One season after making it to the Western Conference Finals the Houston Rockets are off to about as bad of a start as they could have imagined. Houston is 0-3 and they have lost all three games by exactly 20 points. The Rockets are dealing with a few injuries at the moment but they have their top players available to them which makes the start all the more disappointing. As for the injuries, Donatas Motiejunas has not played yet this season and he doesn't appear to be all that close to a return, according to Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle.
Motiejunas had back surgery in April and was given a timetable of two to three months for a return. It has now been seven months since the surgery and he is still not close to a return as he has not been given clearance to practice.
Motiejunas broke out last season while starting power forward Terrence Jones was injured and the Rockets felt that they had a nice setup at the power forward position with them two. Jones is currently out with a laceration above his eye which makes rookie second round pick Montrezl Harrell the only healthy power forward on the roster. Jones isn't expected to be out too much longer but he has dealt with injuries throughout his NBA career and the power forward position seems to be a major problem for Houston right now.
A little less than a week ago there were reports that Motiejunas was ramping up his activity and doing some on-court work but this new report suggests that the on-court work isn't much. Motiejunas still has a few hurdles to clear before he can get back to playing in games including taking contact in practice but it's hard to know when that will happen given how long this recovery is taking.
Motiejunas showed last season that he can be a very good NBA player but his absence is hardly the reason for the Rockets struggles early on. They would certainly love to have the seven foot power forward back but his recovery has been excruciatingly slow and doesn't look to be ending in the near future.
