Rockets to sign rookie guard Chris Clemons to three-year contract

With his Two-Way deal running out of NBA days, the Rockets are signing rookie guard Chris Clemons to a three-year standard contract.

The Houston Rockets agreed to a three-year contract with rookie guard Chris Clemons, as first reported by The Athletic‘s Shams Charania.

The 5-foot-9 Clemons had been on a Two-Way contract with the Rockets. A player on a Two-Way contract is primarily a G League player, but he can spend up to 45 service days with his affiliate NBA team.

Clemons’ allotment of NBA service days was close to running out, however, which prompted the move to a standard contract and allows him to stay with the Rockets as much as the team wants. Houston pulled a similar roster maneuver with undrafted rookie Gary Clark a season ago, once his Two-Way service days ran out at the NBA level.

The three-year deals were only made possible due to Houston preserving a portion of its Mid-Level Exception (MLE) money in both years, since a minimum contract could not be for longer than two years.

The Rockets (21-10) have had an open roster spot since waiving Ryan Anderson in late November. With the conversion of Clemons, the standard roster is now full, but they now have a Two-Way slot open.

Clemons played in college at Campbell University, where he was the NCAA’s top scorer in the 2018-19 season at 30.1 points per game. He is the third-highest scorer in Division 1 college basketball history. According to Basketball-Reference, Clemons’ offensive win shares (6.1) ranked second-best among all college players last season, while his player efficiency rating (33.0) was top 10 in the country.

Yet, primarily due to his small frame, Clemons was not selected by any team in the 2019 NBA Draft. The Rockets picked him up as an undrafted free agent and he quickly turned heads, averaging a team-best 20.8 points per game in Summer League, including 43.1% on 3-pointers.

In an exclusive July interview from Summer League, Clemons spoke with RocketsWire to explain his journey to the NBA; his skillset; the feedback he has received to this point; and much more.

Since then, in 20 games during the 2019-20 regular season, Clemons is averaging 4.8 points on 39.1% three-point shooting in 8.2 minutes per game. On Nov. 16, Clemons contributed to an important Houston win at Minnesota with a career-high 19 points (5-of-9 on three-pointers). That was a game where the Rockets were significantly shorthanded and missing a pair of veteran guards in Russell Westbrook and Eric Gordon.

With Westbrook and Gordon again out Dec. 14 versus Detroit, Clemons scored 17 points in just 16 minutes on 5-of-11 shooting from three-point range.

In addition to his gifts as a shooter, Clemons has also shown enormous athletic potential. Earlier this month, the 5-foot-9 guard finished an alley-oop on the receiving end following a pass from James Harden.

Harden, who leads the NBA in scoring and is clearly the team leader in Houston, has repeatedly sung the praises of Clemons in media interviews this season.

Now that Clemons is on a standard contract, the Rockets’ lone Two-Way player at the moment is guard Michael Frazier.

After missing all of training camp with an injury, Frazier’s NBA clock has yet to start, as he’s spent all of his time since returning with Houston’s G League affiliate — the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.

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In five games with the Vipers, Frazier has averaged 15.6 points and 3.2 rebounds in 23.8 minutes. Clemons has also played in five games there, with a slash line of 21.6 points, 5.0 assists, and 2.6 steals in 31.0 minutes.

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