Memphis Grizzlies.

He finished the regular season with averages of 14.5 points, 2.7 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 2.0 steals per game while shooting 43.0% from the field and 31.3% from three points in 20 games.

Wednesday, Michael Scotto of HoopsHype reported that the Houston Rockets are a team interested in Smart.

Via Scotto’s article on HoopsHype: “Houston continues to look for improvements to help the team improve now, and Rockets coach Ime Udoka remains a fan of his former Celtics player Marcus Smart on the Grizzlies, sources said of the league at HoopsHype.”

The Rockets haven’t made the NBA playoffs in four years.

That said, they are coming off a season where they had a 41-41 record, which put them in 11th place in the Western Conference.

They upgraded their roster (last summer), so adding another veteran like Smart would give them a great chance to compete for a top-eight spot.

Smart spent the first nine seasons of his career with the Boston Celtics.

He’s helped them reach the Eastern Conference Finals five times (and they reached the 2022 NBA Finals).

Smart posts career averages of 10.7 points, 3.5 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.6 steals per game while shooting 38.8% from the field and 32.3% from three-point range. in 601 regular season games.

He also appeared in 108 NBA playoff games.