Rockets have quietly parted ways with a member of last year's team

The Houston Rockets beefed up their frontcourt on a multitude of fronts this summer. In the process, they quietly said goodbye to a versatile member of last year's team, David Roddy.

Most of the Rockets' work this summer was loud. They traded Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks for Kevin Durant, signed Dorian Finney-Smith away from the Los Angeles Lakers in a surprise move and traded Cam Whitmore to the Washington Wizards to give him room to grow elsewhere. It was a gargantuan transformation of their frontcourt.

One move was much more quiet, however, snuck into another deal as an afterthought. The Rockets added veteran center Clint Capela and ultimately did so via a sign-and-trade; in the process, they included point forward David Roddy, sending the third-year forward to the Atlanta Hawks in the deal.

The Rockets said goodbye to David Roddy

For a first-round pick, David Roddy has played for a number of teams already in his NBA career. He was something of a polarizing pick when the Memphis Grizzlies chose him 23rd overall in the 2022 NBA Draft, one pick after Walker Kessler and at the start of a run of failed draft picks -- including the Rockets taking TyTy Washington at pick No. 29.

Roddy is a curious archetype for an NBA player, a 6'4" power forward with ball skills. He proved himself as a rebounder and always played hard, but his shot never came around and his lack of size defensively mattered. The Grizzlies ended up moving on fairly quickly, including him in a deal with the Phoenix Suns during his second season. Roddy has since pinged around from Phoenix to Atlanta, Philadelphia, Houston, Atlanta again and now is on a deal with the Toronto Raptors.

The Rockets scooped him up on a two-way contract in March as frontcourt depth, but given their multitude of rotation players, he only checked into three games. He was positively awful in those games, and while 35 minutes is hardly a deciding sample size, it confirmed his track record at his other stops.

Roddy cannot shoot, but more so, he cannot finish either given his lack of size. He plays defense with intensity but that only gets him so far. He is something of a dollar-store Draymond Green, and that's an impossible player to fit into a winning team's rotation.

The Rockets moved on from him by sending him to the Hawks, but they likely would have cut ties either way. They don't need more forward, they have enough versatile players with shooting woes, and Roddy looks too far away as an NBA player.

Roddy's shot has fallen in the G League, and against smaller and less accomplished opponents his versatile skillset can shine a bit more. Even so, he will need to prove a lot to get another shot in an NBA game -- and it will need to be on a team much further away from contention that the Houston Rockets.

It was time for David Roddy to move on, and the Rockets quietly sent him on his way.