Eyeing ‘foundation’ player
Team keeps stockpiling draft selections to give itself more trading options
As the first deal of Rafael Stone’s first trade deadline as Rockets general manager, the trade with the Bucks put in place Wednesday was just a start. More would seem sure to come.
It is not just that Stone has been the most active GM in the league since succeeding Daryl Morey. Of the seven trades made during the season in the NBA, he has been a part of three of them. He also has a team barely removed from scraping the bottom of the standings with the worst losing streak in franchise history.
But the deal with the Bucks to send P.J. Tucker to a contender also offers a glimpse into the Rockets’ thinking that goes beyond the easy assumptions that come with the 11-28 record and 18-game losing streak.
The Rockets made the move, trading players — Tucker and Rodions Kurucs — that were not playing for them, to improve their collection of draft assets. But the Rockets are not trying to pile up picks in the hopes of improving their chances to find a future star somewhere in the draft.
They remain very willing, according to an individual with knowledge of the team’s thinking, to trade picks for a player they could consider a foundation piece, the sort of move they would even be willing to make even in a largely lost season.
As part of Wednesday’s trade, which also brought center D.J. Wilson and point guard D.J. Augustin to Houston, the Rockets improved their draft assets. The Rockets sent the 2022 first-round pick they had received from Milwaukee (as part of the James Harden deal) back to Milwaukee for an unprotected first-round pick in 2023. The Rockets also got the right to swap their secondround pick in 2021 for Milwaukee’s first-round pick in 2021.
By moving the 2022 firstround pick back a season, it improves the chances, perhaps only slightly, of the Bucks running into the sort of down year that caught the Rockets this season, making the pick potentially useful to them or valuable in a trade.
The chance to move into the bottom of the first round in 2021 could be especially helpful in future trade talks. Though based on the current standings it would move the Rockets — or another team — up only eight spots in the draft, that can significantly alter the pool of players to consider.
It is also potentially more relevant in trade considerations because teams prefer the contracts given to firstround picks, with the restricted free agent option after four seasons, to the sort of contracts that are often constructed for secondround picks. The extra year to evaluate young players before offering a second contract is considered valuable.
The picks the Rockets have collected in the trades of Robert Covington, Russell Westbrook, Tucker and especially Harden could make it easier to trade draft picks for players, still a Rockets’ goal.
They were not a team that had planned to tear it down. They went on a six-game winning streak shortly after the Harden trade and had won seven of eight games before the injury to Christian Wood triggered the losing streak. The Rockets thought they were more likely to be that team than the one wrecked by injuries and absences on a historic losing streak.
Now, that they are there, they have begun the rebuilding process with a commitment to keep playing Kevin Porter Jr. and with a certainty to be keeping fingers crossed at the draft lottery. (They keep their first-round pick if it is in the top four and
get the worst from among their pick, Oklahoma City’s, and Miami’s if it is not.)
The trade, expected to be completed on Friday, does not change that. The Rockets made the move for the draft assets. But Augustin fits well if he remains on the roster past the deadline, a possibility that gets stronger if the trade is not expanded before made official.
He shoots well which would help a terrible 3-point shooting team. Porter has the size to allow them to play together. And there is a strong likelihood that John Wall and Victor Oladipo will not play every remaining game, even if both are around past the deadline.
Between them, they have missed 14 of the 18 games in the losing streak. Even in a contract year, Oladipo has expressed no intentions to begin playing both games in back-to-backs.
The Rockets’ conversations about Oladipo and others are expected to heat up. As with much of the roster, they are very open to dealing Oladipo for the right package, but not entirely determined to trade him before he becomes a free agent after the season.
The Rockets could see value in using the balance of the season to determine if they would be better off signing him as a free agent than the options they would have in a poor class for unrestricted free agents. They also could be willing to let him walk to create cap space, confident that they would be able to move the $7 million on Augustin’s contract next season if necessary, given that he remains a respected veteran who would then have an expiring contract.
If they deal Oladipo, they would have to be certain to prefer the $21 million of contracts they likely would have to take back or the draft assets that would come with expiring contracts.
Oladipo is not like most players with contracts worth $21 million in the final year of the deal in that the Rockets just traded for him. They made him such a large part of the Harden trade because they liked what they were getting.
The season has since changed dramatically in ways the Rockets would not have predicted. The next forecast is much easier, with the trade that will be complete on Friday likely to be the first of many.