Omri Casspi To Play for Houston Rockets

Image by getty images
Omri Casspi, the first Israeli-born player to join the NBA, reportedly has agreed to a two-year, $2 million contract with the Houston Rockets.
Casspi, 25, who played the last two seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers, told the Cleveland Jewish News that he hopes to sign the contract on Wednesday or Thursday.
The 6-9 forward became an unrestricted agent earlier this month when the Cavs opted not to extend his $3.3 million contract.

Image by getty images
Casspi had seen his playing time diminish in Cleveland, where he averaged 4 points and 2.7 rebounds this season playing nearly 12 minutes a game. He had played two seasons with the Sacramento Kings, coming into the league with great fanfare in the Jewish community, before being traded to the Cavs.
The Rockets have been interested in signing Casspi for a long time, according to Yahoo!Sports. Houston recently signed star center Dwight Howard, the most coveted free agent on the market. Last week a second Israeli, Gal Mekel, joined the NBA, agreeing to a contract with the Dallas Mavericks. Mekel last month helped lead Maccabi Haifa to the Israeli championship in an upset of Maccabi Tel Aviv.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 2
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 3
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
- 4
Fast Forward How Coke’s Passover recipe sparked an antisemitic conspiracy theory
In Case You Missed It
-
Film & TV In ‘The Rehearsal’ season 2, is Nathan Fielder serious?
-
Fast Forward Pro-Israel groups called for Mohsen Mahdawi’s deportation. He was arrested at a citizenship interview.
-
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
-
Opinion This Nazi-era story shows why Trump won’t fix a terrifying deportation mistake
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.