NBA Free Agency: Rockets sign Omri Casspi

Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

According to the master of NBA free agency, Adrian Wojnarowski, the Houston Rockets Rockets have reached an agreement on a two -year deal with Omri Casspi.

Omri was drafted by the Kings in the 1st round (23rd pick) of the 2009 NBA Draft. The pick was from the Rockets who traded them the pick with Donte Greene and Bobby Jackson to for Metta World Peace, Patrick Ewing Jr.  and Sean Singletary.

The first two months of his rookie season with the Sacramento Kings , he showed a lot of playmaking ability, scoring ability, and the ability to hit 3-point shots. Casspi was fearless with the basketball, no matter who was guarding him. In fact, his fiery demeanor often had him demanding the ball more and more. Then things turned for him.

He hit the proverbial “rookie wall” and was never able to recover.

When the Kings chose to trade Casspi and a 2012 first round draft pick were traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers on June 30, 2011 for J.J. Hickson things changed for Casspi. He already wasn’t living up to his future star projection but now he was going from one bad team to another where things would get even worse.

Casspi experienced career lows in Cleveland and eventually lost his starting job to Alonzo Gee. There were even rumors that Cleveland would buy Casspi out of the final year of his contract but instead he played the 2012-13 season for just under $2.3 million.

That being said, Casspi’s strongest skill is probably his three-point shooting. He has a career mark of 35.3 percent from beyond the arc.