Austin Rivers believes in the direction that the Houston Rockets are headed.
Rivers, who agreed to re-sign with the team on a one-plus-one contract for the veteran’s minimum, told ESPN’s Tim MacMahon that he had bigger offers elsewhere but turned them down to return to Houston. He also said that his goal all along was to stay with the Rockets, calling them “the team to beat.”
Austin Rivers had offers in $5.7M midlevel range but took the vet minimum from Rockets. “Now that the league is wide open, I just saw an opportunity. You can’t really put a price on happiness. The goal was to come back to Houston all along. I think we have the team to beat.”
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) July 1, 2019
The former Duke star is still only 26 years old and played well on both ends of the court last season, making his decision to accept the minimum somewhat surprising. As a team however, Houston is capped out, meaning that this was probably the only way that Rivers would have been able to stay with them.
The Rockets have had a quiet offseason so far, but retaining Rivers for pennies is a solid move to go along with the other upgrades that they are pursuing.
