The Houston Rockets’ biggest draft regret still points back to Royce White.
Houston took White with the No. 16 pick in the 2012 NBA Draft after his lone season at Iowa State, where he put up 13.4 points, 9.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game. He looked ready for the league on paper, but his NCAA suspension for legal trouble and his publicly disclosed fear of flying made him a risky bet from the start.
The bigger problem was what the Rockets passed on. White went ahead of future contributors such as Draymond Green and Khris Middleton, the kind of players who could have given Houston real value for years.
Once White got to Houston, the situation unraveled quickly. His rookie year became a long stretch of conflict with management over mental health protocols. The Rockets agreed to let him travel by personal bus because of his flying anxiety, but he still did not report to work during November and December.
After more than a month away from team duties, Houston sent him to its D-League affiliate, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. White initially refused the assignment, and the Rockets temporarily suspended his pay for not carrying out contractual responsibilities. He eventually joined the Vipers and appeared in 16 games.
Even there, the issues did not go away. White averaged 11.4 points, 5.7 rebounds and 3.3 assists for the Vipers, but mental health concerns continued to affect his availability. By the summer, Houston had traded him to the Philadelphia 76ers.
Two years later, then-Rockets general manager Daryl Morey didn’t hide how badly that pick had gone during a 2014 Q&A with season-ticket holders.
“I take some sort of pride that you could argue that Royce White is the worst first-round pick ever. He’s the only one that never played a minute in the NBA that wasn’t just a foreign guy staying in Europe. It just shows we swing for the fence.”
White finally made his NBA debut in 2014 with the Sacramento Kings, signing a ten-day contract and playing about nine minutes across three games. When that deal expired, the Kings moved on.
His NBA career never took off, but he did find success in Canada. White was named the 2017 NBL Canada MVP and helped win league championships in 2017 and 2018.
For Houston, though, the White pick remains a cautionary tale: a first-round swing that brought more disruption than production.
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