The Strange, 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.”

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 …

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