Rockets Add Depth With Phillips on Non-Guaranteed Deal

The Rockets have signed free agent forward Julian Phillips to an undisclosed deal, per team announcement Friday. The 22-year-old 6'6" wing—the 35th overall pick from the 2023 draft—joins Houston on what league sources indicate is a non-guaranteed agreement, a signal that the team is building depth for a potential roster-spot battle rather than locking in immediate rotation minutes.

Phillips arrives in Houston after Minnesota declined his $2.4MM team option in June and chose not to tender him a qualifying offer, making him unrestricted. His journey through three NBA seasons tells a familiar draft-class story: explosive athleticism paired with operational underperformance. As a rookie with Chicago, he carved out modest run; in 2024/25, he averaged 4.6 PPG and 2.1 RPG across 79 games (14.2 minutes per contest). Last season—his third in the league—his role cratered. He played in just 48 games for Minnesota, posting 2.9 PPG and 1.0 RPG in 8.9 minutes. Career splits sit at .435 FG, .320 from three, and .771 from the line across 167 games, a profile that screams high-variance athlete searching for a system fit.

Houston's timing matters. The Rockets re-signed Isaiah Crawford and Jae'Sean Tate earlier this week and currently carry 15 standard contracts—positioning them just over the luxury tax line. If the team wants to retreat below that threshold for the regular season, Phillips becomes a natural casualty, likely competing against JD Davison and Oscar Tshiebwe for a training-camp spot. The non-guaranteed clause gives the franchise optionality: if Phillips shows out in preseason, Houston can convert him to a two-way deal (he remains eligible with only three years of service time). If not, he's a clean release.

From a betting standpoint, Phillips's addition carries negligible direct prop impact. He wasn't getting meaningful run in Minnesota, and the non-guaranteed structure signals Houston views him as replacement-level depth rather than a rotation building block. His scoring and rebounding props, should they appear on any books, won't move Houston's team totals by even a full point—the Rockets aren't suddenly a more potent offensive unit because a bench-range athlete joined camp. The value conversation becomes tactical: if Phillips makes the roster on a two-way and sees sporadic garbage-time minutes, his individual props will carry extreme variance and minimal sample-size reliability. Avoid chasing his player props in preseason or early-season G League appearances; when deep-bench players suddenly get live NBA minutes due to injury, the distribution of outcome inverts too violently to price effectively.