Rockets officially sign Khryi Thomas via NBA hardship exception

Houston currently has 10 of its 17 players under standard contracts out due to injury, which helped meet the “hardship” criteria.

As expected, the Rockets officially signed prospect guard Khryi Thomas before Friday’s game in Milwaukee, which could ease the roster crunch for a Houston squad facing a historic wave of injuries. Though the Rockets and Thomas reached agreement a few days ago, his signing and arrival were delayed due to roster entry protocols for COVID-19 testing.

While Houston has a full roster of 17 players under contract, including 15 standard deals and two two-way players, the NBA league office granted the Rockets a rare “hardship exception” to add Thomas. Thus, no player had to be released in order for Thomas to join the team.

Earlier this year, HoopsRumors explained the hardship exception rule:

The NBA can grant a team a hardship exception when that team has at least four players who have missed three or more games due to injury or illness and are expected to miss at least two more weeks. A hardship exception allows the club to add an extra player to its 15-man roster, increasing its roster limit to 16. When one of the four injured players is ready to return, the team must once again reduce its roster count to 15.

Since the Rockets currently have 10 of their 17 players out injured, including several of weeks or months in length, their situation certainly fits the criteria. For Friday’s game in Milwaukee, Thomas joined Kelly Olynyk, DJ Augustin, Danuel House Jr., Armoni Brooks, KJ Martin, DaQuan Jeffries, and Anthony Lamb as available players.

Head coach Stephen Silas said Thomas arrived just hours before tipoff, allowing for only a brief meeting with assistant coach Rick Higgins to help Thomas get more familiar with the team’s plays and sets.

Thomas was drafted No. 38 overall in 2018 by Philadelphia before being traded to Detroit. Now 24 years old, Thomas played only sparingly in the NBA but flourished as a sharpshooter in the G League, where he averaged 17.7 points per game on 44.5% 3-point shooting. In posting those numbers, Thomas took 6.3 shots per game from 3-point range, which would seem to make it a sufficient sample size.

Thomas is also well-regarded for his on-ball defense. During his college basketball career at Creighton, the 6-foot-3 guard was named Big East Defensive Player of the Year in 2017 and 2018.

The Rockets (16-50) have six games left to play, which will allow them to get a look at evaluating Thomas before the regular season ends on May 16. Should he make a positive impression, the Rockets could use a portion of their mid-level exception to retain him for future seasons.

In 34 career NBA regular-season appearances, Thomas has averaged 2.3 points in a meager 7.6 minutes per game. In three brief outings during the 2019 playoffs, Thomas averaged 4.7 points in 5.0 minutes.

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