Adel­man, Miller

Vet­eran cen­ter Brad Miller has agreed to a three-year con­tract worth $15 mil­lion with the Hous­ton Rockets.

Miller attracted inter­est from numer­ous other teams but was strongly lob­bied to move to Hous­ton by Rock­ets coach Rick Adel­man, who coached him in Sacra­mento, and guard Kevin Mar­tin, who was Miller’s team­mate on the Kings.

Miller said the oppor­tu­nity was “too good of a deal to pass up,” accord­ing to the Chicago Tribune.

ESPN.com

Brad Miller

Rock­ets gen­eral man­ager Daryl Morey met with free agent cen­ter Brad Miller on Thurs­day. Miller could be a poten­tial backup to Yao Ming in Houston.

The cen­ter had din­ner with Rock­ets coach Rick Adel­man, who he played under in Sacramento.

“We’ve talked con­cep­tu­ally,” said Mark Bartlestein, Miller’s agent.

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Trevor Ariza

Rock­ets guard Trevor Ariza will be out for the remain­der of the week, miss­ing games against the Magic, Spurs and Jazz, with a severe left hip pointer.

He under­went an MRI on Mon­day and will be re-evaluated next week.

Guard Kevin Mar­tin will move into the start­ing lineup, coach Rick Adel­man said.

HoopsWorld

Tracy McGrady

Tracy McGrady has been cleared to take an indef­i­nite leave from the Hous­ton Rock­ets after the for­mer All-Star’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives and Rock­ets man­age­ment agreed to work together in search of a trade for the dis­grun­tled guard, accord­ing to sources close to the situation.

Sources close to the process told ESPN.com that mul­ti­ple phone dis­cus­sions Mon­day between Rock­ets gen­eral man­ager Daryl Morey and coach Rick Adel­man in con­junc­tion with McGrady’s lead agent, Arn Tellem, led to a mutual agree­ment that both sides would try to hatch a work­able trade before the league’s annual trad­ing dead­line on Feb. 18.

Rick Adel­man

The strange rela­tion­ship between Tracy McGrady and Rick Adel­man continues.

McGrady says he has ready to return from knee surgery, but Adel­man is not con­cerned with how fast his star returns.

“I feel great,” McGrady said Sat­ur­day before Houston’s game against Port­land. “I’m ready.”

“The quicker he comes back really makes no dif­fer­ence,” Adel­man said. “The more we can play at a decent level and work him in the bet­ter off I think we are in the long run.”

Adel­man says he is going to take his time bring­ing McGrady back into the lineup. Hous­ton is devel­op­ing solid chem­istry and the coach is con­cerned about mess­ing with that.

Real GM

Tracy McGrady

The Rock­ets are con­tin­u­ing to offer Tracy McGrady in a trade.

How­ever, McGrady is the league’s highest-paid player at $23.2 mil­lion this sea­son. In addi­tion to that, he has not played in nine months because of a knee injury.

Hous­ton is will­ing to take back long-term con­tracts, sources told Yahoo! Sports, but most believe that his high salary makes him almost impos­si­ble to trade.

Rock­ets gen­eral man­ager Daryl Morey and coach Rick Adel­man reported

Real GM

Tracy McGrady

A week and four prac­tices after Tracy McGrady returned full-time to Rock­ets work­outs, coach Rick Adel­man said there is no timetable for McGrady’s return.

McGrady, 30, said last week he expected to make his sea­son debut soon, point­ing to four road games this week.

“It’s just a process,” Adel­man said. “I can’t tell you what the timetable is, but he’s prac­tic­ing, he’s work­ing. That’s what we’re going on. We’ll fig­ure that (the timetable) out when we get to it. He looks OK. He looks all right. He’s just got to keep push­ing him­self and try to take each step.”

HoopsWorld

Greg Oden

Rock­ets coach Rick Adel­man came away impressed with Greg Oden on Tues­day night.

Port­land defeated Hous­ton 96–87 at the Rose Gar­den. Oden had just 2 points, but added 12 rebounds and 5 blocks.

“He (Oden) looks more con­fi­dent. He looks like he’s asserted him­self more than last year. When we played them in the play­offs he had a cou­ple of games when he looked liked that,” Adel­man said.

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