The Curious Case of Donatas Motiejunas and the Houston Rockets

HOUSTON – The Donatas Motiejunas saga continues.

Less than 24 hours after the Houston Rockets matched an offer sheet to retain his restricted free agent rights, the Lithuanian-born power forward was a no-show for his scheduled team physical on Tuesday morning.

“We won’t be reporting,” B.J. Armstrong, Motiejunas’ agent, told Bleacher Report. “We have our rights, and we’ll go from there. We got, what, 48 hours? We got time. Right now, that’s all we need to say. We know our rights.”

Motiejunas’ stiff arm to the Rockets is befuddling. After the power forward signed a four-year $37 million offer sheet with the Brooklyn Nets, he stated that he would not be upset if the Rockets matched.

“No, definitely not,” Motiejunas told Fox 26’s Mark Berman. “It’s been four beautiful years in Houston. I’m happy with the people I was working with. I’m happy with the city. This is a business. Whichever jersey I’m going to wear, I’m going to play as hard as I can for that team.”

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With Motiejunas’ decision to forgo the physical exam, Houston has two options: 1) Keep the offer sheet open in the hopes that he’ll report for duty or 2) undo the match altogether, and the coveted stretch-4 goes back to being a restricted free agent.

Rockets general manager Daryl Morey was unavailable for comment, but after the Rockets held on in the waning seconds of Monday’s night’s 107-106 win over the Boston Celtics, James Harden was looking forward to having Motiejunas rejoin the team.

“Everything,” Harden said about what Motiejunas brings to the team. “His passing. His versatile, smart playmaking. He’s not one-dimensional, and that’s why he’s so good. So hopefully he can get acclimated into our system and be ready to go.”

Asked if Motiejunas will find his way quickly in head coach Mike D’Antoni’s new offense, Harden added: “He should. He’s a smart player.”

Motiejunas' shrewd play as a stretch-4 notwithstanding, it remains to be seen if his latest move is a cunning one.

D'Antoni seems to hold Motiejunas in high regard and might even see him as a safety valve of sorts should the Rockets be in need of reinforcements.

“We still got Motiejunas out there hanging out somewhere,” D’Antoni said last week. “We may have to pick him up in Canada somewhere. I don’t know where he is.”

Motiejunas' location is simple, really. He's in NBA limbo.

While the Rockets weigh their options, Motiejunas continues to weigh his, adding more time to an already drawn-out process that includes his decision to let Houston’s $4.4 million qualifying offer expire on Oct. 1. His indecision also led to the Rockets pulling their multi-year contract offer that was reportedly set to start at $7 million per anum on Nov. 24.

Motiejunas’ vacillation could be tied to the back problems that caused him to fail his physical with Detroit last year, resulting in Pistons president Stan Van Gundy opting to nix a trade deadline deal that would have sent him and Marcus Thornton to the Motor City in exchange for a 2016 first-round pick and center Joel Anthony.

Motiejunas, who averaged 6.2 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game last year, only appeared in 37 games before his back injury cut his 2015-16 season short. Due to the 7-footer's injury history, teams with added cap space over the summer were reluctant to make offers that guaranteed more than the first year of any multi-year deal.

So Motiejunas, like now, waited and waited.

But D'Antoni and the Rockets remained optimistic that the 26-year-old forward's skill set would be an asset in the team's new pace-and-space offense, so they relented. And now it's more of the same waiting game. To see who folds first, who holds on or lets go.

For his part, Armstrong is confident that his client will walk away happy.

"Right now, we’re going through the process," he said. "We’ve said what we need to say. We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves over here. We know our rights. We know what we need to do."

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. All stats accurate as of Nov. 23 and courtesy of NBA.com and Basketball-Reference.com.

Maurice Bobb covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @ReeseReport