Rockets' Morey on Lawson's rehab: 'We feel confident he's getting the help he needs'
The Houston Rockets took a small but not insignificant gamble in trading for talented but troubled point guard Ty Lawson last month, betting that a change of scenery - and, perhaps, the realization that he may be running out of chances - will be enough to help Lawson deal with his alcoholism.
Rockets general manager Daryl Morey called the trade a worthwhile risk, even as he made it less than 24 hours after Lawson was ordered to spend 30 days in an alcohol rehabilitation center following his second DUI arrest in the span of seven months.
There's no shortage of risk here for Lawson, either. He further incentivized his recovery by agreeing to make the final year of his contract non-guaranteed upon being traded, effectively placing his future in the Rockets' hands and shrinking his margin for error to nil. Nor will that 30-day sentence necessarily be the extent of the discipline Lawson faces; he has additional court dates scheduled for Aug. 18 and Aug. 20.
The most important thing, though, is that Lawson appears to be making progress in his rehabilitation, and the Rockets appear willing to be patient and supportive.
"We take those very seriously," Morey told ESPN's Calvin Watkins, referring to Lawson's pending court cases. "He's had some very serious incidents in his past and in his recent past. We feel like he's part of the Rockets family now and through our conversations with him we feel confident he's getting the help he needs and he's taken that step to say this is something he needs to do is improve on those areas."
Watkins also quoted a source close to Lawson as saying: "Ty is doing well. Great. Working hard, making progress."
Of course, none of that means anything until Lawson walks the walk. Thirty days isn't a whole lot of time when it comes to overcoming a serious addiction. The hope is that Lawson will seek help if and when he needs it.
"Obviously given the serious nature of some of those incidents just being upfront, a lot of those have a history of potentially recurring," Morey said. "But now that he's part of the Rockets we're going to work together with him and continue to help him improve in those areas and obviously we hope to have him on the team for a long time."
- With h/t to PBT