{"id":511840,"date":"2026-08-26T23:07:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T21:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=511840"},"modified":"2026-08-26T23:07:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T21:07:38","slug":"houston-rockets-sign-rafael-castro-to-two-way-contract-waive-tristen-newton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/houston-rockets-sign-rafael-castro-to-two-way-contract-waive-tristen-newton\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Rockets sign Rafael Castro to two-way contract, waive Tristen Newton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"PDq2pG_selectionAnchorContainer\" data-start=\"1790\" data-end=\"1946\">The <strong data-start=\"1794\" data-end=\"1813\">Houston Rockets<\/strong> have signed <strong data-start=\"1826\" data-end=\"1843\">Rafael Castro<\/strong> to a <strong data-start=\"1849\" data-end=\"1869\">two-way contract<\/strong>, while the team has waived guard <strong data-start=\"1903\" data-end=\"1921\">Tristen Newton<\/strong> in a corresponding move.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1948\" data-end=\"2172\">Castro was eligible for the <strong data-start=\"1976\" data-end=\"1994\">2026 NBA Draft<\/strong> after completing his redshirt senior season at George Washington. At the NBA Draft Combine, he recorded a <strong data-start=\"2101\" data-end=\"2135\">9-foot-1.5-inch standing reach<\/strong> and a <strong data-start=\"2142\" data-end=\"2171\">7-foot-1.25-inch wingspan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2 data-section-id=\"zxu6sq\" data-start=\"2174\" data-end=\"2221\">Rafael Castro\u2019s numbers at George Washington<\/h2>\n<p data-start=\"2223\" data-end=\"2344\">Castro spent three seasons at Providence, including one as a redshirt freshman, before transferring to George Washington.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2346\" data-end=\"2544\">He started all 63 games he played across his junior and senior seasons, averaging <strong data-start=\"2428\" data-end=\"2495\">14.6 points, 9.0 rebounds, 1.52 blocks and 1.48 steals per game<\/strong>, while shooting <strong data-start=\"2512\" data-end=\"2543\">64.4 percent from the field<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2 data-section-id=\"ypldn0\" data-start=\"2546\" data-end=\"2595\">Castro brings defensive credentials to Houston<\/h2>\n<p data-start=\"2597\" data-end=\"2665\">Castro was selected to the <strong data-start=\"2624\" data-end=\"2664\">Atlantic 10 All-Defensive Team twice<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2667\" data-end=\"2834\">He was also a finalist for the <strong data-start=\"2698\" data-end=\"2768\">2025-26 Lefty Driesell National Defensive Player of the Year Award<\/strong>, which recognizes the top defensive player in college basketball.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2836\" data-end=\"2951\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\">Castro also played for Milwaukee&#8217;s teams during both the California Classic and the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The big man joins Houston after his senior season at George Washington, while the Rockets have waived guard Tristen Newton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":377622,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"rumors":[175],"typology":[183],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-511840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","rumors-nba-rumors","typology-rumors"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2024\/03\/Houston-Rockets.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511840"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=511840"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=511840"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=511840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}