Royce White refuses assignment to D-League (UPDATE: Rockets suspend him)

$1.6 million a year for two years is not insignificant for cap reasons or fairness reasons. It's not our money but I'm pretty sure that if you were paying someone millions in salary and they were bashing you on Twitter you would want to void that contract if possible.

 

i say play him 48 minutes and let him humiliate himself in the process, Morris, Patterson, Lin, Machado, T Jones and DMO paid their dues in the d league, you earn minutes, regardless of your condition

 

So, he thought the rockets were informed enough to draft him, but now they aren't informed enough to play him? Then, perhaps the team wasn't in their right mind to draft him, so they should be able to void the contract, right Royce?

If that's what he thinks, fine, but he needs to give his paycheck up. Take what you need to get help, as an accommodation, and give back the rest. Or donate it. In Royce's own words, sometimes the only reasonable solution to doing what is right is doing what is tough.

GIVE UP THE MONEY.

 

Dump him, try and get out of paying his contract and wipe our hands.

It's over.

 

there is still the 'other' account

 

It's not like this guy hasn't stolen before. He's a bad egg.

 

Waive him!

 

Alright that's enough man. Did this selfish ******* really just try to use the Sandy Hook Incident to make his own agenda? "In hindsight of the..." Man shut up white. What he is saying that he's gonna go crazy or something?

Really wanted to give this kid the benefit of the doubt but not after all that crap he just wrote.

 

Steals a laptop and tries to sell it. Shoplift at his own job. Gets caught for both. Makes excuses that he did it entirely for his family. Won't sincerely admit it was a mistake. Thief.

 

If it's any consolation, it's sounding a lot like it's going to be the last NBA contract he ever gets.

After the rookie scale money runs out--the money he gets for "free" just by way of draft order--he'll be in the same position as everybody else: Having to earn a spot on an NBA roster with his play in camp.

Is a fat, problematic Royce White going play well enough to fool a forgetful NBA GM 2 years down the road? Man I doubt it.

 

At the time i was in the dark like everyone else, but i still wanted Taylor with that last pick.
Just sayin', he would have been perfect for this team.

 

I'm not worried nor care about Les' bank account. I'm mad that this dip**** can legally pull this crap off. If Royce thought he can get away with this in a sports team located in Htown without being called out, he's sadly mistaken. I would like to think sports fans in houston have some semblance of pride, love strong work ethics in their teams and can smell BS from miles away. We don't like players who try to get away with stuff (TMac's last year here) and that's what it feels like here.

 

If we have him, would he be able to sue the rockets for discrimination.....?

 

I mean waive him

 

By that time, he's potentially pocketed $3.3m minus the fines without working a second for any of it. Enough to get by in life, which seems to be his MO. Maybe find some sucker team in europe to land on and repeat the cycle there.

 

Yeah, the issue isn't that a ball player earns so much for doing so little, **** happens, that's more than half the NBA. The issue is White is being a hypocrite in accepting it. It's easy to take his position when you're inked into a million dollar contract. Try dealing with it like most people do, without a safety net and i bet he'll be able to surpass a lot of his issues. Not to say it's all in his head or not real, but having everyone, and everything around you, bend over backwards for you isn't the real solution to progress.

Ideally, you have to put yourself in the middle of both extremes to keep improving mentally (royce being at one end and the average middle to lower class mentally ill joe on the other). Royce can and should be doing that, those others guys can't.

 

A lot of the facts are still unknown as neither side has provided any details (like what the nature of Royce White's mental illness is, what recommendations the doctors made and the team supposedly refused). Does not look good for him, but I'd wait a bit more (until the next Wojnarowski article at least) before getting myself all angry over NBA chump change.

 

props to the Rocks of keeping it his privacy.

 

We keep talking about Royce White having a guaranteed contract (at least for this season and next season), but the insubordination we are seeing here from Mr. White is borderline unprecedented in this league. There is surely a clause in a standard NBA contract that allows a team to void the contract under these circumstances. The timing of the James Anderson announcement coincides with the Rockets setting Mr. White up for failure by assigning him to the developmental league, knowing that he would, most likely, refuse the assignment. I think that it's also very fair to assume that the Rockets front office have worked closely with their legal counsel and are covering all of their bases in the event that Mr. White later sues the organization for breach of contract. For example, the Rockets front office almost certainly explained to Mr. White that if he refused this assignment to the developmental league that it would be considered an act of insubordination and that the organization would look to void his contract.

My point here is that, at some point, an employer must have some recourse under these sorts of extreme circumstances, and there is surely some sort of clause in White's contract or in any standard NBA player's contract that enables a team to simply stop paying the guy. Most likely, the Rockets organization has figured out how much it would cost to litigate the matter and will offer Mr. White a buyout agreement in exchange for his agreeing to not sue the organization for breach of contract. If Mr. White refuses to agree to such a buyout, and sues, then this situation will get very ugly, and all sorts of information that Mr. White should not want to become public will become very public.

In any event, Mr. White has played himself out of the league faster than anybody could have imagined possible. Just incredible. Mr. White claims that he wants to improve public awareness of mental health issues yet his behavior over the past several months all but ensures that the next highly skilled basketball prospect will be avoided like the plague, or will at least plummet even further in the draft than Mr. White did.

 

Has anyone seen something close to this drama before? I have been following the NBA for 30 years. I have seen players like Chris Morris (Nets) and Scottie Quitten (Bulls) refused going into the game. And I thought they were bad enough. I can't believe this **** is happening to the Rockets now. Just cut this idiot and move on. Please!