NO GOOD OPTIONS
GM has no interest in dumping veterans as trade deadline nears.
Rafael Stone promised from the start to be aggressive. Though so much about the Rockets had changed when he succeeded Daryl Morey as general manager and in the months that followed, that would not.
The Rockets under Morey never let a trade deadline pass without agreeing to a deal. There is little chance that Stone, who has made two of the three in-season trades in the NBA this season, will not continue that trend.
The All-Star break, less than three weeks until the March 25 deadline, would normally ramp up talks. There is no doubt those already have begun. But to determine what the Rockets want to do will begin with figuring out what they are.
The Rockets believe that when healthy, as they will largely be when the season resumes Thursday, they are a considerably better team than their 11-23 record and 13-game losing streak. But that won’t change that they will be in 14th place in the Western Conference, making them longshots to reach even the play-in games to get in the playoffs.
While trying to determine whether to seek moves to help a run to the playoffs or go the other direction and embrace development and increased lottery chances, there is enough uncertainty about either potential goal that trade deadline moves will have to be judged on their own merits, rather than how they fit an unclear big picture.
The Rockets have no interest, according to an individual familiar with the team’s thinking, in pursuing their version of “The Process,” by trading off veterans to collect assets and losses that could help lottery chances.
The Oklahoma City Thunder has the right to switch draft positions with the Rockets unless the Rockets’ pick lands in the top four. With the weighted lottery, the Rockets can have at best a 52 percent chance of keeping the pick if they finish with one of the three worst records as they currently stand.
Losing could only work to benefit the Thunder. Unless selecting in the top four picks of the draft, the Rockets would get the worst from among Oklahoma City’s, Miami’s, and their own pick.
Even the idea of using the balance of the season to develop young talent might not be relevant to trade decisions because rookie Jae’Sean Tate is playing extensively, anyway, and the Rockets plan to bring Kevin Porter Jr. back from the G League and allow him to work as a backup point guard. K.J. Martin will also likely get playing time in some smallball lineups.
The Rockets cannot be confident with the weighted lottery and pick swaps that they can with their full roster be able to either tank their way to a top pick, leading them to trade off contributing players. They also cannot be confident they can make a run at the playoffs, making deals for shortterm benefits unlikely.
That all will free the Rockets from pursuing a specific goal at the deadline. The Rockets will be at best ambivalent even about the idea of trading veterans on expiring contracts, the sort of deals that fuel much of the trade deadline maneuvers around the league.
There is significant interest in P.J. Tucker, who would not seem to fit in long-term plans. Because of the trades of James Harden and Robert Covington, the Rockets have restocked their supply of draft picks and won’t have to look to make any deal available to get picks back as they might have — and probably would have — when they had control of so few.
Even more so with Victor Oladipo, the Rockets would not make a move unless it would be a trade that they would have made regardless of their situation in the standings or how they got there.
Though Oladipo also can be a free agent and leave without the Rockets receiving compensation, they would have to be careful about taking back $21 million of salaries unless for players they prefer. If taking back expiring contracts to also get either young talent or draft picks, the Rockets would have to measure the benefit of that and the potential to have cap room in free agency next offseason against other options with Oladipo.
With Oladipo, the options to either offer an extension in June greater than the offer that rules permitted them to make shortly after the trade, to re-sign him as a free agent using Bird rights, to have cap room if he leaves or to potentially make a deal in a signand-trade would be weighed against a trade that could be forged this month.
Though the Rockets would not have room for a max free agent even if their own free agents leave, having roughly $20 million in cap room would be a significant increase from the mid-level amounts.
That also could enter into their thinking as a potential benefit of keeping a roster theoretically able to win, even if a playoff spot remains out of reach. If they do have cap room and chase next summer’s Christian Wood, being viewed as a team on the rise, rather than playing on a tanking level, could be important if they have free agent money to spend.
The Rockets in general believe that Eric Gordon and other players on long-term contracts are on good deals they would be willing to keep, the individual familiar with their thinking said. That could prevent a fire sale that a struggling team looking to reposition for a rebuild would make.
Talks, however, are certain to pick up in the coming weeks. If the remarkable run of injuries and other absences have made it more difficult to evaluate a roster that has rarely played together — John Wall, Wood, Oladipo and Gordon have been on the court together for a total of eight minutes in just two games this season — there should be time to get a better idea of the hand the Rockets hold before the deadline.
The trades to be made, even that the Rockets want to make, are to be determined. As always, however, it seems certain moves will be made.