Houston Rockets: Austin Rivers shares thoughts on Danuel House flub

Austin Rivers gave his thoughts about the situation that caused Danuel House to be kicked out of the bubble during the Houston Rockets’ playoff bid.

When the Houston Rockets took on the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round of this year’s playoffs, they knew they were going to need all hands on deck. Unfortunately, off-court activities by Danuel House led to him being suspended for the rest of the playoffs after Game 2 of the series, one in which he played a key role.

The details of the incident are widely known by now, but in short, this is what happened. While the NBA took their time explaining House’s suspension, they eventually declared they had circumstantial evidence that he had an unapproved visitor spend the night in his hotel room, which was verified by the door data of the facility.

Given the danger COVID-19 poses, the NBA had strict visitor rules in place to limit contact between hotel guests as much as possible. Since the guest that accompanied House wasn’t approved, the league decided that was serious enough of a violation to boot him out of the Orlando campus.

Since the incident, there hasn’t been much feedback from his teammates or coaching staff either way, aside from a quote from James Harden calling the situation very disappointing. On Sunday afternoon, Austin Rivers addressed several fan questions in an Instagram Live session, including his thoughts on the House situation.

“All I know is he’s a good dude,” started Rivers. “People make mistakes, man. Everybody makes mistakes. I’m not condoning it, but people do things.”

While he has his teammate’s back, Austin admitted he still wasn’t completely sure what all went down.

“Time heals all. We’ve seen a whole bunch of people make mistakes, and you learn from it and move on. There are other guys in the bubble who made mistakes, and people forget about it. D. House will be fine. He’s a good guy, and he probably learned from it.”

Indeed there were a few bubble violations that were met with consequences before and after House’s. Early on, Kings center Richaun Holmes and Rockets center Bruno Caboclo had to quarantine after crossing approved lines inside the bubble to have food delivered. Neither of those violations, however, were as impactful as Danuel’s.

Still, Rivers maintained the strong character of his teammate, dismissing the fiasco as a young man making a mistake.

“I don’t even know the logistics of it,” said Rivers. “I still don’t even know what really happened. I just know D. House is a good dude. He’s a good guy, and nobody’s perfect.”