Houston’s Media Day.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n“He gives us a different dimension at the center — a lob threat, a rim protector, some of the things the other guys don’t do as well.”<\/p>\n
Udoka elaborated, stating how the success of the double-big lineup with both Sengun and Adams influenced the decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Yeah, I think we saw some things that worked well, once Steven became available to play more as the season went on and got his legs and his rhythm back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We’ll still be cautious with him with back-to-backs so we’d like to have a third guy in there that can play on those nights, but also lean in more on what went well for us.<\/p>\n
Alpi’s versatility allows us to play with whoever, whether it’s a downsized unit or upsize. He can play the four with both of those guys.”<\/p>\n
Capela shared his excitement as well, for the same reason.<\/p>\n
Surprise, surprise.<\/p>\n
“The double big thing is a thing that I’m excited to be part of.”<\/p>\n
Capela previously starred for the Rockets from 2014-2020, establishing himself as one of the league’s most underrated bigs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Houston’s brass rewarded him with a $90 million contract extension in 2018, but dealt him during the 2019-20 season, as the team opted to play the small ball lineup, giving then All-NBA point guard Russell Westbrook space in the paint and room to attack opposing bigs.<\/p>\n
Capela has spent the last five seasons with the Atlanta Hawks, averaging 11.8 points and 11.3 rebounds, along with 59.9 percent from the field and 1.4 blocks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old center is littered in the Rockets’ record books, ranking ninth in rebounds, second in true shooting percent, and first in effective field goal percentage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Capela had seven 20-rebound games in his final season with the Rockets, including five in a row, which was the longest such streak since Ben Wallace in 2003.<\/p>\n
Although he isn’t the same player in year 12, he’ll have a considerable role for the Rockets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Rockets had one of their most active offseasons this summer, landing one of the game’s greatest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-189189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}