Houston Rockets expected to claim guard Jawun Evans off waivers
By Michael Knight
The Houston Rockets are continuing to fill out their roster as they approach the postseason. While today’s rumor doesn’t have much effect on the team as a whole, it is still some insurance for the rest of the year.
The Houston Rockets are trying to secure a top-3 seed in the tough Western Conference as the season comes to a close despite such a terrible start to the year. As such, the rotation is starting to get a bit smaller, a commonality.
With an open roster spot, it’s looking like the Rockets will make a claim for Jawun Evans, a young guard. He certainly won’t make the newly-minted 9 man rotation, but he will be a nice young player that the team can have on the roster that has had some good moments in the NBA in two seasons.
The Phoenix Suns will waive two-way player Jawun Evans, league sources told @TheAthleticNBA. The Houston Rockets are expected to make a claim on Evans after he's waived.
— Michael Scotto (@MikeAScotto) March 23, 2019
Evans will likely ride the bench and only be used in case of emergency. One of the best games of his career came against the Rockets last year, of all teams. He came off the bench and put up 15 points on 3/7 shooting from deep and provided some great defense for the Clippers. He also should’ve fouled out, if you remember that weird phantom call against Lou Williams.
His 3-point shot is a work in progress, but his defense is pretty solid at times. If worst comes to worst and he has to play, there certainly could be less ideal options. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that, though.
The reality of the situation
In all fairness, Jawun Evans won’t play a single meaningful minute for the Houston Rockets this year. He is too raw and doesn’t really fit the style of play they look to run. He may see some garbage minutes or some minutes if a certain seed is locked up and the team is resting people.
Besides that, don’t expect to see Evans in a Rockets uniform. The deal isn’t even official, yet. We’ll see if it happens tomorrow.