Rockets to acquire Chris Paul in blockbuster trade
Paul, a nine-time selection as All-NBA, arrives from the Clippers Beverley, Dekker, Williams, Harrell among 7 players sent to L.A.
The Rockets shook the NBA on Wednesday, landing Chris Paul — a nine-time All-Star, nine-time All-NBA selection and nine-time All-Defensive team player — in a deal with the Los Angeles Clippers to pair him in a backcourt with MVP runnerup and 2016-17 assists champion James Harden.
“It’s a guards-based league,” Rockets general manager Daryl Morey said. “It’s a weapons race in the NBA. You’re either in the weapons race or on the sidelines. We felt with James Harden in his prime and Chris Paul in his prime, this gives us a real shot to chase the juggernaut teams out there and puts us right there with them.
“We’re real excited to have Chris. He’s such an unbelievable player. We think he and James and our core with Trevor (Ariza) and Eric (Gordon) and Clint (Capela) and Ryan (Anderson), Nene, we really feel like we have something special here in Houston.”
With a rush of six trades and salary-cap maneuvers, the Rockets sent guard Pat Beverley, forward Sam Dekker, guard Lou
Williams, center Montrezl Harrell and forward Kyle Wiltjer to the Clippers. They also acquired DeAndre Liggins from the Dallas Mavericks and Darrun Hillard from the Detroit Pistons in order to send to the Clippers.
Morey called Beverley the “heart of the team.” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni hated to lose the players in the deal, praising Beverley’s “heart and soul.” But he added, “Chris Paul is Chris Paul.”
“I’ve always thought Chris for the last 10 years was the best point guard in the league, until I coached James,” D’Antoni said. “It’s great to have both of them.”
The Rockets also will send their 2018 first-round pick, with protection only if it lands in the top three picks of the draft, to the Clippers.
The Rockets were not done. They acquired Ryan Kelly from Atlanta, Shawn Long from Philadelphia and Tim Quarterman from Portland in cap-management moves to potentially become a part of another deal. The Rockets are among the teams in talks with the Indiana Pacers about a deal for Paul George.
The Rockets have no qualms about trading for George as he enters the final season of his contract, a person with knowledge of the team’s thinking said. June trade adds flexibility
The salary-cap machinations were about more than keeping NBA lawyers busy approving trades. By making the trade before July 1 and with an exchange of corresponding contracts, rather than making moves to fit Paul into salary-cap space as a free agent next month, the Rockets can operate in free agency as a team over the cap.
That would arm them with an $8.4 million mid-level salary cap exception and a $2.3 million bi-annual exception to go free-agent shopping without having to move additional contracts. The Rockets also could group the players with non-guaranteed contracts together to make the finances work in another deal, an option Morey said would act as if an $11 million trade exception.
“We talked to the Clippers about a potential sign-and-trade if it came to that,” Morey said. “But really, we can’t advance the ball there. We always expected it to be in July. The Clippers reached out to us about the possibility of maybe a trade earlier might work. We jumped at it.
“It was a win-win situation. We can acquire Chris early. It allows us to continue to have our exceptions to go out and do free agency with some larger dollars. It gives us a lot of flexibility. In a year we’re going all-in, it’s important to have more resources. If you wait until July and you hope to sign Chris later after he has meetings with multiple teams, you don’t know how those meetings are going to go. With the opportunity to trade for him early, we jumped at it. It came together quickly.” Long-term deal on horizon?
To be a part of a trade, Paul had to agree to opt in to the final season of his contract, worth $24.27 million, plus a trade bonus that Paul reduced from $3.6 million to $661,000 to make the deal work. He was expected to opt out of his contract to become a free agent, but in a meeting with the Clippers on Tuesday, he said he intended to leave Los Angeles after six seasons to join Harden in Houston.
Paul will become a free agent after next season, but the Rockets have his full Bird rights, allowing them to go over the salary cap to sign him to a long-term deal worth as much as $205 million over five seasons.
Morey had not discussed that with Paul or his representatives, but added, “We want Chris here as long as possible.”
“Since winning back-to-back championships, the pursuit of a third title has remained the ultimate goal for our franchise,” Rockets owner Leslie Alexander said in a statement. “We feel that combining two of the league’s greatest players in James Harden and Chris Paul, operating in Coach (Mike) D’Antoni’s system, gives us a championship-caliber team.”